KEEPING UP WITH F1 SUPERSTAR LEWIS HAMILTON

KEEPING UP WITH F1 SUPERSTAR LEWIS HAMILTON

Bombardier Business Aircraft Magazine
Issue 22 2014
keeping up with f1 superstar lewis Hamilton
meet the learjet 75 aircraft + corporate angels take flight
Inside indochina + swiss watchmaking secrets + private fiji
travel:
Craftsmanship
switzerland
The Best
of Times
An exclusive look inside the houses of Cartier and
Montblanc reveals two vastly different approaches to luxury
watchmaking – wherein each is redefining the art.
By Carol Besler | photos by Joss M c Kinley
Brand standards
(Clockwise from left) Cartier’s famous
blue watch hands; vintage advertisement
featuring the brand’s emblematic panther;
the Duchess of Windsor was a particular
fan; (opposite) Montre Rotonde de Cartier
Double Tourbillon Mystérieux.
I feel a little bit like Indiana Jones standing before the Ark of the Covenant
as I climb out of the car in front of the spectacular glass-walled Cartier building in
La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. It’s a long way from the pistes of St. Moritz and the glamour
of Gstaad. For a watch lover, though, there is no place more sacred than this: the Jura, birthplace
of Swiss watchmaking. In its sleepy valley towns, the world’s top luxury brands produce
timepieces much the same way they have for the past century, working out of the part-atelier,
part-factory “manufactures,” where human hands are the dominant technology.
T
wo elements define a luxury timepiece. The first is
an upper echelon mechanical movement, made “inhouse” – entirely by one manufacture – with each
component, even those we never see, finished by
hand. The second (but not secondary) is an intensely
artful outer finish that involves enameling, engraving, miniature painting, marquetry and gemsetting, known collectively as les métiers d’art.
I am here to watch these processes in action by visiting two vastly
different manufactures. Both produce their own unique, sublime
versions of haute horology, but at the extreme – and opposing – ends
of the fine watchmaking spectrum.
The Montblanc-owned Institut Minerva de Recherche en Haute
Horlogerie in the village of Villeret, just east of La Chaux-de-Fonds,
represents the essence of slow watchmaking. Highly skilled master
craftsmen fashion fewer than 300 timepieces a year completely by
hand, using traditional, customized tools based on those used a
century ago. Cartier, on the other hand, makes about 800,000 watches
48
Experience
a year, all of which begin with a process that is fully automated, with
CNC (computer numerical control) milling machines, but end with
the same exacting hand-finished process as that practiced in the
Minerva workshop.
Where one manages to mass-produce an item that is nevertheless
the epitome of a luxury product, the other makes by hand everything
that is now mostly automated elsewhere in the industry, yet does so
with machine-like precision.
The Innovator
Cartier’s strength has always been its extraordinary culture of creativity, consistently surprising its admirers over the past century with
one stunning jewelry and watch creation after another. The Duchess
of Windsor was a particular fan (her vast collection of watches and
jewelry went to auction in December), and Brazilian aviator and
socialite Alberto Santos-Dumont was the recipient of one of the world’s
first wristwatches, the Santos, made for him by Cartier. Along the
way, the brand has launched a string of icons, including the Tank
Experience
49
Craftsmanship
travel: switzerland
best face forward
A craftsman shapes, polishes and places a
lense for the Montre Rotonde de Cartier
Mystérieuse (pictured, far right); one of the
mysteries behind this complex timepiece is
how its hands appear to float in a void.
and the Panther, a signature motif that appears in many jewelry and
watch creations. It has also demonstrated a particular mastery of the
métiers, deftly administering the mark of the artisan that has become
the defining element of the brand.
Most importantly, Cartier has, over the last 13 years, abandoned
its reliance on other movement makers in favor of manufacturing its
own. In the process, it has become a serious innovator in the field of
mechanical watchmaking, pouring millions into the development
of new calibers that reinterpret the codes of traditional watchmaking.
Cartier shares the limelight with Rolex and Omega; together they are
considered the world’s top three luxury watchmakers, at least in terms
of production. When it comes to innovation and sheer creativity, however,
I am not alone in my view that Cartier reigns supreme. For one thing, it
strikes me as astounding how such a global entity, with a head office in
Paris, facilities in Switzerland, a vast retail empire and legions of marketing executives, can still manage to be so consistently creative.
