WORDS
Tim Barber
In the 18th and 19th centuries, Geneva’s riverside tenements were home to networks of watchmaking craftsmen, who would set up their workshops in the upper floors to take advantage of the light conditions. They were known as cabinotiers: the watchmakers, case-makers, makers of dials and hands, enamellers, engravers and gem-setters who turned watchmaking from a technical discipline into one of absolute artistry. Today the tenements and the craftsmen are long gone; but in the work of Andersen Genève, whose atelier sits in a riverside building on a site where the cabinotiers would once have been, their legacy lives on.
‘We deliver fewer than 50 pieces each year,’ says managing director Pierre-Alexandre Aeschlimann. ‘In 40 years, we’ve produced just 1,340 watches. This is real exclusivity.’ Indeed – especially given the fact that many Andersen Genève watches are made on a bespoke basis for clients wanting something personalised or completely unique.
Recent projects have included world timer watches (an Andersen Genève speciality) with enamel-painted dials showing maps customised to clients’ locations; and one that was entirely designed around a piece of jade stone the customer had inherited, which was incorporated into the dial.
‘It always starts with a conversation,’ says Aeschlimann.‘We sit, we discuss, we listen, we give advice, and we collaborate, because we’re creating something that would never be possible otherwise.’
In all its watches, whether bespoke, customised or those produced in tiny series, the emphasis on delicate, assiduous handcraft, of a kind the cabinotiers of old would recognise, is absolute. Every case, every hand, every dial is made individually by the finest craftspeople in the business.
‘We work only with people in Switzerland. They all have their own style, and it depends what you’re working on which one you collaborate with,’ says Aeschlimann, explaining that for a bespoke project, delivery may take as long as a year: bespoke watchmaking is one craft that cannot be rushed.
For last year’s exquisite Jumping Hours watch, which was shortlisted in the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève awards, it took an engraver three months to make the guilloché dials for just 10 watches. With the pattern etched into a dial of BlueGold (Andersen’s proprietary technique for rendering gold, through a delicate chemical and heating process, into a shimmering blue surface), the result is mesmerising.
Aeschlimann explains the Andersen Genève approach thus: ‘The point is, we are working with humans. You can’t make thousands of watches a month: it’s about time and care, rather than money. We don’t tolerate any defects.’
Andersen Genève was founded four decades ago by Svend Andersen, a Danish watchmaker who made his name in 1969 with his Bottle Clock invention – a horological take on the “ship in a bottle” concept. He went on to join Patek Philippe, working for nine years in its Grand Complications Atelier, the workshop for its most complex timepieces.
In 1980, he finally opened his own workshop in Geneva, taking on private commissions for discerning clients around the world, gradually building the business over time. He may be far from a household name, but among the top tier of collectors around the world, Andersen is a legend.
He recently turned 80, but still takes a hands-on role in the company he founded. According to Aeschlimann, while not in the workshop every day, he still advises on each commission, particularly where watches require very complex or bespoke complications that require his experience and insight; or, indeed, when customers come to visit the workshop, which Aeschlimann recommends.
‘We love clients to come and see the watchmakers as they’re working on their piece, to see what is happening and what else we’re working on. It’s always about sharing that knowledge, and that’s the whole point.