Raúl Pagès Particulars His Subsequent Watch Initiatives
“To start with it was not the purpose to be unbiased, to create a model,” the unbiased watchmaker Raúl Pagès stated in his two-room hillside atelier within the Swiss hamlet Les Brenets, overlooking the Jura Mountains. “It was simply to design a motion, to create one thing from scratch.”
It’s right here, in a home that what was as soon as a manufacturing facility making artificial rubies, that Mr. Pagès — the primary recipient of the Louis Vuitton Watch Prize for Unbiased Creatives — produces about 4 handmade watches per 12 months.
For the time being, he’s specializing in the manufacturing of the Régulateur à détente RP1, the wristwatch that earned him the award. However the 40-year-old Mr. Pagès, who began his model in 2012, additionally makes automatons — the form of mechanically shifting figures that had been all the craze within the 18th and Nineteenth centuries.
“I felt that it was unusual that no one was making automatons at present, in order my first creation I didn’t wish to make a watch, I needed to make a full automaton, however modern,” he stated earlier than utilizing a key to wind the Tortoise — a grapefruit-size automaton that he completed in 2013.
For a minute, its diamond-clawed legs made a whirring sound as they crawled a couple of foot alongside a watchmaker’s bench. “Sure,” Mr. Pagès stated, taking a look at a customer. “That’s at all times the response from collectors and different individuals — at all times smiling, at all times huge eyes.”
Mr. Pagès is nicely acquainted with vintage automatons and clocks. After seven years in watchmaking college — 4 years to be a watchmaker, adopted by two years in restoration and one 12 months in design — he landed a job at Parmigiani Fleurier to revive vintage clocks, pocket watches and automatons from the Maurice-Yves Sandoz assortment.
“That’s how I found the good works of Breguet, Jaquet-Droz, James Pellaton, City Jürgensen,” he stated. “We additionally restored and renovated items for the Patek museum and personal collectors. Once you work on such masterpieces you study lots.”
He additionally recalled a very nerve-racking activity when he labored on a Fabergé egg within the Sandoz assortment: “I used to be considering ‘I can not make a mistake, or historical past will bear in mind me.’” he stated, laughing.
However engaged on such masterpieces was not sufficient for him.
“Once you restore it’s important to respect the origin, however you’ll be able to’t actually create something,” he stated. Thus, at night time, after his shift at Parmigiani, he began creating the Tortoise motion. “And after I had the completed Tortoise conception in my laptop, I left Parmigiani and put in all my financial savings and gave myself one 12 months to work on it.”
In the long run it took him two years to develop, design and make the 352 parts of the Tortoise, and to construct it (with artisans serving to him for the exterior elements, engraving, enameling and gemsetting). However the distinctive piece, priced at 350,000 Swiss francs (about $396,000), by no means bought. “I used to be new, very younger and naïve when it got here to the industrial facet,” Mr. Pagès stated.
Roman Winiger, a watchmaker and restorer who labored with Mr. Pagès at Parmigiani Fleurier in 2006 and 2007, stated by cellphone from La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, that the Tortoise expertise might need persuaded others to surrender. “However Raúl remained at it,” he stated. “It takes sweat and time to get the place he’s. The key is within the effort.”
Survival of the Fittest
Mr. Pagès was capable of pay his payments because of restoring pocket watches as a freelancer by day. By night time he designed and developed his first wristwatch, the Artwork Deco-inspired Soberly Onyx, launched in 2016. Its motion is predicated on classic ébauche (which means unpolished and undecorated) actions from the Fifties and Nineteen Sixties, however a number of elements, together with bridges and steadiness, he created from scratch utilizing conventional machines like lathes and drills. He went on to hand-polish and beautify every half.
That is nonetheless his modus operandi: Solely a tiny portion of the elements are outsourced to native suppliers with trendy machines, he stated, including that he at all times finishes them himself.
He additionally stored engaged on what he known as his “final purpose” — to create his personal motion for the RP1.
Introduced in January 2022, the RP1 has a motion with a detent escapement, usually utilized in 18th- and Nineteenth-century marine chronometer clocks and pocket watches. It delivers excessive accuracy because of the facility of the mainspring being launched in equal bursts.
“I like this type of escapement,” Mr. Pagès stated. “I discover it so lovely to see it in movement. Detent was utilized by City Jürgensen, Christophe Claret and Kari Voutilainen, however aside from them no one considered placing it in a wristwatch. I needed to show it’s OK.”
The issue is that the detent is a big lever delicate to shocks, and if it strikes an excessive amount of, it blocks the entire mechanism. To resolve this, Mr. Pagès stated he “added a further beak on the detent, which is blocked by a cam fastened underneath the steadiness wheel. This built-in block makes it extra shock resistant.
“I’d not advise to play golf with it. However for regular use it’s OK.”
Mid-explanation, Mr. Pagès’s good friend and sounding-board, Sébastien Chaulmontet, arrived on certainly one of his near-weekly visits. A lawyer, he’s additionally the pinnacle of innovation on the industrial motion maker Sellita. “It’s actually loopy to make a detent escapement for a wristwatch,” Mr. Chaulmontet stated. “I at all times inform Raúl it’s good that we met after the RP1 was developed, as a result of I’d have completed all the things potential to make him to not do it.”
“What actually makes Raúl stand out is that he has the total scope: He’s a watchmaker, a restorer, an engineer, and he’s additionally a designer.” Mr. Chaulmontet added. “It’s clearly loopy when you’ll be able to play nearly all devices of the orchestra. It offers you a liberty and an understanding totally different than when it’s important to rent just a few musicians to make it occur. That’s the reason his watches are so totally different and so private.”
Mr. Pagès stopped taking orders for the RP1 in early 2023, when he had 20: Its building is so advanced that he can solely produce 4 per 12 months. (Now with an worker the entire manufacturing in 2024 is estimated to be eight.) “The demand was enormous, however I didn’t wish to have a ready listing for 10 years and make only one look ahead to the remainder of my profession,” he stated.
No Regrets
The regulator-styled dial — with an hour hand at 12, a central minute hand and sky-blue small seconds subdial at six — is Bauhaus-influenced, Mr. Pagès stated. “For me the dial is actually necessary,” he stated. “It’s a clear design with totally different depths and finishes on the dial, and the blue on the small seconds subdial is impressed by Le Corbusier’s shade scheme.”
There are additionally seen however “very discreet” screws on the dial that “add one thing very technical,” he stated.
“I like concrete simplicity and performance. There also needs to be magnificence within the particulars, however not by including issues,” he stated.
As winner of the Louis Vuitton prize, he acquired €150,000 (about $163,000) and a yearlong mentorship. “It may be assist of any sort,” he stated. “Technical, monetary, advertising or communication.”
He’s already at work on his subsequent undertaking, the RP2, which is within the prototype section with supply deliberate early subsequent 12 months.
This time-only watch will characteristic a dial of white agate (a semiprecious stone within the quartz household) and a much less advanced motion. “The concept is to have the RP2 as a typical assortment,” he stated, “after which make different, extra advanced, watches.”
Mr. Pagès additionally has a brand new sort of automaton within the making, on which he shared few particulars, besides to say it is not going to be an animal and will probably be inside a wristwatch.
And what in regards to the Tortoise? Would he promote it now?
“No, I wish to preserve it,” he stated. “As a result of it’s my first creation, my first child. It is very important be capable of present it to collectors and in exhibitions.
“It was not a industrial success, however I’m satisfied the Tortoise helped me to be the place I’m proper now. So, there are not any regrets — in any respect.”
