Swiss National Day – a Chance to Honor Watchmakers from Everywhere Else…

To celebrate August 1, Swiss National Day, The 1916 Company has decided to take a decidedly different tack this year, looking at how watchmakers in other countries have adopted Swiss watchmaking customs.

The world may be a global village, but Switzerland remains an exception: the vast majority of watchmaking know-how has remained concentrated within its mountainous borders for 150 years. Here, so far, there’s no talk of relocation or factories in Bangladesh. The skills in question remain jealously guarded, confined within a 200-kilometer radius of Geneva.

Seiko

That hasn’t stopped a large number of foreign firms attempting to compete with watchmaking’s historic capital in their own way, sometimes spurring on production in Switzerland, sometimes hindering it. One such example is Seiko. The Japanese brand enjoyed a heyday in entry-level and quartz watches before returning to its mechanical traditions and going on to create a premium brand, Grand Seiko. This became independent in 2017, alongside Credor, an ultra-premium brand.

All three brands have built on Swiss strengths: mechanical movements, Lépine-type arrangements featuring a base plate and one bridge per organ, and Swiss anchor escapements. On the aesthetic side, Grand Seiko and Credo dials also make wide use of guilloche finishes – but the comparison ends there.

Grand Seiko lost no time in developing its own case finish: Zaratsu polishing, guaranteeing perfect reflection that doesn’t distort the shapes reflected. Seiko came up with its own movements, too, developing its proprietary Spring Drive technology, combining the best of quartz and mechanical technology from as early as 1977. Lastly, Swiss emblems such as the Matterhorn and the Alps have now been replaced by aspects of Japanese mythology: Mount Fuji, the 24 seasons, and so on. There is however something of a delicious irony about the fact that Grand Seiko’s latest mechanical development is none other than a tourbillon – the archetypal Swiss complication.

The North Star

Northern Europe has also blazed a trail of its own. Take Stepan Sarpaneva, for instance. The Finnish watchmaker made a name for himself in 2003 by revisiting one of the most popular complications in Swiss watchmaking, the moon phase. It was a bold challenge: Sarpaneva gave the usually discreet and rather feminine complication a masculine, XL format. This found its mark, though, reaching the GPHG shortlist and leading to a mind-bending collaboration with MB&F embodied by three ‘Moonmachines’ in 2012.

Finland: the Switzerland of the North?

What a lot of people don’t know is that Sarpaneva used to work for Piaget and Parmigiani, where he rubbed shoulders with a certain Kari Voutilainen – another Finnish watchmaker and very much a regular contender in GPHG nominations (2007, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2020!). While less disruptive than Sarpaneva, his fellow countryman, he has nonetheless managed to reappropriate the canons of Swiss watchmaking: for example, by creating his own hollow-tip hands, hitherto the archetypal Swiss hands as invented by Breguet. He has also developed cutting-edge know-how in Métiers d’Art craftsmanship, but with a very strong Japanese flavor. What is more, he makes extensive use of guilloche finishing, but always on two different surfaces – the numeral ring features a certain pattern, the center of the dial another, a detail that has become his signature.

Made in Germany

Meanwhile, in Germany, local watchmaking differs from its Swiss neighbor in technical rather than aesthetic terms: at Glashütte, watches have a three-quarter base plate. This structure is fundamentally different from Swiss calibers: on the rear, a very broad plate conceals 75% of the movement, thus increasing its rigidity. On the dial side, the style signature of German brands is also very different from most of their Swiss counterparts, with a clear preference for off-center displays, as evidenced by A. Lange & Söhne.

Her Majesty’s Watches

In the UK, Swiss tradition is revered; few independent firms have taken a disruptive approach. George Daniels and his apprentice Roger Smith are the very definitions of keepers of the flame. Speake-Marin have allowed themselves a more distinct dash of creativity; but then again, their workshops are actually located in Switzerland, as are those of Arnold & Son; other than that, brands such as Bremont and Pinion still adopt a very classic approach.

French Elegance

Lastly, over in France, watchmaking firms have developed a style lexicon based on their heritage: jewelry and more especially Haute Couture. Examples include Dior with its inverted caliber in the Grand Bal collection, Chanel with its Première and the Code Coco, a bracelet watch, and of course Chaumet and its Dandy – a masculine watch that draws inspiration from the dinner jacket.