s part of our Generations series, we travelled to Château de Môtiers, in Val-de-Travers, to meet Pascal Raffy and his daughter, Audrey Raffy. It’s here, in these magnificent surroundings, that Bovet has established its assembly and decoration workshops, its museum and its offices. Movements and dials for the brand are manufactured in Tramelan. This makes Bovet a powerfully integrated, independent company that has built a unique offering of refined timepieces, as precious as they are complex, that will extend long into the future.

Europa Star: Pascal Raffy, you acquired Bovet in 2001. Barely five years later, in 2006, you bought Château de Môtiers from the Canton of Neuchâtel. You also took over Dimier, the movement manufacturer, then a dial-making company in Geneva. From one year to the next, you went from a staff of 43 to 158. What was your intention?

Pascal Raffy: To constitute a Manufacture was inscribed in my watchmaking journey from the very start. It’s where my dream began. Mine has always been a long-term perspective and a family perspective, both immediate and extended. An extended family, as I wanted to establish a team of artisans who were united by a shared respect for what Bovet did, bringing them together behind a project to build an authentic Manufacture. There are now 158 of us and I can tell you the first name of all the men and women who make up Bovet. We truly are an extended family. As for my immediate family, all three of my children, Audrey, Alexandra and Amadeo, have given their name to a collection. There’s also a certain historical continuity in this adventure, as the success of Bovet Frères is essentially that of a family, of brothers and cousins heading out into the world.

Pascal and Audrey Raffy

You have worked tirelessly over the past decades to establish the neoclassical and, at the same time, technically complex style that distinguishes Bovet from other makers.

PR: From the very beginning, and still today, I have made a point of defending the values of hand-decoration and craftsmanship. Fleurisanne engraving, guilloché dials, miniature painting, techniques hand-in-hand, combinations of style, ingenuity and invention. I know there was a time when people thought of me as an old-fashioned guy, but it’s important to stay true to your beliefs and never stray from your vision. I haven’t wavered and now the era has caught up with me. “Modernity” is grateful for the quality of finishing that has always been an obsession of mine. In the words of one collector, “We do love the sustained virtue of your collections.” We should be grateful to collectors as they are the ones who, little by little, have brought an understanding of watches into the conversation.

You mentioned naming collections after your children. Was this a roundabout way of inviting them to join you in watchmaking?

PR: No, no, it wasn’t. The more you tell them, the less likely they are to do it. I’d say it was more a way to make them curious about what we do and perhaps spark an interest, a desire?

Audrey Raffy: What stands out most clearly in my mind is my father’s passion. It was contagious. He was literally consumed by his dream, by Bovet. Growing up, I started to feel love for everything he was building. It began when I first immersed myself in the artisans’ work. I spent a long time watching, observing, touching and analysing then, little by little, looking for ways to communicate this passion to customers. I fell in love with the mechanisms, decoration, the work itself, the quality which at Bovet is of the highest level.

Madonna with child: “This Madonna is the first Bovet watch that I was able to collect. It dates from 1835. I still gaze in wonder at the exceptional quality of its decoration and the level of horological refinement. Every watch is shorthand for its era. Beyond this, the subject it depicts is particularly close to my heart. Family is fundamentally important to me, whether immediate family or the family formed by those who work alongside you and share the same high expectations.”

Although you didn’t come straight to Bovet…

AR: That’s right. I grew up in Valencia, in Spain, and in Switzerland, then moved to the US to study law. My father is French and my mother is French-Algerian. I feel as Spanish as I do Swiss, and I also consider myself an American, having spent ten years there. Plus I have a base in Dubai, where my mother, brothers and sisters live.

The Bovet brothers and cousins almost pale in comparison, and they were spread between Val-de-Travers, London and China! So when did you join your father in the company?

AR: In 2020, in the middle of Covid. I took charge of our office in Miami and travelled to the US and South America, building our networks. Then in 2023 I moved to Dubai from where I take care of the entire Middle East, with the important partner we have there. You know, most Middle Eastern businesses are also family-run. My Lebanese heritage has taught me the importance of family. So I represent the family and the company in places around the globe, as well as handling legal matters.

