Reading
Louis Moinet, the inventor of the chronograph, was
born in 1768. To celebrate this 250th anniversary, and to coincide with the
summer solstice and its connotations of rebirth, Ateliers Louis Moinet are
making no fewer than four announcements at once: about timepieces made by the
firm, its heritage, and future developments. More details about the news
summarised here will be released in the coming weeks.
Announcement 1: Ultravox – Louis Moinet’s first ever
Hour-Strike
This is an outstanding development and a considerable investment for a
fully-independent firm which still produces only two timepieces a day – its
first Hour-Strike. This rare and highly technical complication here bears the
name Ultravox, and is based on a completely new movement, developed by the
illustrious watchmaker Eric Coudray. Featuring a completely new design that
reveals the entire movement, the timepiece will be unveiled for the very first
time on June 20, 2018.
Announcement 2: Louis Moinet is back in Bourges
On June 21, 2018, the City of Bourges, where Moinet was born, will have
its very own street named after the famous watchmaker. Two things make this a
particularly remarkable event. Firstly, the inauguration will be taking place
precisely on the 250th anniversary of Louis Moinet’s birth. Secondly, the
street in question is not merely in the town of his birth, but directly
adjacent to where he lived in the 1820s, running alongside his own home. 250 years
on, the house is still there, and has been formally identified by a college of
historians. Impasse Louis Moinet, unveiled in the presence of Bourges City
councillors, will thus be right where the inventor of the chronograph was born.
Announcement 3: The Louis Moinet digital museum
From the outset, Ateliers Louis Moinet have constantly undertaken to
restore the renown of the stupendous inventor Louis Moinet – painter, sculptor,
watchmaker, scientist, and author of the legendary Traité d’Horlogerie, a work of reference that remained an authority
for close to a century.
The authenticity of this undertaking is underpinned by the
reconstitution of Moinet’s heritage, of which his clocks and original copies of
his Traité are some of the foremost
examples. At their headquarters in Saint-Blaise, Neuchâtel, Ateliers Louis
Moinet have gathered together a sizeable collection, including a large number
of restored, functional timepieces. Now, for the first time in its history,
this completely unique heritage – the only one of its kind in the world – is
being made available online, free of charge and painstakingly documented.
Future acquisitions will gradually be added to this “Digital museum”. Although
it is not exhaustive, it is already the largest collection of authenticated
Louis Moinet objects in the world.
Announcement 4: a partnership with HEAD
Ateliers Louis Moinet are keen to see Louis Moinet’s legacy live on, as
it surely deserves to; to ensure this, they have entered into a partnership
with HEAD, the Geneva University of Art and Design. The partnership involves a
contest – with prize money of CHF 5,000 up for grabs – to get students thinking
about what the watch of the future might look like. The exact rubric for the
competition is as follows: “The traditional
Swiss watch is under threat from the digital watch. Devise a watch embodying
Swiss watchmaking values and offering a relevant answer to this challenge for
today’s market.” The results will be determined by a panel made up of
representatives from HEAD and Ateliers Louis Moinet, and will be announced in
autumn 2018.
***
About Louis Moinet
Ateliers
Louis Moinet was founded in Saint-Blaise, Neuchâtel, in 2004. The
fully-independent firm was established to honour the memory of Louis Moinet
(1768-1853): master watchmaker, inventor of the chronograph in 1816 (certified
by Guinness World RecordsTM), and pioneer in the use of very high
frequencies (216,000 vibrations per hour). Louis Moinet was a watchmaker,
scholar, painter, sculptor, and teacher at the School of Fine Arts – as well as
the author of Traité d’Horlogerie, a watchmaking treatise published in 1848 that remained a definitive
work of reference for almost a century. Today, Ateliers Louis Moinet is
perpetuating this legacy. The firm’s timepieces, produced in limited editions
only, have won some of the most coveted honours, including a Red Dot Design
Award (Best of the Best category), gold and bronze medals in the Chronometry
Competition, a Robb Report “Best of the Best” award, a “Chronograph of the
year” distinction from Begin magazine, Japan, and a recent UNESCO Award of
Merit. Louis Moinet creations often make use of unusual materials, such as
fossils and meteorites, combined with bespoke fine watchmaking complications in
a unique creative approach. The brand’s core values are creativity,
exclusivity, art and design.
