Tourbillon 1 - A Look Back - Part 1

Tourbillon 1 is a project that helped define and solidify Horage as not just a watchmaker, but Switzerlands youngest and latest movement developer.

Being fully immersed in the project we hadn't the time to lift our heads from the workbench to realize what it was we were truly working on. Of course, the act of engineering and making a tourbillon was obvious to us, but what wasn't so obvious was the contribution it would make to the greater watch community and how it became an integral corner post to the foundation of Horage as a company.

Tourbillon 1 - Pre-production K-TOU prototype

Why is this such a big deal?

I hope you have a comfortable chair and your favourite beverage in hand, this multi-post story will either put you to sleep or open eyes to the world of watchmaking. Before we get going do let me know in the comments if you prefer the longer on shorter format posts.

For decades there have been just a handful of Swiss brands capable of truly developing their own tourbillon movements. I say truly because the majority of brands (and by majority I mean nearly all) have limited access to movement developers or they utilize existing movements or take core components from various calibers and rework them into something they then call their own. After a decoration exercise the design is then deemed 'in-house". There is nothing wrong with it as we too have tried this in the past, but realized this round about way to "in-house" was not the path for us.

Silvan deep in the trenches of prototyping.

On the positive side the barrier to entry with working with existing parts is much lower especially from the perspective of investment in product development. There is no doubt that many processes are done in-house, but on the downside the term doesn't provide enough depth to what exactly is going on behind the scenes. I hate to burst horological fantasias bubbles, but it's fact that no brand not even the the big ones or those across the sea boasting in-house actually produce all their production in one place.

Proprietary might be a better fit as the source of thought and what is generated in ones mind is where ownership truly lies. After all the the minds that hold the know-how become the ones capable of creating something new.

Andi & Silvan digging into the details of engineering video

For us at Horage we sometimes use the word in-house because we do an incredible amount in our facility, more so than most. We however like all the others rely on suppliers and external production facilities, but what differentiates us is where we start. In-house for us starts with engineering because only through an investment in engineering and the best minds in the Swiss watch industry can you begin the process of building proprietary drawings, parts and ultimately movements.

I digress, but understanding the difference between a heavily marketed term such as in-house vs. proprietary is important as it's the basis to understanding just how inaccessible movements and especially tourbillons are. This further helps to understand the incredible feat the engineers and watchmakers at Horage have taken on as the next generation of performance watchmakers.

The Tourbillon & The Original Performance Watchmaker

It all started with Abraham-Louis Breguet who on June 26th, 1801 patented his solution to help thwart the negative effects of gravity on a pocket watches escapement.

Abraham-Louis Bregeut & the tourbillon patent- source: Watchoninsta

What were these negative effects?

A pocket watch was designed to sit vertically in ones pocket and this upright position caused the escapements hairspring to deform over time due to the constant downward pull of gravity. A deformed hairspring resulted in irregular accuracy and Breguet set out to fix this. Essentially his design involved the continual rotation of the regulating unit 360 degrees. Breguet's rotational design would apply even gravitational strain across the entire hairspring and it worked! A side effect of his accuracy improving invention was how beautiful the escapement looked as it whirled within the movement. This whirling created the name tourbillon which is french for whirlwind.

Breguet Tourbillon source: Time and Watches

As an early innovator and the original performance watchmaker, Breguet's invention still to this day can contribute positively to a watches runtime. Despite some old belief that the tourbillon has little use, we have seen through analyses that sound engineering, the optimization of parts geometry and through selective material use that the tourbillon can indeed help to increase a watches accuracy.

Modern day silicon components have helped greatly to increase a movements performance.

Breguets invention was a big move that would inspire watchmakers like Swiss born Ernest Guinard who in the early 1800's produced tourbillons for Girard Perragaux and Patek Philippe. Quantities would remain very low as development and regulation was extremely tedious, however some of the results were astounding reaching and exceeding chronometer level accuracy. In the tourbillons first 150 years of existence it's estimated that less than 1000 tourbillons were produced, that works out to be around 6.5 pieces a year. It wasn't just the Swiss that tried their hand at the accuracy that could be achieved with a tourbillon, Breguets invention inspired watchmakers in the UK such as Charles Frodsham and S.Smith & Son, American Albert Potter, Bahne Bonniksen who put his spin on the tourbillon with the invention of the carrousel and from Germany master watchmaker Alfred Helwig who in 1920 presented to the world the flying tourbillon.

Alfred Helwig inventor of the flying tourbillon source: WatchTime

Patek Philippe took the lead on introducing the tourbillon to the wrist at the close of the second World War. A few years later around 1948 Omega would be the next big maison to introduce a tourbillon with a production run of just 12 pieces. Production remained extremely low across the industry for the following 40 years and practically came to a dead stop during the Quartz Crises. In the mid-80's Audemars Piguet launched the first automatic tourbillon and revitalized the interests of collectors and the limited few within the industry capable of producing a tourbillon. Breguet, Patek Philippe, Jaeger Le Coutre and Audemars Piguet throughout the 1990's and early 2000's nurtured the tourbillon market, but at a price and only available the upper echelon of watch collectors. FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) was inadvertently created amongst watch collectors as the financial barrier to entry was unattainable for most and even if you could afford one they were in scarce supply.

