Parmigiani: The watchmaker

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Michel Parmigiani, haute horologer

A master craftsmanclaims throne

A micro-mechanic with creative drive, Michel Parmigiani fashions time-pieces that are regularly

listed as the world’s most expensive. A millionaire by skill, Parmigiani’s masterpieces immediately

mark you out as a wealthy person with the self-confidence to carry off a relatively lesser known

brand. Of course, this pleasure could knock you back a million or five

his

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m i l l i o n a i r E PA S S I O N & P O W E R

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It is difficult to imagine that a machine with about 200 elements put together by hand and costing up to $5 million can be copied. or, how do you rip off “an engine block that also tells the time”?

For michel Parmigiani – the designer of masterpieces such as the lUC 1.96 wristwatch calibre for Chopard and the Type 370 watch for Bugatti with the world’s first transverse mechanical movement – this is one of his ambitions: to be copied. And soon!

“if you are copied, it means you are successful. if no one is trying to copy you, it means you are not successful,” he says succinctly, sitting proudly behind the counter of his first boutique in Dubai’s Wafi City with Damas.

Going by the growth figures of Parmigiani Fleurier, which now produces 5,000 watches a year, with 60 per cent of business coming from watches that cost more than $100,000, you would think it is sound strategy.

“It Is a questIon of the

relatIonshIp between you

and the customer,” says

parmIgIanI, who counts bIll

gates and gIorgIo armanI

amongst hIs

Parmigiani watches come in three types. Pièce Unique are one-of-a-kind watches made to order. Parmigiani delivers these to the client himself. Costs range from $200,000 to $5 million. The Haute Horlogerie limited edition watches such as the Tourbillon or Bugatti also ensure personal delivery by Parmigiani. These are priced at $50,000 to $500,000. le Collection is available in select stores and includes the Forma and Toric lines and basic automatic pieces with retail prices between $7,000 and $50,000.

“it is a question of the relationship between you and the customer,” says Parmigiani, who counts Bill Gates and Giorgio Armani amongst his. “We are selling 200 watches in the unique category each year. We don’t do specific watches

which are cheap – and mind you, cheap for us means CHF100,000 or under. These unique pieces can go to one or two million Swiss francs. We do a lot of watches between CHF700,000 and CHF900,000. it can take from one month to a year to put one together, even two years if it is very, very complicated.”

Talking to michel Parmigiani, it is difficult not to stare at his hands. He has the creative and artistic responsibility for the collections and embodies the living brand. He is a

master watchmaker who works with a team of qualified watchmakers, masters of micro-mechanics, engineers

and watch restorers. Before he became a familiar name to the nouveau riche all over the world who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to

buy masterpieces such as the Kalpa and the Type 370 Bugatti watch, he was known to collectors for his

remarkable restoration skills, as the man who restored the Breguet Pendule Sympathique Clock in 1991, which >

Watches can take up to two years to put together

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Craftsmen at work at Parmigiani FleurierBeing a manufacturer means being able to produce as many as 200 watch parts

beIng a watch

manufacturer means

beIng able to develop,

manufacture, produce,

decorate, assemble and

encase the 200-odd pIeces

that make up the watch

Kalpa H�misph�res watch�misph�res watchmisph�res watch�res watchres watch

experts had deemed beyond repair because of the intense heat and moisture that resulted in oxidation damage over the years.

made by Al Breguet, the Pendule Sympathique is a table clock combined with a pocket watch dating back to 1820. The watch fits into a cradle on the clock. At 12 o’clock, the clock releases a mechanism inside the watch which sets the watch to the same time as the clock. The watch determines the amount of error and adjusts the rate faster or slower accordingly.

