atchmaking is not an industry of stops and starts. Like the gears that drive its movements, it evolves as a series of connections. Of course there have been critical points over the course of its history, some almost fatal and all forcing it to adapt: industrialisation in response to American productivism in the nineteenth century; mechanical’s comeback in the face of quartz technology in the twentieth century and, closer to home, the rising popularity of vintage versus smartwatches in the twenty-first century. Fundamentally, though, watchmaking in its classic acceptation has gradually and continually evolved along a path of filiation and transmission. Even beyond the examples of brands in the same family hands, there are innumerable natural “filiations”. Still today.

Throughout our conversations, one phrase came up over and over again, in different forms: “I just fell into it.” Almost every one of today’s master watchmakers talks about a childhood fascination with mechanisms, whether seeing a grandfather tinkering with alarm clocks in his basement workshop or a father, screwdriver in hand, bent over his bench. “It’s all we ever talked about at home,” they tell us. “To the point of arguing, even!”

“Passion” is a word too often heard in marketing, at the risk of becoming almost emptied of any real meaning. But no-one can deny that passion, true passion, is at the heart of this transmission between generations.

New generations

Watchmaking has arrived at a generational turning point. There are multiple reasons for this. It is reaching the end of a cycle that, let’s say, (re)began with the revival of the mechanical watch. Since then, transformed from tool to luxury object and status symbol, it has reclaimed its pre-eminence – in value, not in volume. It has embarked on all manner of mechanical and aesthetic extravagances, wondering perhaps where to go next. And then what happens? A new generation appears. A generation that sees things differently. A generation that looks over its father’s shoulder to its grandfather’s wrist. And likes what it sees. Vintage is all the rage.

Vintage shouldn’t be reduced to nostalgia for the bygone days of the tool watch. But it is a foundation on which to build, learning lessons from the past and from the cycle now reaching its end. All the better to move forwards. Sons and daughters learn from their fathers and mothers but the opposite is also true, as some of those we met confessed.

Regeneration

Each change of generation brings regeneration. Continuity but transformation, too. Something must change if nothing is to change.

On this note, Patek Philippe (a company now family-owned and in its third generation) invented a slogan that has become almost legendary. Possibly the most memorable watch advertisement ever. The watch is an object designed to be handed down – an inheritance – but it is equally a transactional object, a spiritual transmission, a way of seeing the world and an investment we hope to pass on to our descendants. An object that can “regenerate itself” from generation to generation.

A belief in the future.