m i l LI o n a i r E PA S S I O N & P O W E R

Michel Parmigiani, haute horologer

A master craftsman
claims
his throne
A micro-mechanic with creative drive, Michel Parmigiani fashions time-pieces that are regularly
listed as the world’s most expensive. A millionaire by skill, Parmigiani’s masterpieces immediately
mark you out as a wealthy person with the self-confidence to carry off a relatively lesser known
brand. Of course, this pleasure could knock you back a million or five

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I
t is difficult to imagine that a machine with about 200
elements put together by hand and costing up to $5
million can be copied. Or, how do you rip off “an engine
block that also tells the time”?
For Michel Parmigiani – the designer of masterpieces such as
the LUC 1.96 wristwatch calibre for Chopard and the Type 370
watch for Bugatti with the world’s first transverse mechanical
movement – this is one of his ambitions: to be copied. And soon!
“If you are copied, it means you are successful. If no one is trying
to copy you, it means you are not successful,” he says succinctly,
sitting proudly behind the counter of his first boutique in Dubai’s
Wafi City with Damas.
Going by the growth figures of Parmigiani Fleurier, which
now produces 5,000 watches a year, with 60 per cent of business
coming from watches that cost more than $100,000, you would
think it is sound strategy.
Watches can take up to two years to put together
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“It is a question of the
relationship between you
and the customer,” says
Parmigiani, who counts Bill
Gates and Giorgio Armani
amongst his
Parmigiani watches come in three types. Pièce Unique are one-
of-a-kind watches made to order. Parmigiani delivers these to
the client himself. Costs range from $200,000 to $5 million. The
Haute Horlogerie limited edition watches such as the Tourbillon
or Bugatti also ensure personal delivery by Parmigiani. These
are priced at $50,000 to $500,000. Le Collection is available
in select stores and includes the Forma and Toric lines and
basic automatic pieces with retail prices between $7,000
and $50,000.
“It is a question of the relationship between you and the
customer,” says Parmigiani, who counts Bill Gates and
Giorgio Armani amongst his. “We are selling 200 watches in
the unique category each year. We don’t do specific watches
which are cheap – and mind you, cheap for us means
CHF100,000 or under. These unique pieces can go to one
or two million Swiss francs. We do a lot of watches between
CHF700,000 and CHF900,000. It can take from one month
to a year to put one together, even two years if it is very,
very complicated.”
Talking to Michel Parmigiani, it is difficult not to stare
at his hands. He has the creative and artistic responsibility
for the collections and embodies the living brand. He is a
master watchmaker who works with a team of qualified
watchmakers, masters of micro-mechanics, engineers
and watch restorers. Before he became a familiar
name to the nouveau riche all over the world
who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to
buy masterpieces such as the Kalpa and the Type
370 Bugatti watch, he was known to collectors for his
remarkable restoration skills, as the man who restored
the Breguet Pendule Sympathique Clock in 1991, which >
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Being a manufacturer means being able to produce as many as 200 watch parts Craftsmen at work at Parmigiani Fleurier

experts had deemed beyond repair because of the intense heat

and moisture that resulted in oxidation damage over the years.
Being a watch Made by AL Breguet, the Pendule Sympathique is a table
clock combined with a pocket watch dating back to 1820. The
manufacturer means watch fits into a cradle on the clock. At 12 o’clock, the clock
being able to develop, releases a mechanism inside the watch which sets the watch to
the same time as the clock. The watch determines the amount of
manufacture, produce, error and adjusts the rate faster or slower accordingly.
Parmigiani is said to have restored it after working on it for
decorate, assemble and 1,600 hours. It was later sold at auction in Geneva for more
than $1 million. Restoration still remains an integral part of
encase the 200-odd pieces his company.
Michel Parmigiani, born in 1950, grew up in the Val de
that make up the watch Travers, a valley in the canton of Neuchâtel, renowned for its
watch industry. His father was a precision mechanic. Today,
Anne-Laure, the eldest of his three children, works with him.
Parmigiani established his company in 1975 as an independent
restoration business working with historic timepieces for museums
and private collections. Within a few years, his reputation for
excellence and his penchant for perfection made him one of
the most sought-after watchmakers. Some of the world’s finest
brands turned to Parmigiani to create private-label watches for
them. In 1995, Michel Parmigiani was awarded the Prix Gaia
for his work and research in horology. In 1998, he restored the
Breguet Carriage Clock offered to the Art Decoration Museum
in Paris and the planetarium by François Ducommun-dit-Boudry
offered to the Castello Sforzesco Museum in Milan. Among
his restoration clients were members of the Landolt family,

