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First of all, I would like to understand how the idea of showcasing ’Rare Handcrafts’ in an exhibition came about?
When we were in Basel, we noticed people were always wanting to see those rare handcrafts, but we displayed them inside our booth, so it wasn’t easy for people to see them. It was the same for the fair in Geneva – just a few people were able to see these rare pieces all together. And, of course, then we were selling them direct to collectors, which meant even fewer people could see them. So, we thought, now we are back in Geneva, and we have our store, a place where we can exhibit them, why don’t we do it for everybody? It was really a request from the public, from our customers.
We thought we’d try one and see what happens, and if it’s successful, then we will continue. It was a huge success. So, we decided to do it every year and took it to Geneva, then Paris, and now London. The exhibition is above the store, where we have a beautiful space. It’s always a bit complicated for Adrian Lurshay [managing director at Rhône Products, Patek’s UK distributor] and I to locate the watches, but I don’t mind going to the trouble when you see the excitement on people’s faces when they see these rare pieces.
Of the 83 pieces, which model was the most difficult to produce?
All of them. They are all difficult to make because at every stage in the making of those pieces, you have challenges. Using enamel is a challenge. Every colour has to be cooked differently and remember some of those pieces need to be fired over 20 times, which could cause bubbles. When you engrave a piece, it’s the same. You make a mistake and then the piece is ruined. When you have, for example, a polisher who is going to polish it at the end, he can also mess it up and the piece needs to be redone. So, I cannot tell you which one is the most difficult. I think all of them together are very complex.
If I was to choose one, maybe the dome clock. When you look at them, you can see they have the dome plus the three plates around it. When you are working with enamel, those plates have to go in the oven and they’re going to morph a little bit, which makes things difficult for the jeweller who’s going to have to fit them inside the cage, which isn’t easy because they often don’t fit perfectly after firing. So, he must rebuild or to redo the whole frame to adapt it to those plates. And if you’re trying to twist those plates, you could break the enamel. So, it’s very sensitive work. The shape of the clock also presents a challenge. Imagine what happens to enamel when you paint it on a dome – the paint is going to travel down the dome. So, it’s a whole technique which is very complex but one we have studied to work out how to paint this shape.
We are also making these design more complicated every year by mixing techniques now. So, for example, it’s not only enamel, but also guilloche inside. Then you add diamond setting or engraving. It is an amazing thing to be able to bring together the different skills of passionate people to make one single beautiful piece. However, this isn’t that simple because not every artist is easy to work with. They have strong characters; they have their own vision about the product. So, I need to be there to say, ‘I understand you, I know the technique, but I have my own vision. Trust me’. You must gain their respect to do that, and it takes years.
I also enjoy this part of the business and I don’t care about the figures here. I care about the beauty of the piece. This represents, I don’t know, maybe one to two percent of the income of Patek yearly. It’s not major, but in terms of know-how, in terms of what Patek Philippe stands for and its credibility, this is so important. This is the difference, I think, between a family-owned company and a big group. Some of the big groups have been doing it since many years. But they stop and start. Then they realise it’s not that easy, and that you don’t earn money creating these complex pieces, so they stop again. At Patek, need to do it, it’s part of our identity.
While examining the exhibition of dome clocks, I noticed some secret initials on certain pieces, while others do not have any. Could you tell me how many skilled enamellers you have?
They are all skilled. However, whether there is a signature or not very often depends on how long the enameller in question has been working with Patek. Some of the oldest enamellers used to sign all the time. Some others, the newer ones, they don't sign because they are not ready, not yet. These are people who don’t work at Patek because they all come under the name ‘Patek Philippe’, it is the people outside, who have their own ateliers who can sign. Depending on if they are good or not! It's part of a tradition and there really are no hard and fast rules.
What kind of difficulties do you encounter when allocating such rare products to the collectors?
It’s a big difficulty. This is why we never take orders straight away. We will do the presentation, and retailers will come and have a look, or, if they don’t have time to come, they can also look through the catalogue. I always ask them to put the name of the client behind a piece, not the name of the retailer. If I know who the client is I can check them out and ask the distributor in that area to run checks. Then we will decide in Geneva to who we are going to allocate it to. We often have up to 100 names, depending on the piece, so we must know that person is legitimate.
We also look at whether they were allocated a piece last year, because I don’t want to sell to the same person every year, and we take into consideration which markets had more allocations the year before. We try to find somebody new and to be fair with every market. If UK had a lot of them last year, I may say this year they will have a little bit less and I will help Germany or Italy. I just try to have a right balance. But there is no perfect equation. It doesn’t exist.
But besides the salons and the museum, have you kept just one for yourself?
I would love to, but I can’t. Because then, which one first? In a way, it is what I am doing with the museum. I keep it for myself, but I put it in the museum, and I can see it but so can everyone else. I do have one dome clock at home. It’s a beautiful one and it’s certainly one of the most complicated we ever did. But it cracked, so I couldn’t sell it. The crack is very tiny, but still it wasn’t something we wanted o sell. So, I kept it for me.
How long does it take to prepare the whole Rare Handcrafts exhibition pieces?
All together can take up to three to four years. Between the time where you have the idea, you do the design, you validate the design, and then you start the production. I would say it’s a minimum three years. I’m already working for 2028. You have to plan it way in advance because it takes time. And it’s not just logistics. For example, the bracelet watches might need redoing Sometimes I won’t agree on a watch because the quality of the dial was not perfect and that has to be redone. None of them will go out if I believe it’s not at the level people expect from us.
Finally, I would like to mention the Baccarat collaboration. Is it something that will happen again in the future?
I don’t know. It was a fun thing to do. We approached Baccarat with the idea of a collaboration, and it worked for a time but then we stopped. Baccarat’s leadership has changed and it’s not as though we lost contact, but we didn’t know the new person and we also had a lot of in-house ideas we wanted to work on. But this could be something we could do again. Why not?