Parmigiani is said to have restored it after working on it for 1,600 hours. it was later sold at auction in Geneva for more than $1 million. restoration still remains an integral part of his company.

michel Parmigiani, born in 1950, grew up in the Val de Travers, a valley in the canton of neuchâtel, renowned for its watch industry. His father was a precision mechanic. Today, Anne-laure, the eldest of his three children, works with him. Parmigiani established his company in 1975 as an independent restoration business working with historic timepieces for museums and private collections. Within a few years, his reputation for excellence and his penchant for perfection made him one of the most sought-after watchmakers. Some of the world’s finest brands turned to Parmigiani to create private-label watches for them. in 1995, michel Parmigiani was awarded the Prix Gaia for his work and research in horology. in 1998, he restored the Breguet Carriage Clock offered to the Art Decoration museum in Paris and the planetarium by François Ducommun-dit-Boudry offered to the Castello Sforzesco museum in milan. Among his restoration clients were members of the landolt family,



descendants of Edouard Constant Sandoz, who founded the chemical company Kern & Sandoz with Alfred Kern in Basel in the 1880s (the firm is now part of novartis). The Sandoz Family Foundation, established to encourage entrepreneurship, invested $10 million to acquire a majority shareholding interest in Parmigiani’s business in 1996. Every member of the family owns at least one Parmigiani. The first watch Parmigiani made was a one-off for Pierre landolt, who heads the foundation and still wears the watch every day.

moulded by the bling of Dubai, it is difficult not to ask the diminutive man dumb questions

– including the one about how his $600,000 masterpiece is different from jewel-encrusted ware peddled by others. After all, as a watchmaker, he must be used to such requests from clients. He explains that being a watch manufacturer means being able to develop, manufacture, produce, decorate, assemble and encase the 200-odd pieces that make up the watch (not including the strap, which is outsourced to Hermès).

“They are that much cheaper than us… unless you put a diamond in the watch. if you consider the watch without

rE�ToraTion

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, perhaps in the early 20th

century, there was a maharaja. He went for a holiday in the Swiss

Alps with his family. One day, the young prince went for a joyride

in a plane and never came back. The distraught maharaja sent out

rescue parties to recover the bodies of his son and the pilot but to

no avail. Finally, a priest in a small village found both the bodies.

The grateful maharaja took off his diamond-encrusted watch and

gave it to the priest. When the priest wanted to renovate his little

church, he decided to sell the watch. A prominent family nearby

named Sandoz bought it. Years later, the watch, though still grand,

showed signs of use and the Sandoz family got Michel Parmigiani

to put it together again.

“It is a pocket watch with two big diamonds and a very complicated

movement. And it belongs to the Sandoz Family Foundation.

A very nice piece. Earlier, it was working, but so-so. It

needed to be restored. Today, the watch is working

perfectly,” says Parmigiani.

Today, his business is back in the land of the maharajas.

“We launched two months ago in New Delhi. India

is one of the important future markets for us. India

is a great place for a brand such as ours. I think it

will become more important than China. People are

educated. They understand the finish of the brand.

Within two months after we started in India, we sold

five or six pieces that cost between $100,000 and

$500,000 each,” he says.

A majority of his orders for custom-built watches,

however, comes from China. “We have also a lot of

them from South East Asia. We have one or two big

customers in the Middle East. The rest are everywhere.

Could be a guy in LA, could be a person in Mexico.”>

Parmigiani showing a rare watch to Tamjid Abdullah of Damas

The Maharaja’s pocket watch, Cur� de Zermatt

Breguet Pendule Sympathique Clock

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jewels or stones, they are much cheaper compared to us. it is difficult for us to be compared to Jacob & Co because he is not a watchmaker but a jeweller and he deals with stones. it is not the same category as us at all,” he says patiently, although apparently pained by the comparison.

“most of the time people want something personal incorporated in the watch. The design has to incorporate something about a wife, children, even a dog. We have to do special engravings on the movement or a special dial, a double case with enamel. one person wanted a portrait on the back of the dial. one customer wanted to have something to commemorate the famous architect Frank lloyd Wright. Someone else wanted a photo of his fiancée swimming in the river. You never ask. These are personal things,” he says.

over the years, the owners have made major investments to strengthen Parmigiani’s position as a manufacturer rather than only a brand. “We want to be both,” Parmigiani says. in 2002, the holding company purchased Brandelet, a manufacturer of gear trains, and Elvin, a specialist in profile-turning. Parmigiani also took a 50 per cent interest in Affolter, a specialist in cases and assembly. Combined with its own capabilities in the development and manufacturing of exclusive and exceptional movements, the brand moved towards autonomy.