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The Maharaja’s pocket watch,

Curé de Zermatt

Parmigiani showing a rare watch to Tamjid Abdullah of Damas

descendants of Edouard Constant Sandoz, who founded the
chemical company Kern & Sandoz with Alfred Kern in Basel
in the 1880s (the firm is now part of Novartis). The Sandoz
Family Foundation, established to encourage entrepreneurship,
invested $10 million to acquire a majority shareholding interest
in Parmigiani’s business in 1996. Every member of the family
owns at least one Parmigiani. The first watch Parmigiani
made was a one-off for Pierre Landolt, who heads the
foundation and still wears the watch every day.
Moulded by the bling of Dubai, it is difficult not to
“It is a pocket watch with two big diamonds and a very complicated
ask the diminutive man dumb questions
– including the one about how
his $600,000 masterpiece is
different from jewel-encrusted
RESTORATION
Once upon a time, a very long time ago, perhaps in the early 20th
century, there was a maharaja. He went for a holiday in the Swiss
Alps with his family. One day, the young prince went for a joyride
in a plane and never came back. The distraught maharaja sent out
rescue parties to recover the bodies of his son and the pilot but to
no avail. Finally, a priest in a small village found both the bodies.
The grateful maharaja took off his diamond-encrusted watch and
gave it to the priest. When the priest wanted to renovate his little
church, he decided to sell the watch. A prominent family nearby
named Sandoz bought it. Years later, the watch, though still grand,
showed signs of use and the Sandoz family got Michel Parmigiani
to put it together again.
movement. And it belongs to the Sandoz Family Foundation.
A very nice piece. Earlier, it was working, but so-so. It
needed to be restored. Today, the watch is working
perfectly,” says Parmigiani.

ware peddled by others. After

Today, his business is back in the land of the maharajas.
all, as a watchmaker, he must be
“We launched two months ago in New Delhi. India
used to such requests from clients. is one of the important future markets for us. India
He explains that being a watch is a great place for a brand such as ours. I think it
manufacturer means being able will become more important than China. People are
to develop, manufacture, produce, educated. They understand the finish of the brand.
Within two months after we started in India, we sold
decorate, assemble and encase the
five or six pieces that cost between $100,000 and
200-odd pieces that make up the
$500,000 each,” he says.
watch (not including the strap,
which is outsourced to Hermès). A majority of his orders for custom-built watches,
“They are that much cheaper however, comes from China. “We have also a lot of
than us… unless you put a them from South East Asia. We have one or two big
customers in the Middle East. The rest are everywhere.
diamond in the watch. If you
Could be a guy in LA, could be a person in Mexico.”
consider the watch without >

Breguet Pendule Sympathique Clock

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jewels or stones, they are much cheaper compared to us. It is

difficult for us to be compared to Jacob & Co because he is not a
watchmaker but a jeweller and he deals with stones. It is not the
same category as us at all,” he says patiently, although apparently
pained by the comparison.
“Most of the time people want something personal incorporated
in the watch. The design has to incorporate something about a
wife, children, even a dog. We have to do special engravings on
the movement or a special dial, a double case with enamel. One
person wanted a portrait on the back of the dial. One customer
wanted to have something to commemorate the famous architect
Frank Lloyd Wright. Someone else wanted a photo of his fiancée
swimming in the river. You never ask. These are personal things,”
he says.
Over the years, the owners have made major investments to
strengthen Parmigiani’s position as a manufacturer rather than
only a brand. “We want to be both,” Parmigiani says. In 2002,
the holding company purchased Brandelet, a manufacturer of
gear trains, and Elvin, a specialist in profile-turning. Parmigiani
also took a 50 per cent interest in Affolter, a specialist in
Parmigiani’s headquarters
cases and assembly. Combined with its own capabilities in the
development and manufacturing of exclusive and exceptional
movements, the brand moved towards autonomy.
When Parmigiani developed the Calibre 331, an 11.5-line
automatic movement, only 3.5mm thick, with a power reserve of
55 hours thanks to a system of two barrels connected in series, he

