SHO P/ JA EGER-LECO U L TRE
The luxury Swiss watch brand’s reputation for innovation means there is a steady supply of watchmakers keen to join the Manufacture. Riedo says: “There are many ways in which we find our artisans. Some come to us because we are very well-known but, we also take people from school and they learn a lot inside the Manufacture. “We have one person whose previous job was as a lumberjack. He cut down trees in the forest and now he sets very small stones. He was interested in working with us so we gave him some tests and employed him. Since then, we have developed his skills and now he works in the artisan field, having come from the forest. I believe, with artistic work, that there is no real school for it. In the end, there is only people.” He adds: “Some have worked with us for a long time. One watchmaker is about to leave after 49 years. He started at the age of 15 and is retiring just before he turns 65. We have another retired watchmaker who is 75 years old and has been with the company since he left school. He still works for the research and development department a few days a week, even though he has been retired for 15 years.” A commitment to artisanal roots is at the heart of the Jaeger-LeCoultre story. Founder Antoine LeCoultre studied metallurgy in his family’s forge with his father where he invented new alloys. A gifted inventor, he created the Millionometer in 1844, which was the first instrument able to measure the
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“We have to think about the connection between mentor and protegé and the ways in which we can transmit knowledge from generation to generation” micron – one-millionth of a metre or onethousandth of a millimetre. In 1847, LeCoultre’s pivoting winding device was the first system for winding the watch and setting its time without the use of a key. A succession of firsts followed as did hundreds of global patents. In 1888, seven years after the death of Antoine LeCoultre, records show his son Elie carried on the pioneering work with around 500 watchmakers and technicians. From the 1890s onwards the Manufacture began producing a series of Grandes Complications – incredibly intricate timepieces that were to become a hallmark. In 1903, French watchmaker Edmond Jaeger joined forces with Antoine’s grandson Jacques-David LeCoultre and a world-famous partnership was born. The pair collaborated on one of the first collections of ultra-thin watches that included the thinnest watch in the world. Building on the decades of success that followed, the JaegerLeCoultre brand was formed in 1937. Just as early expertise was handed down from generation to generation within the company, talent is still carefully nurtured within the Manufacture. Based in the Swiss Vallée de Joux, an expert team of 1,800 people works within its walls where more than 1,200 different calibres and over 400 patents have been filed since the brand’s beginning. A host of legendary timepieces have made their mark on the watchmaking industry including the Reverso, Duoplan, Memovox and Atmos clock, while the Calibre 101 in 1929 remains the world’s smallest mechanical watch movement.
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“It is great for the younger watchmakers coming through and part of their education. We try to transmit from one generation to another. It is more complicated today than it was in the past as we have more people and we have developed the Manufacture dramatically in the past five years. We have to think about the connection between mentor and protegé and the ways in which we can transmit knowledge from generation to generation,” says Riedo. He adds: “We have the wall of calibres which displays only half of what we have produced over the years but is a fantastic place to find inspiration. There are more than 120 people working just on the development of new ideas. Often I am asked about the most difficult part of the creative process and my answer is that the greatest challenge is to reduce the number of ideas as there are so many that it is difficult to select one and not another.”
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