Renaud Tixier Introduces the Monday, Its First Watch

Getting into the atelier of the watchmaker Julien Tixier in Switzerland’s Vallée de Joux, one should navigate rigorously previous excessive benches crammed to the brim with tools akin to decades-old lathes, drilling machines, grinders, cutters and high-tech gadgets, plus areas devoted to warmth remedy, galvanization, ornament and meeting.

Regardless of being solely about 270 sq. ft, this miniature manufacturing unit is the place Mr. Tixier reworked bars of uncooked metal into elements for the prototype of the Monday, a $87,730, 40.8-millimeter, three-hand watch that’s the first from the brand new model Renaud Tixier. Sixty-two of the watches are to be made and over the subsequent 20 years one other six fashions are deliberate, named after the opposite days of the week.

The crowded area has an air of a loopy inventor’s playground, applicable maybe for a person who knew that he wished to be a watchmaker since he was 7 years previous rising up on the west coast of France. Mr. Tixier is now 31, and his lengthy darkish hair, goatee, skinny denims and well-worn black fedora add to the image of a free-spirited artist. “It will not be attainable for me to work in industrial watchmaking,” he stated. “I would favor to alter my job.”

Since 2018, Mr. Tixier has been an impartial artisan creating distinctive items, however in 2023, after a few profitable collaborations with the trade veteran Dominique Renaud, the lads based their very own model, Renaud Tixier, primarily based in Nyon, Switzerland, north of Geneva. (Mr. Renaud, 64, was a co-founder of the high-complication watchmaker Renaud & Papi in 1986.)

Chief Government Michel Nieto known as Renaud Tixier “a correct model with a correct construction; a mixture of in-house capacities, companions and suppliers.”

“We’ve got employed two younger watchmakers already,” he stated in February throughout a tour of the ability, with some rooms nonetheless awaiting their watchmaking benches. “Now we’re seven individuals within the workforce, and shortly we can be 15 or 20.”

This yr, he stated, “we are going to ship 62 items between September and December.”

“Let’s say October,” Mr. Renaud interjected, with a chuckle and feigned stress.

Mr. Renaud, within the barely tinted glasses he wears since having two eye surgical procedures in three years, was displaying a plastic mannequin of the model’s first innovation — a brand new micro-rotor within the motion of the Monday watch.

“Micro-rotors are elegant,” he stated, as he started a technical clarification. “However due to the scale and gravity, they don’t rewind the mainspring in addition to massive rotors. To resolve this downside, we first lead the vitality from the oscillating weight right into a spring. This catapults and amplifies the vitality and velocity right into a spinner related to the wheels which wind the mainspring.”

He has two names for the patent-pending machine, calling it both a spinner-thruster or a dancer.

The formally acknowledged energy reserve of the Monday is no less than 60 hours, however efficiency checks of the prototype had proven an influence reserve of near 100 hours, Mr. Nieto stated.

How They Met

Mr. Tixier met Mr. Renaud at a convention in 2016 the place Mr. Renaud introduced his Dominique Renaud DR 01 Twelve First timepiece.

“After I was in watchmaking faculty, we thought of what Dominique was doing with Renaud & Papi as the head of artistic watchmaking,” Mr. Tixier stated. “And once we met, we completely clicked. It is sort of a friendship in concepts.”

Between bites of steak tartare over lunch with Mr. Tixier on the Hôtel des Horlogers close to the workshop, Mr. Renaud stated their connection was unbelievable: “We are able to speak about actions in three dimension and have the identical imaginative and prescient in our heads, with out placing something on paper.”

A couple of years later, they collaborated on two perpetual calendar watches, the DRT Tempus Fugit launched in 2022 and the Secular Perpetual Calendar, made in a collaboration with the model Furlan Marri, in 2023 (destined to be auctioned in Might on the Solely Watch charity public sale).

Then the concept of their very own model was born.

Each say that the concepts for the “innovations” ensuing from their collaborations come from Mr. Renaud, whereas Mr. Tixier brings them to life utilizing conventional strategies. “However, after all,” Mr. Renaud stated, “we develop my concepts collectively. At Renaud & Papi I used to be at all times the brute inventor, and now I be taught a lot from Julien, particularly since he’s doing finishings and decorations in such an ideal method.”

If there’s such a factor as perfection, that’s. “We are able to enhance every thing, and I don’t assume perfection exists,” Mr. Tixier stated. In the event you obtain perfection with a sure magnification, you may at all times improve magnification — and immediately the collectors do. Ten years in the past, collectors have been timepieces with a easy loupe. At the moment they use a microscope, so we have to enhance every thing.”

The Collective

Because the plates have been cleared and the espressos arrived, the lads emphasised that they weren’t the one individuals behind Renaud Tixier and the Monday watch, saying as a substitute that it was the work of a collective. The enameling of the primary spring barrel, they stated, is made by Maëlle Fixed and the hand engravings on the aspect of the gold circumstances, which appear as if glittering, superfine sandpaper, are by Coralie Mercier.

“These crafts make every watch distinctive,” Mr. Tixier stated.

For the Monday’s deceptively easy design, with a grey sunburst dial in an 18-karat rose or white gold case, they reached out to Edge Design, an organization run by Fabrice Gonet and Olivier Leu. “They improved and reworked our concept via very open-minded discussions,” Mr. Tixier stated. “The form of the bridges grew to become extra sq., however with extra handmade aesthetics.”

“The dial shouldn’t be the star,” Mr. Tixier stated. “The star is the motion, the invention.”

For now, Renaud Tixier timepieces can be offered on to collectors, after which via chosen retailers. The Monday was formally launched final month in Tokyo.

For the long-term, Renaud Tixier is planning to make six extra totally different watches over a 20-year interval. “The Tuesday we plan to launch in 2026,” Mr. Nieto stated. “The issue with Dominique is to carry him again, he’s so filled with concepts.”

“For me,” Mr. Renaud stated, “the aim of Renaud Tixier is to transmit data and friendship. It’s a simple solution to spend time collectively; we share good moments on a regular basis.”

As Mr. Tixier put it: “We wish to do what we love.”

“A watch is about transmitting ardour and emotion to the client,” he added. “The watches we make collectively develop into proof of excellent friendship.”