The Bugatti type 370 comes

in an 18 carat white gold
case, in eight sections, six
of which are welded and
The Bugatti Type 370 which retails at $200,000
two attached. the movement
MOST EXPENSIVE
can be viewed through six
While some of his most exquisite creations do not appear in
catalogues, Parmigiani has routinely been part of the world’s lists
sapphire crystals
of the most expensive watches. One of his bespoke creations is a
$1 million piece with a 100mm diameter golden dial and several
precious stones made for a Middle Eastern royal.

Only three of the Parmigiani Fleurier Tecnica Skeleton Chronograph

will ever be made. Each will incorporate a platinum case and
complications that include a minute repeater, tourbillon and
chronograph, as well as a cathedral chime with which you
can ring in the New Year. Price? $850,000.

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Customised watches can even have personalised dials
offered it to other brands. The development involved mastery in
both volume production through a high level of industrialisation
and hand finishing and individual craftsmanship.
“Let me make it easy for you. If you go to a car company who
takes an engine from someplace, the body from another and
produces a luxury car… you would know the difference. He
could have bought the engine from Ford or BMW or Mercedes
and he is making the body. He cannot be called the carmaker.
You cannot compare him to an Aston Martin or a Ferrari. You
cannot go to Ferrari and say this guy is your competitor because
we have to compare a dealer with a dealer and a carmaker with a
carmaker. In the watch business it is the same,” says Parmigiani
with much help from his Chief Executive Jean-Marc Jacot,
who is the Sandoz family delegate, and who is also translating
his answers.
Parmigiani ought to know what he is talking about when it
comes to comparing cars and watches. A couple of years ago,
when the Bugatti board approached him to create a watch as
extraordinary as the car, he took four years to give them the
Bugatti Type 370. Parmigiani calls it “an engine block that
also tells the time”. An 18 carat white gold case, in eight
sections, six of which are welded and two attached, enables
the movement to be viewed through six sapphire crystals.
In the process of creating this masterpiece, Parmigiani
had to craft made-to-measure tools without precedent in the
history of horology. The watch is comparable to an automobile
chassis. In order to make it readable while driving, the face of
the watch has been placed in a vertical position on the case’s
front. Earlier meant to be available only to those who bought
the Bugatti Veyron, the watch now costs $200,000.
But let’s come back to the nouveau riche, reaching whose
014-021parmigiani.indd 19
aspirations, Pershing collection
Parmigiani says,
is a benchmark of sorts
for a brand. “I would say our target market is people between 30
and 65 years old, wealthy, well-educated and self-confident. Self-
confident because to buy a very expensive watch from a brand
that is not so famous you have to be confident. You don’t need
the security of people recognising the watch because of the brand.
That’s very important for us. Our customers have already bought
famous brands before. They have done Rolex, they have already
bought Cartier and now because they have the confidence to do
so, they are looking for something different.”
Experts and connoisseurs are known to have called him “the
Breguet of the 21st century”. The 18th-century Abraham-
Louis Breguet is considered the father of modern watchmaking.
Considered fine investments in the long term, Parmigiani’s
watches benefit when he does crazy one-off pieces, with limited
editions and bespoke pieces getting the best results. The famous
watch auctioneer Antiquorum has auctioned a dozen or so
Parmigianis. Christie’s has auctioned one in New York and four
in Hong Kong, and they have generally sold in the middle of
their price estimates.
Equating the brand to Patek Philippe and A Lange & Söhne
(Parmigiani produces 5,000 watches a year, compared to 900,000
units a year produced by Rolex or the 35,000 by Patek Philippe)
when it comes to attracting collectors, he says: “The new rich
look for the very famous, established brands. Rich people already
have everything. So they want to be different. For the moment,
they are our customers. I don’t mean they are our customers
forever. One day when we are famous we will belong to the
first category.”
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