Revisiting Philippe Dufour's Workshop After 13 Years
HODINKEE Japan has published an article on a return visit to the workshop of independent watchmaker Philippe Dufour, thirteen years after the last one. It is a translation of a piece first published in June on HODINKEE US. The workshop is in Le Solliat, in the Vallée de Joux in Switzerland. Dufour, who has been working as a watchmaker for more than 59 years, is still pouring his passion entirely into making watches. His daughter Daniela also works on watches in the same workshop.
The workbench is covered with watches in progress, and the most famous Simplicity is still in production. There is no waiting list: orders are taken when there is time and room for them. Above all, he says, the Simplicity must be recognisable at a glance from its 37 mm case. Six movements are currently in production, and two of them are finished.
What I found most interesting in the article is that most of it is devoted to pocket watches. A school watch made in 1967 at watchmaking school, a 1884 Waltham chronograph and minute repeater, and a collection of pocket watches that came out of a safe are all featured. The article also tells how the Duality, with its two balances, was inspired by school watches that six students made at the Le Sentier watchmaking school between 1932 and 1934. One example made by Albert Pighin sold a few years ago for 250,000 Swiss francs.
Only ten Dualities were made, and an improved version has also been completed, but by today's standards it is too complex to mass-produce. Details of the tools in the workshop are fascinating too, such as the use of gentian wood to polish the chamfers.
His everyday wristwatch is the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak 50th anniversary model, and it is charming that most of his watches are gifts from his wife. It is an article you can slowly browse with photos of the workplace of a pioneer of independent watchmaking, and I wish that anyone interested in long-established watchmaking would read it.
Source: HODINKEE Japan
The workbench is covered with watches in progress, and the most famous Simplicity is still in production. There is no waiting list: orders are taken when there is time and room for them. Above all, he says, the Simplicity must be recognisable at a glance from its 37 mm case. Six movements are currently in production, and two of them are finished.
What I found most interesting in the article is that most of it is devoted to pocket watches. A school watch made in 1967 at watchmaking school, a 1884 Waltham chronograph and minute repeater, and a collection of pocket watches that came out of a safe are all featured. The article also tells how the Duality, with its two balances, was inspired by school watches that six students made at the Le Sentier watchmaking school between 1932 and 1934. One example made by Albert Pighin sold a few years ago for 250,000 Swiss francs.
Only ten Dualities were made, and an improved version has also been completed, but by today's standards it is too complex to mass-produce. Details of the tools in the workshop are fascinating too, such as the use of gentian wood to polish the chamfers.
His everyday wristwatch is the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak 50th anniversary model, and it is charming that most of his watches are gifts from his wife. It is an article you can slowly browse with photos of the workplace of a pioneer of independent watchmaking, and I wish that anyone interested in long-established watchmaking would read it.
Source: HODINKEE Japan
Comments 0
Leave the first comment, in any language.
Log in to comment