In the watchmaking division, the company does this by employing
a secret weapon: Carole Forestier-Kasapi, an horological genius who
hails from a family of watchmakers and learned the intricacies of the
mechanical gear train at a young age. In 2005, she was appointed
director of luxury watchmaking, in charge of movement development.
Under her direction, the brand has launched one showpiece after
another, including five new calibers, or movements, this year alone.
Developing a caliber takes years and can cost millions, including
design, industrialization, prototyping and quality control. ForestierKasapi’s department, which produces only prototypes, is larger than
the entire manufacture of many other elite brands.
50
Experience
Last year’s chef-d’œuvre was the Double Tourbillon Mystérieux, a
suspended flying tourbillon that appears to be unconnected to any
gear train or to the hands that tell time, thanks to a system of rotating
sapphire crystal disks. It’s a miniaturized wristwatch version of the
company’s famous early-19th-century Mystery Clocks, reinvented
and engineered to incorporate one of watchmaking’s most prized
complications, the tourbillon.
It is just one of the sensations that has made Forestier-Kasapi
a star among watchmakers and watch geeks alike, yet despite her
prima status, she is no prima donna. She is warm, humble and humorous, and graciously takes three hours of her day to show me around
the manufacture.
“I love this picture. I love this picture!” she says as we pass a poster
in one of the corridors, an enlarged photo from a 1970s advertising
campaign of a full-grown panther standing on his hind legs with his
paws on the ledge as he peers into the window of the Cartier boutique
on Rue de la Paix in Paris.
Her respect for the maison is palpable. Beyond her mastery of
micromechanics, her trick has been to combine creative license and
a mandate to break new ground within the somewhat strict design
codes of Cartier. “There is always a cabochon on the crown, there are
always blue hands, always Roman numerals. There are a lot of codes,
but always with creativity,” she explains. “For me it’s like if we are
looking at art in Japan. They are really in deep with tradition, but
there is always something new inside. It’s important to keep this spirit
in the Maison Cartier. I can’t imagine Cartier without it.”
Like a proud mother, she wastes no time in showing me the
It’s astounding how a
global entity with a vast
retail empire and legions of
marketing executives can be
so consistently creative.
masterpiece introduced at this year’s Salon International de la Haute
Horlogerie, the invitation-only watch fair over which Cartier presides
annually in Geneva.
Upon seeing the piece, I am immediately baffled. It is a perpetual
calendar, an elite complication – normally comprised of a dizzying mesh
of wheels, cams and levers – that indicates not only day, date and year
but also leap years. It also distinguishes between months of 30 days and
31. Creating a new in-house perpetual calendar is impressive enough,
but this one reinvents the genre. There is nary a lever. It is all wheels.
“ Yes, all wheels,” she repeats, as I stare in wonder, “many wheels.”
In an ordinary perpetual calendar there would be about 30. This
one has 67. The official name is the Rotonde de Cartier Astrocalendaire,
but Forestier-Kasapi keeps calling it “the Arena” because of its resemblance to a Roman amphitheater. Three stepped concentric tiers rise
from a central axis where a flying tourbillon makes its one-minute
rotation in a flourish of oscillations. Each tier is a bridge, a stationary
part of the movement that holds the moving components in place,
doubling here as indexes for day, date and month. Blue PVD windows
revolve around the tiered bridges to frame the appropriate indications.
A patented central wheel with retractable teeth, “the brain” as
Forestier-Kasapi calls it, runs the whole operation. It can be set
directly from the crown instead of a tiny pusher, usually on the case
side, the same way we set the time. The all-gear construction allows
the wearer to set the calendar without damaging the mechanism and
ensures that the torque required from the mainspring is more constant, resulting in an 80-percent improvement in amplitude, which
is directly related to accuracy. The Astrocalendaire will be produced
in a limited series of 100 pieces, each priced at €150,000.
Forestier-Kasapi’s respect for watchmaking’s forebears matches
her respect for the brand. “You have to first research what perpetual
calendars are in the whole history of watchmaking to be able to
create a new one,” she says. “I don’t know how to work in another way.
This is my function. I need this cultural base of particular mechanisms to be able to create something afterwards. Without it, it’s
impossible for me.”
