How a Product Designer Became Japan’s Most Influential Independent Watchmaker – In 1978, a junior high school student in Kanagawa Prefecture opened a gift from his father—a mechanical Citizen chronograph. The watch wasn’t particularly rare or expensive. But something about the complexity of its mechanism, the engineering elegance hidden behind the dial, sparked an obsession […]
How a British-French Watchmaker Ended Up Creating Ultra-Luxury Handmade Watches in Rural Japan The story of Alan Birchall doesn’t begin with luxury or ambition. It begins with a child watching his father work—the sound of machines, the precision of hands, the quiet satisfaction of creating something that lasts. At age 36, after a 16-year journey
The Unlikely Watchmaker In 2018, a 53-year-old Japanese watch salesman named Naoya Hida did something the industry considered professional suicide. After three decades representing Jaeger-LeCoultre, Vacheron Constantin, Breguet, F.P. Journe, and Ralph Lauren—after building relationships with collectors who spent millions on Swiss timepieces—Naoya Hida walked away from the security of established maisons to start his
Naoya Hida & Co.: The Salesman Who Became a Master Watchmaker Read More »
The Watch That Shouldn’t Have Existed In November 2024, the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève announced its Challenge Prize winner—the award for watches under CHF 3,000 that demonstrate exceptional creativity. The room expected Kurono Tokyo, or perhaps Studio Underd0g, brands with established followings and proven track records. Instead, the jury awarded it to a watch
Raymond Weil: The Independent Watchmaker Who Built a Family Dynasty During Crisis A Man, a Crisis, and a Watch In 1976, when the Swiss watchmaking industry was hemorrhaging to death, a 50-year-old man in Geneva made a decision that shouldn’t have worked. The Quartz Crisis had decimated mechanical watchmaking. Japanese manufacturers had proven that tiny
The Raymond Weil Story: How a Visionary Built Independence During Apocalypse Read More »
In the crowded halls of Baselworld 1999, most visitors’ attention was drawn to the vast, brightly lit stands of established Swiss luxury watch brands. Hidden away in a more modest corner, under the banner of the Académie Horlogère des Créateurs Indépendants (AHCI), a relatively unknown French watchmaker was showing a small series of tourbillon watches
F.P. Journe: How One Independent Watchmaker Redefined Modern Haute Horlogerie Read More »
