Éric Giroud is a man of talent. The talent in question is neither rare nor unique, but in his case, it’s very definitely his. Rather than a distinctive style of drawing, it’s all about a particular approach to his work and a certain outlook on life. He can get just as excited about a Tissot as a Harry Winston, and just as worked up about a mass-market watch as over a collector’s trinket with a price tag of CHF 200,000. “It’s the people who matter,” he says. Attitude matters, too: “I’m someone who’s upbeat and inquisitive to the core. A lot of my work’s rooted in my intuition.”
That intuition has opened many doors for him. These days, he’s often inseparable in people’s minds from his friend Max Büsser; indeed, Büsser’s MB&F collective is where Éric Giroud designed the ‘Horological Machines’ that have gone on to become case studies. He’s worked with everybody (or so it seems): from Boucheron to Mido, from Leroy to Tissot, and from Vacheron Constantin to Van Cleef & Arpels, amid scores of others.
Is there anywhere left to go after all that? “There most definitely is. There are as many projects as there are people and themes. I love beautiful things, beautiful watches, and watchmakers.” Viscerally attached to his freedom, Éric Giroud finds inspiration everywhere: in music, being himself a musician of 30 years’ standing, playing everything from classical to hard rock. In travel. In nature – a vital necessity for someone born and bred in the canton of Valais. Even his own work can sometimes serve as his muse: “My cellar’s stuffed full of sketch pads. I sketch all the time. And now and then, I go back and pore over them. It’s well worth working out why something was a good idea… or maybe not such a good idea.”
Today, the man who describes himself as the perfect compromise between a born layabout and a workaholic is busier than ever. He usually has between five and 10 projects on the go at the same time. He especially enjoys his “tutti frutti days”, as he calls them, when major undertakings rub shoulders with minor adjustments to hands or colours. Éric Giroud’s personal mantra – “have only wonderful surprises” – is the perfect mission statement for him, a designer in the land of Epicureans. Or should that be the other way around?
*On the occasion of GMT Magazine and WorldTempus' 20th anniversary, we have embarked on the ambitious project of summarising the last 20 years in watchmaking in The Millennium Watch Book, a big, beautifully laid out coffee table book. This article is an extract. The Millennium Watch Book is available on www.the-watch-book.com, in French and English, with a 10% discount if you use the following code: WT2021.
