1874
A guilloché dial cut on a rose engine from 1911. Eight point four millimetres through the middle.
A workshop above
the tree line.
Étienne Orsenne opened a single room in Le Sentier with four benches and a north-facing window. The window mattered: cold, even light, no shadow across the escapement. We still work in that light. The building has grown three times; the bench count has grown to nineteen.
We make roughly four hundred watches a year. We have been asked, often, to make more.
Tourbillon
Squelette
Two hundred and eleven components, of which one hundred and nine are visible from the dial side. The bridges are cut back until only load-bearing metal remains, then hand-bevelled at forty-five degrees — eleven days of work on the bridges alone.
Material is removed until only what carries force remains. What is left is bevelled by hand at forty-five degrees, then polished on a boxwood stick.
The flying tourbillon completes one rotation each minute, averaging out the effect of gravity on the balance. It is held from one side only.
Anglage, black polish on the steel, circular graining beneath. None of it is visible without a loupe. All of it is done anyway.
One watchmaker builds the calibre from first screw to final regulation. Twelve is what one pair of hands allows.
The movement, measured
Twin barrels in series, wound in one direction only.
Three hertz. Slower, kinder to the pivots, sweeps well.
Regulated in five positions and two temperatures.
Of which one hundred and nine are visible from the dial.
Specify it
to the millimetre.
Case metal, dial treatment and strap are chosen at the bench with your watchmaker. Delivery runs nine to fourteen months.
On the wrist
Drag to explore →
From the bench
What anglage actually costs, measured in hours rather than adjectives.
Why the forty cases of the Vallée Patiné will never be matched again.
The machine that cuts our guilloché is older than the building it sits in.
They talked me out of the more expensive watch. That is when I decided to buy from them for the rest of my life.
Serviced at nineteen years old. It came back running to the same numbers it left with.
The forty days of rest sounded like marketing until I saw the log sheet that comes with it.
Nine rooms,
by appointment.
One letter each season: what left the bench, what is being rested, and what is open to allocation.
Six references, each built to order and rested forty days before it reaches you.
Browse the collection →