Until yesterday, the Swiss watch manufacturer Girard-Perregaux held a temporary exhibition at Christie’s in Paris, entitled “L’Art de marquer le Temps” (The Art of Marking Time). For a week, the exhibition featured exceptional old and contemporary timepieces selected from the Girard-Perregaux museum in La Chaux-de-Fond. The tour retraced the two-century history of this Swiss company (which was acquired by the PPR Grouplast year). 
The museum’s curator, Willy Schweizer, will be your guide through the ages. In addition to the company’s timepieces, the exhibition has been conceived as a journey through the milestones of history (the creation of the UN in 1945…), the defining styles of each era (Art Nouveau in the 1900s…), and the innovations that each revealed (scotch around 1930…). You can even listen to singers (Michael Jackson…) or see excerpts from films (Charlie Chaplin…) that particularly marked their era. Alively, modern format that makes this retrospective, a first in France, accessible.
Among the exceptional timepieces on display was the“La Esmeralda” pocket watch from 1889. This model won a gold medal at the Paris Universal Exhibition that same year, for its famous Tourbillon movement with three gold Bridges. It’s one of the few watch movements that can be identified by the manufacture, in this case Girard-Perregaux, without a case or brand name, because it’s so unique.
There were also more contemporary collections, including the“Vintage 1945 Jackpot“, and always this fabulous Tourbillon movement with three bridges, inviting you to play a miniature one-armed bandit. A pleasure that will cost you several hundred thousand Euros…
At the end of the visit, over 200 lucky enthusiasts took part in the 7-day watchmaking workshops. For 1H30-2H, the head of the workshop at the Manufacture in La Chaux-de-Fond, where the company has been based for two centuries, introduced you to the dismantling and reassembly ofa GP4500 self-winding mechanical movement, featuring 26 jewels.
I was lucky enough to be able to take part on the last day, and what an experience it was! Imagine yourself in your work coat, with your watchmaker’s ocular magnifier, sitting at your workstation, your nose on a movement and your fingers adorned with latex mini-protectors. Because you never touch a part directly. All the tools are at hand (tweezers, screwdrivers, dismantling bell, etc.) to carefully handle some of the 185 parts of this movement.
When you’re a timepiece enthusiast, it’s impressive to put yourself in the shoes of a master watchmaker. Faced with this delicate movement, you feel very small. No matter how hard you try to breathe calmly, take your time, master the stress of popping a screw or a ruby, it’ s a perilous exercise as much as it is exciting.
And it’s this passion that drives young watchmakers, those who keep the workshops of Swiss watchmakers, including Girard-Perregaux, creative and dynamic. To showcase these talents, Girard-Perregaux has taken eight of them on a world tour, the“Young Watchmaker Tour“, visiting cities such as New York, Tokyo and, symbolically, Paris. Going out to meet the public, outside their workshops, to show that this high-flying art form has not aged a day, and today appeals to a wide range of profiles, both male and female.
They represent the revival of an art form that almost disappeared in the late 60s, when quartz wristwatches flooded the market. However, the know-how of traditional watchmaking will prevail over electronics. Not least thanks to a mastery of remarkable complications in Haute-Horlogerie, in which Girard-Perregaux stands out.
With this new generation of watchmakers, increasingly discerning timepiece enthusiasts and a healthy luxury watch market, Girard-Perregaux will undoubtedly continue to shape the future of watchmaking.
Jessica Gauzi
Cette publication est également disponible en : Français (French)