When Parmigiani developed the Calibre 331, an 11.5-line automatic movement, only 3.5mm thick, with a power reserve of 55 hours thanks to a system of two barrels connected in series, he

mo�T EXPEn�iVE

While some of his most exquisite creations do not appear in

catalogues, Parmigiani has routinely been part of the world’s lists

of the most expensive watches. One of his bespoke creations is a

$1 million piece with a 100mm diameter golden dial and several

precious stones made for a Middle Eastern royal.

Only three of the Parmigiani Fleurier Tecnica Skeleton Chronograph

will ever be made. Each will incorporate a platinum case and

complications that include a minute repeater, tourbillon and

chronograph, as well as a cathedral chime with which you

can ring in the New Year. Price? $850,000.

the bugattI type 370 comes

In an 18 carat whIte gold

case, In eIght sectIons, sIx

of whIch are welded and

two attached. the movement

can be vIewed through sIx

sapphIre crystals

Parmigiani’s headquarters

The Bugatti Type 370 which retails at $200,000

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offered it to other brands. The development involved mastery in both volume production through a high level of industrialisation and hand finishing and individual craftsmanship.

“let me make it easy for you. if you go to a car company who takes an engine from someplace, the body from another and produces a luxury car… you would know the difference. He could have bought the engine from Ford or BmW or mercedes and he is making the body. He cannot be called the carmaker. You cannot compare him to an Aston martin or a Ferrari. You cannot go to Ferrari and say this guy is your competitor because we have to compare a dealer with a dealer and a carmaker with a carmaker. in the watch business it is the same,” says Parmigiani with much help from his Chief Executive Jean-marc Jacot, who is the Sandoz family delegate, and who is also translating his answers.

Parmigiani ought to know what he is talking about when it comes to comparing cars and watches. A couple of years ago, when the Bugatti board approached him to create a watch as extraordinary as the car, he took four years to give them the Bugatti Type 370. Parmigiani calls it “an engine block that also tells the time”. An 18 carat white gold case, in eight sections, six of which are welded and two attached, enables the movement to be viewed through six sapphire crystals.

in the process of creating this masterpiece, Parmigiani had to craft made-to-measure tools without precedent in the history of horology. The watch is comparable to an automobile chassis. in order to make it readable while driving, the face of the watch has been placed in a vertical position on the case’s front. Earlier meant to be available only to those who bought the Bugatti Veyron, the watch now costs $200,000.

But let’s come back to the nouveau riche, reaching whose

a s p i r a t i o n s , Parmigiani says, is a benchmark of sorts for a brand. “i would say our target market is people between 30 and 65 years old, wealthy, well-educated and self-confident. Self-confident because to buy a very expensive watch from a brand that is not so famous you have to be confident. You don’t need the security of people recognising the watch because of the brand. That’s very important for us. our customers have already bought famous brands before. They have done rolex, they have already bought Cartier and now because they have the confidence to do so, they are looking for something different.”

Experts and connoisseurs are known to have called him “the Breguet of the 21st century”. The 18th-century Abraham-louis Breguet is considered the father of modern watchmaking. Considered fine investments in the long term, Parmigiani’s watches benefit when he does crazy one-off pieces, with limited editions and bespoke pieces getting the best results. The famous watch auctioneer Antiquorum has auctioned a dozen or so Parmigianis. Christie’s has auctioned one in new York and four in Hong Kong, and they have generally sold in the middle of their price estimates.

Equating the brand to Patek Philippe and A lange & Söhne (Parmigiani produces 5,000 watches a year, compared to 900,000 units a year produced by rolex or the 35,000 by Patek Philippe) when it comes to attracting collectors, he says: “The new rich look for the very famous, established brands. rich people already have everything. So they want to be different. For the moment, they are our customers. i don’t mean they are our customers forever. one day when we are famous we will belong to the first category.”

Customised watches can even have personalised dials

Pershing collection

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Parmigiani: The watchmaker