Independent watchmaking

There is no legal definition. The AHCI sets its members against the large luxury groups that have industrialised watchmaking, and says its mission is to perpetuate the art of independent watch and clock making.¹

Wikipedia gives the academy’s criteria as watchmaking skill and the independent development and production of a maker’s own creations, and notes that a member need not be a watchmaker by profession; it counts scientists and engineers among them.³

The word is used in two senses. The AHCI uses it for individual makers working outside the big groups; Works in Progress applies it to whole houses, such as Rolex, Patek Philippe and IWC, that stayed outside the groups.^1, 5

The AHCI was founded in 1985 by Svend Andersen and Vincent Calabrese, as an association under Swiss law.^2, 3

The academy says Andersen, born in Denmark in 1942, worked for Gübelin and spent almost a decade in Patek Philippe’s workshop for grand complications before delivering pieces of his own from 1980, and calls Calabrese, born in Naples in 1944, self-taught.^6, 7

It says its founders appealed to the watchmaking journals in 1984, showed in summer 1985 at the watch museum in Le Locle, and took the academy’s name at the Basel fair of 1987, with twelve watchmakers of six nationalities; it names among the early members Bernhard Lederer, George Daniels, Christophe Claret, Franck Muller and Dominique Renaud.²

Wikipedia describes the way in: two members must propose a candidate, who then shows work at three public exhibitions over at least two years, and is admitted by a unanimous vote of the general assembly.³

The academy says it counts 36 members, 6 candidates and 18 former members from 16 countries, and that its members have won 27 prizes at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève.²

An independent may make nearly everything himself. The AHCI says each of George Daniels’s watches took about 2,500 hours; for his wristwatches of 1999 his workshop made the case and dial and Charles Scarr in Clerkenwell did the engraving, the Science Museum Group record says.^4, 8

Philippe Dufour, trained at the watchmaking school of the Vallée de Joux, bought a fully equipped workshop in 1978, the AHCI says.⁹

Others grow into small firms. Roger W. Smith’s company says it began in a converted bedroom at Ballaugh on the Isle of Man in 2001, took on its first employee in 2003 and makes about twenty watches a year.¹⁰

Some begin with bought movements and move to their own. Smith’s company says his Series One used a Swiss ébauche with a lever escapement, and that his Series Two of 2005 had his own movement with Daniels’s co-axial escapement.¹⁰

François-Paul Journe began designing his own wristwatches in 1994 and presented a collection under his name in Geneva in 1999, the AHCI says.¹¹

In Germany, the AHCI says Marco Lang founded Lang & Heyne in Dresden in 2001, and in Glashütte Christine Hutter founded Moritz Grossmann in 2008.^{12, 13, 14}

In Japan, the AHCI lists Hajime Asaoka of Tokyo and Masahiro Kikuno of Hokkaido among its members.^15, 16

In Britain, Smith’s company says he co-founded the Alliance of British Watch and Clock Makers in 2020, the year Isle of Man stamps honoured John Harwood, Daniels and Smith; the earlier industry is told under Britain’s watch industry.¹⁰

The academy ties its members to charity sales: it says the watches they made for Only Watch in 2021 raised CHF 6,760,000 for research into muscular dystrophy.^2, 17

Smith’s company reports that his Pocket Watch No. 2 set a record for a British watch at a Phillips auction in 2023; the wider market is told under the mechanical revival and the independents.¹⁰