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THE WORLD’S MOST INFLUENTIAL WATCH MAGAZINE EUROPE
BASELWORLD’S INSIDER REPORTS
LOUIS MOINET
In less than ten years, Jean-Marie Schaller,
Louis Moinet’s CEO, put this great historical
name back on stage
EUROPE N°331 3/15 JUNE / JULY
7
WATCH BUSINESS MAGAZINE
EUROPEAN EDITION
N°331 3/15 JUNE/JULY | CHF12 / €10 / US$12
BASELWORLD’S
INSIDER REPORTS
EXCLUSIVE: Swiss exports real figures
COVER STORY
FROM THE KITCHEN TO THE STARS
In barely ten years Jean-Marie Schaller
has succeeded in reviving the forgotten
name of Louis Moinet and placing it
firmly at the centre of the watchmaking
scene. Here is the fascinating story of
this independent watchmaker, who
began in a kitchen and is now reaching
for the stars.
by Pierre Maillard
“
My story is not at all typical,” announces Jean-Marie
Schaller right off the bat. “You may or not believe
this, but when I created the Louis Moinet brand, it
was because I had the very strong feeling that it was my destiny. I didn’t really have a choice. And, because I didn’t have
any money either, I had to do it with my heart.”
Is this the usual story-telling to which the watchmaking industry is particularly partial, given its need to inject that crucial
touch of soul to what is essentially, particularly now, a useless
lump of metal: the wristwatch? I have to say... it isn’t. Having
known the man in question for two decades now, and followed his career, I can assure you his sincerity is beyond question. Jean-Marie Schaller continues: “Gaining recognition for
Louis Moinet was, for me, a mission. It was about paying tribute to a watchmaker who was supremely talented, and yet so
humble that he was almost forgotten forever. It’s a genuine
love story; more than that – it’s almost a metaphysical experience. You might not believe me, but sometimes I have the
impression that Louis Moinet is there, putting ideas into my
head, that he is the source of my intuitions. In any case, one
thing is quite clear: I couldn’t sell this brand. It would be a
betrayal, the brand would suffocate...”
Strong words, and a marked contrast to the usual marketing speak, which tends to be more controlled, smoother, and
12 | COVER STORY | europa star
highly unlikely to venture into metaphysics. And, like many
true and lasting love stories, this one began with apparent
indifference. The embers were smouldering below the surface. It was 1991. Jean-Marie Schaller was at Siber Hegner
(a distributor that later became the DKSH group), working
under Daniel Roth, who had just launched his own brand.
Daniel Roth was very familiar with Breguet and its history,
having been involved in its renaissance as a watchmaking
brand (at the time Breguet did not yet belong to Swatch
Group, which bought it in 1999, but to the Chaumet brothers, and then Investcorp). He happened to mention the name
of Louis Moinet (1768–1853), a long-forgotten contemporary of the ultra-famous Abraham-Louis Breguet. But JeanMarie Schaller wasn’t really paying attention. He was already
thinking about ‘reviving’ another watchmaker, AbrahamLouis Perrelet, the inventor of the automatic watch (Editor’s
note: this is disputed by some historians). He accomplished
LOUIS MOINET
IN MILESTONES
Louis Moinet was born in Bourges
in France in 1768 and was drawn
to watchmaking and the fine arts
from an early age. At the age of
20 he left for Italy to study architecture, sculpture, painting and
engraving. On his return to Paris
he was appointed Professor of the Academy of Fine Arts at the
Louvre, and embarked upon a practical and theoretical study of
horology, to which he would devote himself entirely from 1800
onwards. He became President of the Paris Chronometry Society,
and worked closely with Abraham-Louis Breguet. He created
a number of extraordinary clocks for Napoleon, the first presidents of the United States, Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe,
and King George IV of England. Over the course of twenty years
he produced a respected Treatise on Watchmaking. He was an
indefatigable innovator, designing alarm clocks, regulators and
astronomical watches with breathtaking mechanical features.
