How Luxury Watchmakers Are Advancing Traditional Craft Through Handcrafted Timepieces

The cleaned charcoal is a deep matte black with the wood grain adding textural beauty and has the hardness of steel. Sliced into discs and decorated with tree sap lacquer or enamel, or assembled in finely sliced pieces using marquetry, it adds a unique mood and feel to the finished dial. At Blancpain, binchõtan dials are frequently combined with a variety of techniques, such as intaglio engraving on shakudo, a gold-copper alloy, or damascening, where gold threads are hammered into a motif that has been carved out from a plate or dial disc, and then smoothened and polished.

The watchmaker has given its enamel dials a modern interpretation, applying it on dials that are engraved with a motif resembling hammered gold. Six different enamel pigments in different colours, each personally blended by the master enameller, are then mixed and applied on the dial to create a smooth, graduated colouring that’s brightest from the centre. This is then polished to reveal the brilliance of the dial’s colour and the textured surface. While traditional Grand Feu enamelling tends to be conservative in colour, Moser has introduced a broad palette of brightly-coloured enamel dials, from lime green to vivid purple, giving the traditional craft a youthful, energetic, Pop Art feel.

The latest Virtuoso XI takes this obsession with classic decorative engraving even further. Based on the Virtuoso VIII’s tourbillon movement with 10-day power reserve, the watchmaker systematically re-engineered it to maximise the exposed surface of the calibre. Ensuring each has sufficient gap for decorative work, the movement is thoroughly engraved on the front and even sides of bridges, including the barrel cover. Just as impressive as the decorative work is the movement’s performance, managing a remarkable 10 days of operation with a spherical differential winding to reduce winding effort. In fact, decorative techniques ranging from rose engine guilloché to freehand engraving are used in most of the watchmaker’s timepieces: keep a loupe on hand to fully appreciate the intricacy of its design.

This continued association with watch restoration inspired the Objets d’Art timepiece last December, the La Ravenale. The Objet d’Art is a pocket watch based on Mr. Parmigiani’s personal collection of calibres which the Restoration Workshop took time to craft. The Edouard Koehn minute repeater is an ultra-thin calibre that has been fully decorated with palm motifs and finished with traditional techniques, covering every visible surface on the movement’s bridges. Chamfered edges are polished, with repeating motifs and variations of the palm on the case, dial, and case cover which is set with opal and jade inlays.

But this is not all that Parmigiani is known for. Another icon of the brand is its rose gold movements, a tradition of high watchmaking in the distant past. The PF361-SLIM calibre not only features a baseplate and skeletonised bridges in rose gold; it is a horizontally-coupled, integrated rattrapante chronograph calibre running at a brisk 5Hz with double column wheel control. The Arabesque-style bridges reveal most of the chronograph’s operation while ensuring the movement components are well secured to compensate for the precious metal’s hardness. Gold movements are typically used in classic timepieces with simple functions; the watchmaker has instead chosen the most challenging complication that experiences powerful shocks with each reset of the chronograph. It demonstrates the brand’s skill at developing such creations.

In the Senator Chronometer Tourbillon, the inner flange and dial are etched with a micro-pattern that resembles the Clous de Paris guilloché. But this dial isn’t engine turned – instead, the surface is laser-engraved which enables the micro-pattern to be so small. The muted style matches the seriousness of the limited edition, but other watches such as the PanoInverse with laser-engraved dial are graphically richer.  To enrich the dial , laser engraving is once again used here to etch an endless metropolis on the dial, with skyscrapers presented in relief. The background looks almost like digital art if 8-bit graphics are still a thing, or a city drawing that’s applied on the dial. On the back, a 3D-effect laser engraving of the Glashütte manufacture’s buildings in a grained, matte finish appear as if they are about to spring out of the movement.

When Montblanc consolidated its manufactures in Le Locle and Villeret into one single identity, it leapfrogged into the high watchmaking arena with the savoir-faire of the Institut Minerva de Recherche en Haute Horlogerie. The historic manufacture is one of a handful that still produces, assembles, and adjusts hairsprings by hand, and manufactures components using hand-guided machinery. Perlage, polishing, and even the bluing of screws are all handcrafted. The result is effortful perfection. But beyond traditional production techniques, Montblanc has also utilised Villeret’s knowledge in movement design to develop innovations such as the Exo Tourbillon, which positions the rotating escapement outside of the carriage.