Born near Stuttgart, Bernhard Lederer learned his watchmaking skills initially in the restoration department of a museum and continued when he worked as an independent specializing in the restoration and reconstruction of timepieces for auction houses and museums. However, Lederer had a vision of how time should be portrayed that didn’t necessarily correspond to the established norm. He saw space where others saw matter, he saw the unconventional where others saw the predictable, he saw a future where time would be watched and not calculated. His creative genius saw no bounds, no constraints, only horological liberty.
To achieve his dreams, Bernhard Lederer moved to the cradle of watchmaking, Switzerland, and with blu – source du temps began to create watches that showed the passing of time as had never been seen before. Time became a planet circling its own universe, concentric circles indicating a moment in time without numerals, it became diamonds floating in a sea of mother-of-pearl, it became a revolving tourbillon that moved through 360º, time had become pure emotion. “Time is something emotional,” Bernhard Lederer confides, “it is something to be enjoyed and not destroyed by hands fighting to show something or other. What I try to do is show just how beautiful it is to have time and how beautiful time can be.” (DML)

Six years ago, Maurice Lacroix was a predominantly fashion quartz watch brand, strong in Germany and popular in the rest of Europe, but largely unknown in other parts of the world. Then, Philippe C. Merk, CEO Maurice Lacroix S.A., came in and turned the Maurice Lacroix brand around. Now, the brand has a complete range of watches, including the high-end Masterpiece collection, featuring unique retrograde watches and one manufacture movement. The brand is poised to turn watchmaking on its head with the revolutionary, yet mysterious, Memoire 1.
Merk has been able to combine his unique background (a scientific degree and an MBA) into watchmaking success. “To be good in the watch industry, you need the brain, which has the analytical capacity; the heart, which gives you emotion and feeling; and the belly, which gives you the gut feeling for the future,” he says. “You have to feel the consumers and how they perceive innovations and complications - these are not analytical functions, but more emotional ones.”
Merk is never one to sit on his laurels, he is working too hard. “We are taking the momentum we have and accelerating the pace to bring the company to a totally new position,” Merk says. “There are big established players who do an excellent job managing their brands, but it’s up to brands like us to challenge these brands, create a new haute horologie. Memoire 1 is really a step in that direction, to do something totally different, groundbreaking and revolutionary, a complication that has never been done before. This is the direction in which Maurice Lacroix will continue.” (KWS)

“I didn’t even know what all the buttons were for, but I do remember – as if it were yesterday – the first picture I took with our family Polaroid. I was eleven years old. We quickly became inseparable, my third eye and I.” So explains Denis Hayoun of his first exploration into the world of photography, an art that he has mastered that demands dedication, concentration, attention to detail and a vast amount of creativity.
In 1989, Denis founded his own studio, Artphoto and became one of the few specializing in photographing watches and jewellery.
But technological revolution within both the photographic and computer industries was changing both photographers’ and clients’ perspectives, images could now be transformed into illusions, illusions into dreams, dreams into art. Photography became an ally of design and computer savvy, which is why Denis Hayoun, a genius of the technique, set up his ultra-modern Diode studio in Geneva. “If a diode permits the electronic control of light, I dissimulate the prowess of my techniques much like a ballerina soars onto her points, leaving behind the scene years of practise, so that the essential will become apparent, light dancing with flesh, faces, jewels, watches, in a naturally sensual purity, sensually natural,” Hayoun reveals. “This is how I see images today.” (DML)

History has proven that the watchmaker / businessman partnership can be a winning combination. Emmanuel Vuille, is a perfect modern-day example of this recipe for success. After nine years in the banking sector, he started his own private banking and financial consulting company where he met with a number of watch manufacturers, including Parmigiani. In 1996 he joined forces with Parmigiani who entrusted him with the financial administration of the brand. It was a smart choice as Vuille not only successfully set up the vertical production of the Parmigiani brand, but also went on to initiate the verticalization and unification of all the watch affiliated companies owned by the Sandoz Family Foundation. Vuille is also credited for being the impetus behind the development and launch of an in-house spiral, the AK215, which has allowed the Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier to flourish. Business is certainly booming. Clients include companies such as Parmigiani and Hermès who are shareholders, as well as Richard Mille, Corum and Tiffany among others. Vuille will reach 10,000 units in production this year (with plans for 20,000 by 2009) and currently has 350 employees. His secret? “Innovation is the vector at the core of a company…one of the challenges today is finding innovative solutions for the next four to five years.” As more and more companies announce their plans for verticalization, Emmanuel Vuille was certainly on track when he was thinking ahead five years ago. So, what does he have planned for 2012? (SF)

Tom Bolt, vintage watch dealer (Watch Guru) and watch consultant, backed into the watch industry. Though interested in watches since he was a child, ever since he saw James Bond use his Rolex bezel to escape a shark tank in “Live and Let Die,” he started trading in vintage watches right after he bought his first used Rolex at age 18. “I realized how silly it was to be wearing such an expensive watch when I didn’t have much money in my bank account, so I sold my Rolex, made 20 pounds profit, and I thought this could be a good business,” he says. “The rest is history.”
Bolt backed into watch design as well, when Dunhill brought him in to retail vintage watches in their stores, then hired him to revamp their entire range. That lasted three years and now Bolt is onto a new project, doing his own line of watches, combining vintage and modern.
“I think that the whole mass produced luxury end of watches is a contradiction in terms, because I don’t really see how mass produced luxury can exist,” he says. "If you go back fifteen years ago, high-end quality wristwatch production was much more limited, which is why the vintage pieces are worth ’heavy money’. The problem today is that no one has the integrity to create something that is pure. I think there is room for something to be done that is different, to take watches back 15 years ago, to when watches were properly exclusive, rather than just show me the money.
“The watch industry has always been about change and right now it looks really rosy,” he adds. “I’m not quite sure how long that can continue, but more and more collectors and people are getting into watches. It never ceases to amaze me how strong the watch industry is.” (KWS)

Jean-Daniel Pasche, the President of the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry (FH) is an attorney who specializes in intellectual property, and he has been with the FH since 1993, first as a Director and now as President, since 2002.
“I like the diversity of the work, because we deal with all subjects regarding the watch industry,” Pasche says. “I like the differences within the companies - from small to big, in the French part of Switzerland as well as in the German part. The activities of my job are very diversified - we have to solve economic, political and technical issues, so time goes very fast. I like working with the companies, the authorities in Switzerland and abroad, and with representatives of watch organizations in other countries.”
One of the jobs of the FH is controlling the label ‘Swiss Made’. “If we know that someone is misusing Swiss Made, we work to stop them,” he says. “We have about 100 cases each year. For instance, we opposed two trademarks applied for containing the indication Swiss and we know the products are not made in Switzerland. If a watch bears ’Swiss Made’ on the dial, and we know it is not made in Switzerland, we go after the company.”
Pasche is confident in the future of the Swiss watch industry. “We have great potential all over the world,” he says. “With the emerging countries like Russia, China, Latin America, we will continue to increase our exports.”I like watches because it is a world of extremes,“he continues.”On the one side you have the tradition of the Swiss watch industry, with 400 years of Swiss horology and culture, and then on the other side you have innovation -aesthetic and technical. I like this combination."
Pasche does have favourite watches, but with 200 member companies in the FH, he prefers not to mention them by name. (KWS)

Source: Europa Star June - July 2007 Magazine Issue