L’Atelier Parmigiani recently opened its doors on Mount Street, Mayfair, thus establishing a pied-à-terre for this luxury Swiss watch brand in London. As well as a plush and inviting showroom, the atelier is home to an onsite watchmaker...
L’Atelier Parmigiani recently opened its doors on Mount Street, Mayfair, thus establishing a pied-à-terre for this luxury Swiss watch brand in London. As well as a plush and inviting showroom, the atelier is home to an onsite watchmaker, sent specially from the company’s headquarters in Fleurier. Stoically negotiating the thousands of small components that comprise any given Parmigiani timepiece, he is an object lesson in the passionate, detailed craftsmanship that is the cornerstone of the brand’s ethos, first established by the company’s founder, Michael Parmigiani.
Before setting his sights on watchmaking, Michel Parmigiani had already established a name for himself as a master restorer of historical timepieces. When longstanding clients the Sandoz family offered to support him in establishing his own brand, Parmigiani took the opportunity and in 1996, Parmigiani Fleurier was born. Since then, Michel Parmigiani’s experiences with hands-on horology have allowed him to oversee the creation of a range of watches that both respect a pioneering past, and look towards an innovative future. From the unparalleled Bugatti range, driving watches based on the Bugatti Veyron supercar, to the traditionally shaped Tonda 1950, which has quickly become a contemporary classic, each Parmigiani watch represents a minimum of 400 hours of labour, with every component handmade and carefully controlled. This high level of detailed attention has brought them a host of discerning clients, including Morrissey, who chose to wear his Kalpa KL Automatic Steel watch for the cover image of Years of Refusal (and whose signed photo graces the walls of the Parmigiani headquarters).
"A high level of detailed attention has brought them a host of discerning clients, including Morrissey, who chose to wear his Kalpa KL Automatic Steel watch for the cover image of Years of Refusal."
With such a focus on quality over quantity, it is not surprising that only a few thousand pieces are made each year, all onsite and in-house, at several workshops in the region of Val-de-Travers in the Alps (an area also known for its absinthe production). Made only of precious metals and precious or semi-precious stones, and with an exclusive contract with Hermès for the leather straps, Parmigiani may be – by horology standards – a relatively new name on the market, but having started with only 12 staff, they now number more than 500, and their handmade approach is wholly steeped in the Swiss tradition of watchmaking.
At one of five Parmigiani workshops, nestled in a small town with a 360° view of the Alps, sits a workroom flush with natural light. It is quiet and calm, and full of young artisans, each working on specific components and wholly immersed in their work. Rather than the aging watchmaker of lore, here one encounters the future of Swiss watchmaking, a new generation who have studied the tradition and are making it their own. Upstairs, in a restoration workshop full of singular historical timepieces, the reclamation project continues that first drew Marcel Parmigiani to horology, and serves as a reminder of the essence at the core of each Parmigiani piece. And now, back on Mount Street in London, visitors are offered a window onto this tradition in the making.
Text by Ananda Pellerin
Ananda Pellerin is a London-based writer and regular contributor to anothermag.com.