Jean-Marie Schaller with the compteur de
tierces invented by Louis Moinet in 1816, the
first chronograph ever made. This photograph
was taken by Geneva-based photographer
Denis Hayoun, founder of Studio Diode.
his goal in 1993, when he launched the Perrelet brand with
an investor (he was to leave in 2000).
But a few years later, in 1997, the name of Louis Moinet
cropped up again. This time it was from a friend, who had seen
what Schaller had achieved with Perrelet and had bought the
name Louis Moinet with a view to replicating his success. But
the friend had decided that the adventure was not for him, and
was hoping to sell the name to Jean-Marie Schaller. This was
the second ‘contact’ with Louis Moinet. It didn’t come to anything. Time passed once again, and Jean-Marie Schaller moved
on from the Perrelet adventure, left Switzerland for personal
reasons and went to live in France, away from the watchmaking
world. But this new departure didn’t work out, and Jean-Marie
Schaller returned to Switzerland “all washed up,” as he puts it,
“without a penny to my name.” He was taken on by Lacoste
watches in the marketing department, where he evidently did
a good job, in just a few short years overseeing an increase in
volume from 40,000 to 266,000 watches a year when he left.
But this kind of mass marketing left him unsatisfied. He still
dreamt of devoting himself to a high-end, mechanical, historic
brand. Happily, his friend came back on the scene, and once
again tried to get him to buy the Louis Moinet name.
THE START OF AN ADVENTURE
Jean-Marie Schaller, who at that point had nothing more than
a ten-page biography of Louis Moinet to go on, finally gave in
to the pestering. Along with his partner Micaela he bought the
name for what was effectively a negligible sum, but which at
the time was practically all he had in the world. In 2005 the
big adventure finally began, with what he calls his “laboratory
years”. The laboratory in question was in fact his own kitchen.
He explains: “We established a number of principles from the
outset: Louis Moinet would be devoted exclusively to the highest form of mechanical art, and would produce only limited editions and one-of-a-kind pieces.” But before embarking upon
this journey, it seemed like a good idea to learn more about this
Louis Moinet, still something of a shadowy figure. “At the time I
only had this short biography, less than ten pages long, and his
famous Traité d’Horlogerie, published in 1848. I had to retrace
his steps and rediscover his works, including his famous clocks.”
This exhilarating adventure took him to Saint Petersburg and
Washington, D.C., where he gradually pieced together the crucial role played by the watchmaker, culminating in the 2013
discovery of the world’s first chronograph, which Louis Moinet
completed in 1816 (see Louis Moinet biography, opposite).
“But in parallel with this research I had to create a new reality, flesh out the product line and make it coherent,” Schaller
continues. “We do not travel through life alone, so we began
by building up a genuine family of solid partners, both upstream and down. This took quite a long time, because we
weren’t just looking for subcontractors, we wanted true collaborators who were committed and passionate and would
work with us towards the same goal. So we moved forward
step by step. A local shareholder came on board and we
were able to launch our first product in gold. We had to grow
slowly because we didn’t want to have to borrow any money,
so we were obliged to turn a profit every year. As you can see,
our work is governed by both a sense of craftsmanship and
good old-fashioned common sense.”
u
I DERRICK GAZ
I ASTRO MOON
Jean-Marie Schaller, who is creative director as well as CEO,
then defined a neo-classical aesthetic inspired directly by
Louis Moinet’s historical period, but adapted in such a way
as to give it a contemporary resonance and meaning. “The
beauty and fascination of working only with limited editions
is that you’re forced to always go that extra mile, to constantly reinvent yourself. But if we have managed to do that while
maintaining a strong coherence, it is because Louis Moinet
is and remains our unwavering guiding light: chronometric
precision, astronomical observation, art and craftsmanship
are at the root of his thinking, and they are the values that
shape our activity.”
designer and creator Concepto, a recognised cutting-edge
specialist in the domain of complications.
