Michel Parmigiani could not have graduated as a watchmaker at a worse time, in the middle of what the Swiss watch industry now refers to as the “quartz crisis”. At a time when the industry was shedding jobs in the thousands, setting up a workshop seemed like folly. But Michel Parmigiani stuck resolutely to the path of traditional watchmaking, dedicating himself to the art of watch restoration.
His breakthrough came in the early 1980s, when Effrène Jobin, the curator of the watchmaking museum in Le Locle, was looking for someone to take over the responsibility of maintaining and restoring one of Switzerland’s finest collections of pocket watches and automata – the Edouard Marcel Sandoz collection belonging to the Sandoz family.
After years of collaboration during which the family discovered Michel Parmigiani’s exceptional talent as a watchmaker, Pierre Landolt, today President of the Sandoz Family Foundation, encouraged Michel Parmigiani to enter the limelight and the Parmigiani Fleurier watch brand was established in 1996 – the same year in which the family company Sandoz SA merged with Ciba-Geigy SA to form Novartis.
Bringing together five different entities in less than six years, the Sandoz Family Foundation subsequently built up an entire watchmaking competence centre that has created a genuine manufacture with all of its competences embodied in the Parmigiani Fleurier brand.
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Parmigiani Fleurier
One of the more recent success stories of the Swiss watchmaking industry, Parmigiani Fleurier emerged from the close relationship between watchmaker Michel Parmigiani and the Sandoz Family Foundation.
Many watch brands aspire to the French title “manufacture”, but few can legitimately claim it, and even fewer of those are independent. A true manufacture is capable of producing a watch from start to finish, right down to the most minuscule of components and, in particular, the balance spring without which the mechanical watch cannot function.
In just over five years following the establishment of Parmigiani Fleurier in 1996, an entire ecosystem was set up to ensure that the brand can proudly boast of its genuine manufacture status independent of any group. Pinions and gear wheels produced by Elwin are combined into escapements and balance springs produced by Atokalpa, which are in turn assembled in the finished movements produced by Vaucher Manufacture and fitted into cases made by Les Artisans Boitiers and completed with dials from Quadrance & Habillage – all companies in the safe hands of the Sandoz Family Foundation. Even the leather straps for Parmigiani Fleurier watches are produced by Hermès exclusively for the brand.
Bugatti
With its horizontal movement, which was specifically conceived to fit in this unusual case shape, as well as two separate display apertures in the triangular case, the Bugatti is an unmistakable Parmigiani Fleurier icon.
Kalpa
The brand’s first wristwatch was presented under the name Ionica but later renamed Kalpa XL. It remains a cornerstone of the Parmigiani Fleurier collection and is equipped with the company’s first in-house movement, the PF110 – a manually wound calibre with an eight-day power reserve. In its smaller case sizes, the Kalpa is also a mainstay of the Parmigiani Fleurier ladies’ watch collection.
Ovale
The Ovale overcomes the aesthetic constraints of an oval-shaped case with its ingenious extendable hour and minute hands that adjust to the different distances from the centre of the watch to the markers around the circumference of the dial.
Tonda
Parmigiani Fleurier’s quintessential classic watch is available in gents and ladies’ models with a number of different complications, from the simple small seconds to the tourbillon and minute repeater.