Omega Tourbillon source: Hodinkee

Revitalizing The Tourbillon

In 2001 Richard Mille together with renowned movement developers Audermars Piguet Renaud & Papi (APRP) would announce the RM 001, a tourbillon that essentially turned the industry on its head. The design was a refreshing new take on the tourbillon which had until then been presented in what some might deem as dusty, dated and conservative designs.

RM 001 source: Hodinkee

The tourbillon until then was presented as a delicate mechanism and Mr. Mille during private showings of the RM 001 at Basel World 2001 was known to throw the watch on the floor to prove its skeleton design was not just a bold, but also robust. His approach proved that a tourbillon could be very shock resistant and how it could also be an everyday wear, something that tourbillon market was lacking.

It was likely that the RM 001 was the catalyst that ushered in what the next generation of watchmakers could achieve with the tourbillon. Of course the RM 001 didn't solve the scarcity or pricing of tourbillons given the fact that just 17 were produced at an eye watering $150,000 and today resale value is nearing the 1 million mark. However, the design would go on to define the Richard Mille brand and many more variants would follow.

Renaud & Papi in the early days source: Revolution

APRP and the watchmakers that worked under them would go on to duplicate the tourbillon formula that worked so well with Richard Mille.

A New Era

In 2005 Chanel stepped into the tourbillon world with the J12 tourbillon utilizing an APRP tourbillon. Their goal was to increase their proprietary movement development with the aide of APRP and later in 2018 they purchased a stake in Kenissi.

Chanel J12 Tourbillon source: Europa Star

In 2007 Carole Forestier-Kasapi a former APRP watchmaker would bring Cartier to the tourbillon party with the announcement of their very own caliber 9452MC. It was a significant move by Cartier as they had invested heavily in their new manufacture in La Chaux de Fonds. Cartier demonstrated a bold new approach focused on engineering and creative expression. Investing in ones own production became serious around 2007 due to the known limited and declining availability of movements offered by ETA.

Cartier caliber 9425MC source: Fratello

By now you might notice some correlation of APRP to the tourbillon and it's just one example of just how limited the access to knowledge around movement development truly is.

Did you know that Bart and Tim Grönefeld, Andreas Strehler, Robert Greubel, Stephen Forsey and Christophe Claret were also at APRP?

Only in such a setting can a generation of watchmakers gain the know-how to go out and develop a movement. Watchmaking is far more than the machines or access to parts, it's about the people and the very few that knowledge is transferred to. The individual mind is where in-house starts and the most important part of the movement development equations.

Ultimately this makes access to the know-how around movement development and ultimately the tourbillon extremely limited. APRP along with Vaucher Manufacture and La Joux Perret (LJP) have been the predominant "go-to's" for independents since around the year 2000 for tourbillon movement development as any brand that had developed a tourbillon was not going to let the "Golden Egg" go to just anyone.

Even with three options for tourbillon access the barrier to entry remains high or almost inaccessible given the ownership structure of these companies and the conflicts associated with competition.

Vaucher Manufacture was founded in just 2003 and today is owned by the Sandoz Family Foundation, therefore it seems interest is placed in the brands owned by Sandoz, those being Hermès and Parmigani Fleurier with limited access only granted to select brands such as Richard Mille and Audemars Piguet amongst others.

Vaucher Manufacture VMF Seed 5430/22 source: The Naked Watchmaker

Arnold & Son purchased by LJP in 2010 and later Angelus purchased by LJP in 2015 are two brands that were resurrected with the relief of movement development. Both brands would soon release tourbillon timepieces after their acquisition by LJP a company wholly owned by Citizen group. Today, movements from LJP can be found in Baume & Mercier, Hublot, Mont Blanc, Panerai, Franck Muller, Girard-Perregaux, Carl F. Bucherer and Jaquet Droz amongst many others.

The Rare Reality

By now my hope is that a picture is beginning to form with just how rare access to a tourbillon movement is. The lines drawn between watchmakers, manufacturers and brands is very short and very exclusive and this places Horage as an anomaly amongst modern tourbillon production.

We started the Tourbillon 1 development like so many others by working with an existing manufacture, that being LJP. Thankfully fate had other plans for Tourbillon as the relationships in the project deteriorated between Horage and LJP.

First Horage prototype with polished bezel and blue movement.

Horage would be faced with the impossible, the impossible challenge to make the tourbillon on our own amongst a global pandemic and only 8 months to complete the movement.

Stay tuned for Part 2...

Landon Stirling