What’s it like to have a collection named after you?

AR: I do still feel a little bit embarrassed! I’m actually quite shy.

Listening to you both, family is clearly important.

PR: I couldn’t agree more. I would even say that fine watchmaking needs families, that they bring an extra dimension. Without any value judgement whatsoever, the revolving door of CEOs dilutes what really matters, and what really matters in fine watchmaking are the artisans behind it. This is a human endeavour that extends over decades. Something gels and it becomes an authentic culture with which to build a solid house together. It really is an extended family. The majority of our craftsmen and craftswomen have been with us since 2006. Enough time to establish great mutual respect. Granted, there is a hierarchy but each individual must be given absolute respect. And respect has a name: listening. Listening is at the heart of everything.

AR: That’s true! My father tells everyone, “Don’t be afraid to object.” He has a genuine capacity to quietly listen and he rarely loses his cool. He looks for the essence of what a person is saying. We learn from one other by listening. For my father, who’s never still, it also makes him slow down for a while.

PR: Perhaps it’s a generational difference? She is better at taking a step back.

AR: I do have a calm nature. I like to think things through, take my time. I belong to a generation whose tastes in colours and materials are different, as you would expect. My father stargazes while I’m out in the sun testing sugar dials! (laughs) The two of us make a good team. We complement each other.

Miss Audrey Sweet Art Sugar dial: the process of producing this dial is extraordinarily complex. First, the pure sugar crystals are prepared so their structure will not change when exposed to light or heat (no, the sugar crystals will not melt). The crystals are chosen for size, then combined with special paints and hand-applied to the dial by one of Bovet’s miniature painting artisans. This demanding process, protected by a patent, leaves no room for error. One misstep and the entire process has to start again.

Is there such a thing as a woman’s watch?

AR: It depends where you’re coming from. In the Middle East, I’ve seen women become annoyed when they’re only shown colourful watches or with diamonds. Many of them enjoy wearing so-called men’s watches. And they adore the Amadeo system [a simple means to transform a reversible wristwatch into a pocket watch, a small bedside clock or a pendant].

PR: I keep a secret book, intended for my children. They are all different. I give them advice on what I think would be the most logical way to share responsibilities in the future. First, you must carefully observe and understand in detail every part of the house, like every part of a body. The house’s foundations are its culture, which has to be fully respected. But a culture is a living thing. My way isn’t to impose but to convince. After all, it will be up to them to imagine tomorrow’s timepieces. I have every faith because they respect each other and are multicultural, which is an enormous advantage in today’s world.

Audrey mentioned your stargazing…

PR: I’ve always felt a connection with the stars and the moon. When you think about the “Bovet de Chine”, as they were known, who in 1822 set off on their travels, discovering and admiring other cultures, they stargazed, they looked up at the heavens in different lands. It’s no coincidence that they took their watches far and wide. Watches made here, in a valley that is open to the rest of the world. Nor is it a coincidence that we have released five astronomical watches. Five chapters, like the five fingers of the hand.

Is Prowess 1 the “other hand”, to borrow the same image?

PR: The Recital 28 Prowess 1 brings us back down to earth and across the time zones. We spent five years developing this timepiece, which mechanically solves the problem of how to indicate winter time and summer time in different time zones. Bearing in mind that only 70 out of 195 countries implement Daylight Saving Time. This world-first earned us the Mechanical Exception Prize at the 2024 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève.

It also gave rise to the newly released Recital 30, with an automatic movement. This truly universal watch displays not 24 but 25 time zones as you can add – or subtract – a half-hour, as with the New Delhi version, which has a 30-minute offset. The idea for these functions was born right here, in the courtyard of Château de Môtiers. I imagined one Bovet wanting to know what time it was for another Bovet, halfway round the world. The innovative “flying saucer” case was inspired by period Bovet chronographs and the idea came from the artisans here at the Manufacture.