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Mis-En-Scene: The Making of Time
Come with us as we throw open the doors of horlogerie and reveal the magicians' secrets. It all happens on the factory floor, unromantic as that sounds.
The word "manufacture" in its broadest sense means to make something. It is the creation of something out of another. I would, for example, manufacture a television set out of various bits of plastic, glass and metal.
In the highbrow, often peculiar realm of haute horlogerie, however, the word has taken on a much more significant connotation. A watch manufacture is often regarded as the pinnacle of the watchmaking tradition, with many a contemporary brand striving in vain for the honour of being conferred such a title.
A manufacture, to watch lovers, is more than just a factory. Most processes of watchmaking is contained with a manufacture's walls, from the initial research and development process of the concept to its realization some years later.
Such is the monumental task of creating a luxury watch these days that it, indeed, does take one to four years of design and planning before it can be put on the market. Furthermore, with watches now such major consumers of conglomerated ad budgets, each step of the way is in itself crucial to the sustained success of any given brand. Though this may be a bit of an overstatement in these buoyant times, the fact remains that starting a manufacture requires an astronomical initial investment.
What is it about a watch that warrants such expenditure? Where is a watch's value derived from? In other words, how are watches made?
The Watchmaking Industry
It is interesting to note that most of the noteworthy watch manufactures are nestled in distinctly bucolic surroundings. The Jura region of Switzerland, for example, was a very snow-bound, agrarian area where much of the 18th and 19th centuries were spent in a state of economic depression. That changed when the Industrial Revolution took hold, and enterprising watchmakers moved into the region and employed otherwise-unoccupied Swiss farmers who had little to do during the hard, long winters in the mountains.
The Process
Although thousands of enthusiasts tour watch manufactures every year, a visit into the actual workshops of a watch manufacture can be a difficult process to organize. With so much going on behind closed doors, in spotlessly clean and climate-controlled environs, the necessity to make a proper appointment — or better yet, receive an express invitation — is understandable. After all, you would not want to upset the workshop's clockwork-like goings-on and potentially ruin a fine watch, would you?
The first step in the creation of a mechanical timepiece is the concept and design phase. A creative mind — be it a watchmaker, a designer or a brand's own CEO — will conceive of a watch before initial sketches are made by hand. Once a concept has been decided upon, the manufacture's team of experts in Computer-Aided Design — CAD — will embark upon digitally modelling the prototype watch in three dimensions, to better visualize the feasibility of the project. A prototype of the watch is handmade from scratch, and then comprehensively tested for durability, functionality and its worthiness as a design. With this done, the production model can be finalized and signed off.
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