In less than ten years, Louis Moinet has succeeded in creating and marketing a unique output, with models immediately recognisable by their shared family resemblance. Their
primary traits are a richly detailed aspect without unnecessary decoration, a neo-classical but resolutely contemporary
aesthetic, and complexity always paired with legibility. The
watchmaking of Louis Moinet is not just about high precision, although it is certainly that; it is also thoughtful and
philosophical, with something of an astronomical bent. For,
let us not forget, Louis Moinet, a skilled craftsman and a
distinguished watchmaker, was also a renowned astronomer
who, in his exploration of the cosmos, rigorously researched
the mechanisms of time while admiring its ineffable beauty.
Today, Louis Moinet watches can be divided into three broad
families: Essence de Louis Moinet, the Classique collection,
and ‘Mechanical Art’ – the unofficial designation of the mechanical curiosities that the brand likes to play around with.
This latter category includes the Derrick Tourbillon and
Derrick Gaz, which were introduced at Baselworld this year.
These sumptuous pieces, as their names suggest, reproduce
on their dials the motion of a working derrick.
The Classique family includes watches whose raison d’être is
precision chronometry, beginning with a whole series of beau-
GUIDING LIGHT
This guiding light, which is historical, technical and aesthetic,
has given the Louis Moinet brand the opportunity to produce watchmaking creations that are coherent, strong and
unusual from many points of view. The style emerged gradually as each new piece was crafted; the house makes a point
of producing its own cases, hands, dials and its own unique
decorations (the Côtes du Jura, which are more sensuously
curved than the famous Côtes de Genève).
Most of the movements and mechanisms are original and
exclusive, and from the beginning they were created with the
tiful tourbillon watches, and also the iconic Mecanograph, perhaps the pinnacle of this research. The only independent watch
to have won a prize at the 2013 Concours de Chronométrie,
this chronometer reveals its regulating organs through a half
dial, and features a remarkably efficient patented bi-directional
winding mechanism dubbed Energie Plus.
The Essence de Louis Moinet family brings together watches
with specific features. In addition to the Tempograph 20
Seconds, with its astonishing creativity and mechanical originality, there is the Astro Moon with its stunning moon phase
display decorated with meteorite, and the great innovation of
the year, the Memoris.
MEMORIS, THE FIRST
WATCH-CHRONOGRAPH
“It’s probably our most important launch ever,” notes JeanMarie Schaller. “The timepiece stands at the exact crossroads
of the 10th anniversary of the Ateliers Louis Moinet and the
bi-centenary of the chronograph invented by Louis Moinet
[see sidebar]. It was therefore important that whatever we
created to honour this legacy should be different from its
predecessor. While everything, or almost everything, chronoI MEMORIS
THE COMPTEUR DE TIERCES
Named the compteur de tierces (counter of thirds), since
the word ‘chronograph’ had not yet been coined, this extraordinary timepiece created in 1816 measures time to the
60th of a second, beats at a frequency of 216,000 vibrations
per hour, and has a zero reset function. This extraordinarily
complex object confirms Louis Moinet’s status as a pioneer
of high frequency, and a trailblazer who anticipated later
developments in his field by at least 100 years. After JeanMarie Schaller bought this compteur de tierces at auction in
2012, he realised that he had brought to light the world’s
first chronograph. This historic discovery was the final validation of his intuitions, and his brand was rewarded with an
exceptionally high profile.
graph-related had already been invented, there was still one
step nobody had dared to take: no longer seeing the chronograph as a complication, but rather as the primary function
of the timepiece. And so Memoris was born: the world’s first
watch-chronograph. But we couldn’t draw inspiration from
what had come before: everyone else worked from the premise that the chronograph was an additional complication on
top of the time function. Our starting point was the opposite:
sweeping away the past and making the chronograph the
heart of our design, the central component to which we then
added a time function, rather than the other way around.”
The result is a magnificent watch, the first to give pride of place
to a classic chronograph movement with column wheel. Its
components are mounted at the top of the movement, which
thus takes up all the central space; the hours and minutes display is relegated – if this is the right word – to a delicate little
white lacquered dial at 6 o’clock. A complete role reversal. The
first watch-chronograph – an entirely different beast from the
usual chronograph-watches – not only validates Jean-Marie
Schaller’s entire approach, but also places his brand at the pinnacle of mechanical watchmaking. p
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