The French watchmaking landscape includes around sixty brands, listed on the Montres à la française platform. Names which hide a plurality of positions: if some carry out the entire process in France, from creation to manufacturing, others are content to carry out the assembly.
According to an OpinionWay study for Francavenir*, five of our companies are among the top twenty watch brands cited by the French: Pequignet, Reservoir, Ralf Tech, BRM and Trilobe share the stage with Richard Mille and Bell & Ross, two tricolor marks made in Switzerland.
It is precisely this choice of “Swiss made” that Gautier Massonneau made when he founded Trilobe five years ago, while retaining the reins of design in Paris. From the outset, he positioned his brand in the niche of fine watchmaking, based on a daring idea: inverting the time display frame of reference to replace the hands with three mobile rings. “I imagined a watch to see time in motion and not time passing on the dial,” he says.
Another young brand, born in 2015, Reservoir is also distinguished by a specific time display. A combination of three watch complications linked to measuring instruments: jumping hour like an odometer; minute retrograde like a rev counter and power reserve echoing the fuel gauges. François Moreau, founder of Reservoir, explains that he has “always loved original displays, quirky and complicated pieces that will tell the time differently”. The idea for his first watch came to him while looking at the dashboard of his car. The limited series in homage to Blake & Mortimer, then to Popeye, testify to his other passion for comics. Just like Trilobe, Reservoir designs its collections in France but has chosen Swiss watch movements developed specifically for the brand.
“Our strength is people”
The family home Herbelin, founded in 1947, has always designed and assembled its collections in France, with Swiss movements. Located in the border village of Charquemont (Doubs), the company locally employs 50 qualified watchmakers. “Our strength is people,” emphasizes Maxime Herbelin, grandson of the founder and associate marketing director. “If we have managed to get through several crises, it is thanks to this collective desire for loyalty and transmission.”
Another scenario, March LA.B has found its balance by equipping its models with a Franco-Swiss caliber. While its first watches were equipped with Swiss movements, then Japanese, March LA.B now uses a caliber manufactured by the Swiss motor manufacturer La Joux-Perret and assembled in Besançon by the Humber-Droz workshop. Since the creation of his brand in 2011, Alain Marhic had anticipated this movement to promote French watchmaking. Subsequently, the Covid crisis reinforced a certain enthusiasm among the French for “cocorico” products.
The company Pequignet also played the “Made in France” card. Created fifty years ago by Emile Pequignet in Morteau, in Doubs, it was then entrusted to Didier Leibundgut, who directed the first in-house creation, the Caliber Royal. After being taken over by four collaborators in 2017, then by Enowe Excellence in 2021, it saw the birth of a new manufacture movement, the Caliber Initial. The most hexagonal of all to date with 72% French components (by value) and 28% Swiss elements.
New technology
This system equips not only Pequignet references, but also models signed Ralf Tech, specialist in diving watches. Originally intended for underwater work professionals and special forces, they have been available to the general public since 2008. “Our watches are tested in real conditions and 30% deeper than the water resistance indicated on the dial”, specifies Frank Huyghe, president of Ralf Tech.
This French company wears the tricolor colors high and continues to innovate. Like Pequignet and March LA.B, who will focus on new feminine lines, or Herbelin, who will revisit a model on a cable bracelet. Reservoir and Trilobe are already discussing their upcoming new products for the Watches and Wonders show in April 2024 in Geneva, including a new time reading associated with a complication at Reservoir. While Pequignet will use new technology so that each of its watches is equipped with a digital certificate of authenticity. A real secure and tamper-proof watch passport.
* Professional economic development committee serving the watchmaking, jewelry, goldsmithing and tableware sectors.
An article from the special “Watchmaking” section of L’Express, published in the weekly on December 7, 2023
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