s the farmhouse-cum-workshop in Givrins comes into view, we’re reminded of a similar building, from where Jean-Claude Biver, at the start of his entrepreneurial career in the 1980s, brought Blancpain back to life. As though deep-down, his ambition has always been to become one of the paysans-horlogers; a “farmer-watchmaker” for the new century. Now with a brand that bears their name, at the age of 75 and 25, father and son are completely at home in a landscape of contemporary watchmaking that values craftsmanship above all.

This is a landscape that has been largely shaped by Biver senior, but the new venture won’t be a marketing mastodon with unlimited resources like Omega. It won’t break boundaries like Hublot nor venture into smartwatches like TAG Heuer. Rather, Biver watches will emphasise craftsmanship and superlative finishing. And there you have it: a man who has always moved with the times, Jean-Claude Biver is once again championing the thing watch enthusiasts want most.

He does so in a way that would not have been possible during his forty-year career to date, with a business that is independent… and family-owned: the common denominators of the most successful companies these past two decades.

Jean-Claude and Pierre Biver

Nicolas Righetti

Europa Star: Jean-Claude, after your many ventures and considerable successes, at a time when most people would be taking well-earned retirement, you surprised everyone with the announcement that you were launching a new brand, in a market that is already crowded with “new brands”. Do you feel you still have something to prove?

Jean-Claude Biver: Family is an essential aspect of the brand. Without that, I would never have embarked on this adventure.

Having my son alongside me fills me with the hope that I shall live long enough to see this project come to fulfilment through the Biver name.

Initially, I named the brand JCBiver but quickly dropped the JC to just keep Biver. There is a before and after JC at Biver! Because the future has just been born. My son tells me what shade the future will be. Biver is the association of youth and experience. “If youth knew, if age could”, so the saying goes. We are far stronger together. Having Pierre onboard convinced me to take the plunge. We share the same passion and I could see, feel, that his was a solid, structured passion. I also want to congratulate him on his modesty, which is a wonderful quality.

What about you, Pierre? Any pressure from your father?

Pierre Biver: Absolutely not. No pressure, no obligation. It was by capillary action. Watchmaking has been a part of my life from the moment I was born. It’s an opportunity few are given and I’m very fortunate. Do I deserve it? I honestly don’t know. Let’s say I’m doing my best to deserve it but I am still learning. It would never have occurred to me to set up my own brand, but working together on Biver watches, creating this brand together, with my father, having it grow and evolve, find its audience… that’s something else.

Any clashes?

PB: Very few. Even before we started working together, we almost never clashed, and when we do it’s usually because of our similarities. We’re very much alike, but the shared experience of creating a watch and a brand adds a touch of magic. Two worlds combine; on the one hand a laidback way of working and on the other, utter carnage! We all work together as a family, we discuss things, we have heated exchanges at the table, everyone pitches in.

JCB: We’re separated by not one but two generations. I was already 50 when Pierre was born. I kept telling myself, my God, I mustn’t be a grandfather to him, I must be his father! It was a wake-up call. I bought a sailing boat, a chalet, took up skiing again. I changed my lifestyle.

Although the new generation is genuinely interested in what previous generations have done.

JCB: The huge difference being that the notion of individuality, which defines a watchmaker, has disappeared or is threatened with extinction. It used to be that every brand had its owner, often father to son. Now we’ve gone from, say, 50 important privately-owned brands to a handful of giants.

PB: The independents are going the way of industry, yet we know the new generation isn’t one to compromise and groups fall foul of this rebellious side. At the same time, markets know how to adapt to this generation’s ambitions. It’s also true that young watch enthusiasts sometimes lack perspective. They still have a lot to learn. Their tastes become formatted.

JCB: The more powerful the groups become, the more independent brands there will be that can fill the gaps they leave.

PB: We’re a new business and, because we’re small, a flexible one. We’re free to do something entirely different, but this freedom implies responsibility. I feel responsible for every detail, because of this freedom.

Cased in a 39mm diameter, the Biver Automatique is the brand’s first three-hand automatic. This model is in platinum with a black sandblasted obsidian dial.

You sell Biver watches through brick-and-mortar retailers rather than direct to consumers. Is this a “new generation” choice?

JCB: When you’re a retailer and you’ve spent the past 50 years doing everything you can to be of service to this or that brand, and they come along and open a store two doors down, you wonder what happened to being grateful? What happened to respect? Out of gratitude and respect, I told my retailers “I want to launch my new brand through you” and their reply was “after everything you’ve done for us, we’ll return the favour and give you all the help we can.” People didn’t get it, they kept asking how we were managing in such an overcrowded market. You have the answer right there. The same is true of suppliers, who bent over backwards to help us. It all comes down to gratitude.