The Traditionalist
The hushed air of the Minerva Institute is a world away from the
excitement of Cartier, with its hum of CNC machines, 1,000-strong
workforce and stream of executives constantly checking in from
Paris, but there is nevertheless something magical about Villeret.
My tour is conducted by Demetrio Cabiddu, Minerva’s technical
director and longtime horological genius in residence – his signature
is engraved on the caseback of every watch, along with the words
“Fait main à Villeret.”
Experience
51
Craftsmanship
Parts and labor
(Top left) Montblanc dials await
placement; (bottom left) the
Montblanc Meisterstück Heritage
Pulsograph, a limited edition
Monopusher based on a vintage
Minerva movement; (right) a
watchmaker’s desk stocked with
tiny tools of the trade.
Indeed, every watch is rigorously handmade to an extent rarely
seen among the elite brands. The result is a very limited production
and a very high degree of refinement. The watches are not advertised,
but sold mainly by word of mouth, and there is a waiting list.
Minerva specializes in chronographs, and it still produces modern
versions of its original manual-wound calibers, the 1321 and the 1629,
patented in the early 1900s. The company had been around long enough
to be chosen to time the 1936 Olympics, something only a maker of
highly reliable chronographs, or stopwatches, could do.
It is still creating the same precision calibers, in much the same
way as it always has. Most of the Institute’s machinery, including the
presses used to stamp base plates (a process now largely replaced in
the industry by automated CNC machines), hails from the 1940s. Its
tools constitute “modern” versions of the original equipment used by
the area’s first watchmakers.
Every component is angled and beveled by hand or by using manually operated machines, which means it takes between five and ten
hours to finish a single component. The brand even manufactures its
own hairsprings, a painstaking process of stretching and shaping
metal wires. Most watchmakers today acquire hairsprings from
specialist makers, most of which are also in Switzerland.
“Our watches are dedicated to collectors, for whom it is important
to offer something no one else can,” says Cabiddu. Hence, a bespoke
division – unique in the watchmaking world – that creates fewer than
10 custom pieces a year, with the client’s choice of caliber, case material, dial, bezel and strap.
“We do it,” he says, “because we can.” Since the workshop
is dedicated to the production of small quantities, and because all components are made by hand, the process lends itself to customization.
There are no high-volume machines to reprogram for one small change;
the most important tools in this atelier are human hands.
In 2006, Minerva was acquired by luxury watch conglomerate
Richemont, the same company that owns Cartier. Surprisingly,
Richemont decided to dedicate Minerva’s movements exclusively to
52
Experience
Montblanc, a brand primarily known for writing instruments, rather
than to one of its heritage watchmaking brands like Jaeger-LeCoultre
or Vacheron Constantin.
“Richemont did the right thing,” says Cabiddu. “People thought
they would eat us up, turn Minerva into a production site for one of
the other brands, or they would change Minerva because they have
their own watchmaking traditions and heritage.” Instead, Montblanc,
which only began to produce watches in 1997, was considered a clean
slate and therefore the ideal recipient of Minerva’s masterly movements. Especially since Montblanc, too, specializes in chronographs,
now also made in-house.
Since the merger, the star introduction has been the Tourbillon
Bi-Cylindrique, fitted with not one but two hairsprings, one beating
inside the other, to improve accuracy. It has a unique double-loop
bridge that takes 50 hours to hand-finish.
In some cases, “unofficial” tools are used – that double-loop bridge,
for example, receives its final polish with the soft but firm stem of the
gentian flower, which grows in the nearby hills. Another finish is
performed using an angled twig from a local boxwood tree.
The Minerva name goes on the movements only, and the watches,
branded both Montblanc and Villeret, are priced between €35,000
and €200,000. No more than 300 watches a year emerge from this
workshop, with most series made in extremely limited editions, rarely
exceeding 20 of each. Cabiddu cites a recent study published by Italian
watch magazine L’Orologio that ranked brands according to the highest average time spent making a single watch. The Montblanc-Villeret
brand came out on top.
Taken together, it is incredible to see how both Montblanc and
Cartier are pushing the industry forward. For now it appears
that Richemont has every intention of maintaining the brands’
separate identities and unique methodologies. Among today’s sophisticated watch aficionados, there is a market for both the precision
of automation and the quality of the human touch. A true collector
covets one of each – and then some.