Let time run its course

La Chaux-de-Fonds in the Swiss Canton of Neuchâtel is where the house of Girare-Perregaux has been making timepieces since 1791. Master watchmakers capable of fully designing, developing, tooling and assembling each and every cog and wheel, spring and gear right through to the finished, working product are few and far between: Girard-Perregaux is one of them.

In our day and age the most precious commodity can be said to be time: do you agree?
Time is precious because it’s a scarce commodity. Or rather it becomes scarce because it is difficult and complex to manage.
There’s no one who can claim to possess time. At best, one can decide how to best spend it. Taking one’s bearings in time is very much a question of making choices, of having a strategy. In a way, it’s not unlike getting about in space.
Deciding on the best way to go for reaching a destination is like setting priorities in a chain of events.
Which comes first? What can be put off till later?

Does having a watch mean mastering time?
Motor vehicles and aeroplanes are all inventions aimed at mastering space, just as watches are meant to help us set a course as we move through time. Machines they are in either case. But vehicles and timepieces carry far different meanings. The first give us a feeling, perhaps an illusion, of mastering our physical surroundings. The second always remind us of how passive we indeed are when confronted with natural cycles. A watch functions as a bench-marker, so to speak, for taking our bearings in the flux of time, rather than as a means for controlling it.

A story stretching back two hundred and ten years, a time the house can boast of as its own.
What are your plans for the hypertech future we’re heading for?
Thirty years ago mechanical watches were on the verge of extinction. High precision, electronic quartz timekeepers were all the rage. But it wasn’t that long before the public tired of unempathic digital displays, and mechanically-operated timepieces made a triumphant comeback. The fact is that mechanical-driven devices are loaded with symbolic connotations. An electronic gadget simply can’t match the fascination of a handmade timepiece imbued with the skilled craftsmanship of its maker. Human associations in a watch are very important. Thanks to these associations an intimate relationship comes to be set between time and the wearer.

What do you think of “light disposables” vs. “a-watch-is-for-life”?
Being strapped to the wrist and hence a very personal item of apparel, a watch speaks more or less loudly of its wearer. The “useand-throw-away” version suggests that its wearer is a person given to quick and transient consumption.
It conveys an image of someone not given to think deeply about things, someone with a fleeting approach to life. A watch designed to last establishes a symbiotic relationship with its wearer over the years. Every dent on the casing, scratch on the strap has a story to tell, a personality to reveal, the story and personality of its wearer.

It could be said that hours, minutes, seconds are good excuses for making a Girard-Perregaux: what do you think? Timekeeping is without a doubt at the heart of watch making. But that’s not all there is to it; if it were, it’d be the same as for any other instrument. But any handcrafted timepiece is imbued with tradition, skill, and symbolic values. Everything that goes to make it up, from its mechanisms and moving parts to the design of its casing and dial, are steeped in them. It’s a fine craft, that of the watchmaker’s, and we’re fully dedicated to it, in a spirit of total independence and intellectual freedom.