WORLDTEMPUS – 16 June 2011
Interview by Louis Nardin
After spending the night in Agenhor's Japanese-style garden, we shared some eggs for breakfast with Jean-Marc Wiederrecht, watchmaker and founder of Agenhor.
Worldtempus: This factory literally bathes in greenery. Does nature particularly inspire you?
Jean-Marc Wiederrecht: When I was young, I took part in protests against building nuclear power plants and my house has already been equipped with solar panels since they became available 15 years ago. Without being militant about it, nature is precious and we must nurture it. It brings us so many invaluable things. I get my best ideas when walking and sometimes on vacation because I am able to think about a project without pressure – particularly when perambulating along the paths of Crete where I go every year.
Profiting from nature, which permits you to free your imagination?
Yes, it helps and guides me every day. First, my employees work in a more relaxed manner since we moved to our new location two years ago. Nature invites one to search out beauty, and I apply this principle to my creations – for example by decorating components that will never be visible. It also helps stimulate my imagination. Very often in watchmaking one looks to reinterpret something that already exists, and the technology becomes disproportionate. I look to tell a story that the future will bring and interpret it by using the simplest mechanism possible.
Watchmaking has resumed in full force these past few months. The suppliers that were very affected by the crisis – are they out of the woods yet?
The best of them, who work with big brands, don't have too much to worry about. In contrast, there is a host of very competent suppliers who didn't have such opportunities and who continue to live in difficult times. Some of them will certainly disappear and their unique skills will become lost. After having to lay off employees, some will be afraid to re-hire personnel and I can understand that they've had to deal with order cancellations, some of which were important and at times brutal. A growing number of brands no longer want to keep the regular minimum of stock, and so orders now arrive in an erratic manner and generate complications for these small companies. Let's not forget that a subcontractor is essentially an entrepreneur who has invested in his work. Motivation is not necessarily part of a verticalized business. We must take care not to kill the passion.
What is your next horological challenge?
A magnificent project that will be presented in January, and this invention will allow me to reduce my personal involvement in the daily management of Agenhor. In effect, I love to travel and I can count on my solid team, which is motivated and comprehensively capable of realizing my ideas in a concrete manner. I'm thinking of changing the way I work so that I can visit the whole world.
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