PB: My generation of watch enthusiasts know what they are buying and appreciate what’s behind it. Transparency is a virtue they share and that we also share. It goes hand-in-hand with gratitude. My two years at Phillips London helped me understand this mindset. I came away with a historical perspective of watchmaking, the realisation that collectors are extremely knowledgeable and a clearer understanding of the watch market and trends. Phillips communicates directly with its clients; it’s an entirely different way of doing business.

Biver watches are neo-classical in style. Is this something you both agreed on?

JCB: Our watches are neo-classical for the simple reason that this is the style of watch I like. I like its elegance, clarity, purity and timelessness.

PB: We make watches that reflect who we are. We’re complementary…

JCB: The lugs are his and the convex shape is mine!

PB: We combine our tastes… and we work with a designer who knows how to commit our ideas to paper.

JCB: His name is Philippe Girard and he’s the assistant to Mijat whom I’ve worked with for 50 years. Mijat designed all the Blancpain watches, then the Omegas, the Hublots, he influenced TAG Heuer and even had input for Zenith’s dials.

For its first collaboration, Biver partnered with Swiss artist Guillaume Ehinger for a unique Automatique, for the TimeForArt charity auction organised by the Swiss Institute in New York. The dial is hand-engraved with a rippling pattern, then covered with multiple layers of coloured enamel.

What made you hire a CEO?

JCB: First and foremost, to get everything organised. One of my biggest shortcomings is my lack of organisation. I’m more of a disruptor than an organiser.

PB (smiling): Like I said, “carnage”…

JCB: I hate nomenclatures, reference numbers, flows, but they are a necessary evil!

PB: James Marks is the CEO in question. I worked alongside him at Phillips, including on the Phillips Perpetual showrooms in London, and I’m delighted to be working with him again. James has given me so much, in human terms and with regard to the product, of course. Anything to do with the product, the creative side, that’s what really interests me. This experience also taught me a certain form of humility.

I can see why my father, at his age and with his experience, as the sole shareholder, doesn’t feel inclined to get involved with the management side and all the running-around that goes with it. As for me, I’m only 25 and still have a lot to learn. I’m not ready yet. James is actually the generation between my father and me. Someone who gives me time to grow and my father time to grow old. Someone who brings serenity.

JCB (laughs): Hey, don’t pension me off just yet!

Created for the Doha Jewellery and Watches Exhibition, in a tribute to the rich cultural legacy and traditions of the Arabian Peninsula, this Carillon Tourbillon Unique Piece by Biver displays different motifs on a coeur de rubis mineral dial.

On a completely different subject: Jean-Claude, you didn’t get into watchmaking “by capillary action”, you weren’t brought up on watches, were you?

JCB: For anyone growing up in a bourgeois family in France, Belgium or Luxembourg, it was traditional for a grandfather to gift his grandson a watch at the age of eight, for his First Communion…

Sébastien Agnetti

PB (interrupts, smiling): Not that old story again!

JCB (continues, unperturbed): Mine had the date and signature engraved on the back. I was allowed to wear it to church, then straight after the meal it was locked in the family safe and stayed there until my 18th birthday, when I could finally put it on. An Omega Constellation. At which point I went off on a skiing trip and lost it. My grandfather was shocked by such a lack of respect and I was punished. It remained a “stain on my character” until I saved enough to purchase an identical Constellation at auction – by which time I was 45 years old.

Anyway, you can imagine that at 20, I could see the appeal a watch had, I could see the emotional aspect but I still had everything to learn about watchmaking. After graduating from HEC [business school in Lausanne], I went to live in Vallée de Joux. I was out running one day when I bumped into Jacques Piguet. He introduced me to Georges Golay, who was the big boss of Audemars Piguet and a hugely important figure in the Vallée. Before hiring me, Georges Golay had me spend months with the watchmakers, sit next to them, observe them at work, sense the mood in the workshops, in their home life and communities, kick a football around with them. Needless to say, I learned a million things and more!

It was a rare situation. All my love and sensibility, all my success in this profession stem from him. That’s what it means to transmit something. The watchmakers also taught me about mushrooms, where to find morels: under silver firs, not red firs. I learned about wetland plants and about cheese. It shaped my profession as well as my life.

There’s a tendency to forget that Swiss watchmaking is also a culture, grounded in a natural and social environment.

JCB: Absolutely. I think I’m one of the last few individuals to have experienced this. And to have appreciated it, deep in my soul. I’m not sure you could say the same for all the young people who go straight from business school to a job with a multinational. The truth is, I’m processing the mistake I made by selling Blancpain. My therapy is to set up a company that’s similar in many ways, starting with the place Maison Biver calls home: a farmhouse in Givrins, surrounded by the same countryside, with cows grazing in the distance, a little train passing by…