Defining Independence Part V: How to be an Independent Watchmaker
A watchmaker at Atelier 7H38 prepares a baseplate
Becoming an independent watchmaker isn’t just about putting a name on a dial, it’s about the journey to attaining the skills, knowledge, and craftsmanship necessary to pursue a career as an independent watchmaker.
While producing watches with your name on the dial may be the pinnacle of independent watchmaking, it’s essential to understand that there are many routes to achieving this goal, and many ways to make a living as an independent watchmaker without producing watches with your name on the dial.
In a recent podcast conversation with Luca Soprana, an independent watchmaker known for his innovative concepts and creations, Luca shared his perspective: “For a lot of people, being independent means putting your name on the dial. For me, being independent is being able to do all your components, do all of your construction, make your own watch, train your team, create a workshop that makes watches, not needing to use many suppliers, but being able to conceive completely what you do. And afterwards if there is someone else’s name on it, what is the problem?”
From attending watchmaking school and working for a bigger brand, to working in restoration and teaching, there are many routes to become and be an independent watchmaker. The cool thing about independent watchmaking is that you could travel one or all of these paths before producing watches with under your own name, and most current working independent watchmakers with their own brand have done one or all of these things, and may continue to do these things on the side, or advise other businesses and young watchmakers.
A watchmaker at URWERK assembles a movement
Perhaps one of the most prevalent routes to becoming an independent watchmaker is working for a prominent brand like Rolex, Omega, or Breitling. This is a foundational training ground from which a watchmaker can build skills and repetition and gain critical experience. From there, it can potentially lead to concepting new projects and novel movements for these established brands.
Restoration work, be it for a museum, an auction house, or private clientele, represents a second avenue into independent watchmaking. François-Paul Journe famously began his watchmaking career working alongside his uncle in watch and clock restoration. Restoration, which can be a full-time career, offers a unique opportunity to handle, work on, and learn from historical timepieces, gaining insight into intricate mechanisms and helping watchmakers understand how clocks and watches were made in an era when everything was made by hand using hand tools. Understanding these design principles provides a journey through horological history, revealing the depth of craftsmanship that existed, and sometimes inspiring new movements and original concepts based on historical clocks. Urwerk is a great example of this, taking inspiration from a night clock made for Pope Innocent XI to create their satellite time-telling complication that has defined their brand for 25-years.
Collaborating with other brands as a concept watchmaker, or working for a concept development workshop is also a viable path to becoming an independent watchmaker. This path helps watchmakers push their boundaries, develop novel concepts, and create wholly new movements and watches from scratch. This approach often involves a brand approaching a watchmaker or a group of watchmakers, getting their ideas and concepts to develop a new watch. Concept watchmakers usually present three options to brands, allowing them to choose the direction of the project. Movement development companies like Techniques Horlogères Appliquées (THA) where Denis Flageollet, Vianney Halter, and François-Paul Journe worked together to create movements for other brands, and Audemars Piguet, Renaud, et Papi (APRP) are great examples of movement development laboratories and watchmakers who went on to have successful careers as independents.
To learn more about Techniques Horlogères Appliquées (THA) and Audemars Piguet, Renaud, et Papi (APRP) and the amazing generation of independent watchmakers they trained, please see my article Defining Independence Part III: The Dreamers
Another route to becoming an independent that is time-tested and proven, is teaching at a watchmaking school and moonlighting as a watchmaker, either in restoration or concepting. Watchmakers Kari Voutilainen and Stephen McDonnell exemplify this approach. Both taught at WOSTEP (Watchmakers of Switzerland Training and Education Program) while they moonlighted for other brands. Today, Kari is a stalwart of independent watchmaking with his Eponymous brand and his amazing dials, and Stephen McDonnell is well known for his work with MB&F on their Legacy Machine Perpetual Calendar and the LM Perpetual Evo and the LM Sequential Evo.
A watchmaker could also be an independent by working with a big-brand under contract to develop watches and concepts. This is the same idea as being a concepteur, but you might be on a retainer to just one brand at a time. This also might mean that you are a one-person shop who can only work on one project at a time and not have the space and time to manage other watchmakers or a workshop of your own. Sometimes it is far simpler to have all the tools and work on your own in a workshop helping a brand bring their projects to life. Louis Cottier, who developed the Heure Universelle, or worldtime complication for Patek Philippe in the 1930s. He worked independently, but collaborated with bigger brands to deliver and develop new movements.
The most straightforward path to independence is producing and selling watches under one’s own name. It’s imperative to realize this is not a universal dream for independent watchmakers. Some find deep fulfillment working in the extremely technical aspects of watchmaking and in the craft creating movements for others, wanting nothing to do with sales, marketing, and managing a team. While other watchmakers want to build brands and share their knowledge with a future generation. Today it is quite common for graduates from watchmaking school to present their school watch and develop it as a souscription series to launch their brand, going directly to producing watches under their own name. With social media the ability to follow this route is greatly enhanced, but this method is not yet time tested, so we will see how this generation of watchmakers traveling this path fare over the next decade.
A watchmaker at MB&F begins assembly
Any of these routes qualifies a watchmaker as an independent watchmaker. The only other thing that is required to be an independent watchmaker is patience. Luca Soprana pointed out that the most important trait he looks for in a watchmaker is that most sacred gift. “You need to be patient and be ready to wait years to learn and to improve your skills and to study, to start to get independent. Being independent is not just a question of skills, it is also a question of mindset, understanding, taking care of a workshop is totally different to just fixing a watch or making a watch on your own…it is really important to have the patience to wait the time that you need to.”
Often those who end up as independent watchmakers do so because they have an endless curiosity. They believe things could be done better than they currently are, and that makes it hard to stay in a job where you disagree with manufacturing processes, or the status quo. You just end up frustrated so this is a career path born of necessity to get out of the bounds of the Swiss watch industry.
Independent watchmaking is messy. That is a very good thing. This non-linear path to becoming a watchmaker and an independent watchmaker leads to new discoveries, discoveries of old favorite complications and mechanisms, and it shows that you are creating something and going places no one has gone before and that only you can go.
You don’t have to look further than today’s modern independent watchmakers to see the curiosity, the exploration, and the ingenuity in their watchmaking. I hope that this trend continues and looking to the future, there are many talented independent watchmakers rising through the ranks and starting their own brands.
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