Michel Parmigiani founder of the independent watch company that bears his name...

1. Describe briefly your childhood.

As a child and teenager, I was curious. I was interested in a multitude of things and a multitude of things were challenging me. What I loved the most of all was playing hooky 😊

I was in my own world, completely immersed in nature and everything around me. I loved going to the forest and the marsh near my house. It was my playground, a tireless playground because every day I discovered something new there. I was lucky to live in a small village of barely 4000 inhabitants. I love and continue to love this closeness to others. It's completely paradoxical in these times when a new vocabulary has become part of our daily lives - "social distancing".

I have been very lucky to be close to people for whom nature was already, at the time, a rare commodity that needed to be protected. In my home village of Couvet, there was the Biolley forest, which in 1890 was one of the first in Switzerland to become a natural garden centre. I was proud to come from such a small village but where people already realised the importance of nature around us.

I have also always been fascinated by ancestral trades. I remember this craftsman who used to repair damaged mattresses, and when I went to see him, there was this cloud of wool revolving around him as if they were one. I was getting rich from everything; I was just very curious and observant.

2. As a child did you have any driving ambition?

I don't know if we can talk about ambition, but I had this need to do something with my hands. I loved to tinker. I was passionate about models. I came from a modest family and in my spare time, I made my own model aeroplanes with pine and balsa wood. Oh, they were mostly gliders, the engines were far too expensive, but my gliders flew. Beside gliders I also made my own boomerangs. Yes, you could say that I was passionate about everything that flew. Already at that time, I liked to touch the material and make it a mirror of my imagination. I didn't yet know what I was going to become later, but I knew very clearly that it was towards a manual and design job, that my desire would guide me.

3. What is your first significant memory as a child?

Oh, there are so many of them! However, there is one that comes to me now.

I remember a perilous climb up a waterfall with my bare hands that still gives me the chills today. We were exploring caves with our friends and it was an adventure - the camaraderie! That too is a great memory, we were good partners with the other boys of the village, mutual help and nonsense was always done in a group.

Another memory, perhaps less funny but unfortunately still just as topical, is racism. I was the "piaf" as they say. My father and my mother were both of Italian origin and although I was born in Couvet, nothing helped, I was a foreigner, it was branded with a hot iron. It was a complicated time, I lived through the "Schwarzenbach" era, a Swiss extreme right-wing party (based in Zurich). As a foreigner, I had to work twice or even three times as hard as the others to show that I could get by and be somebody, I had to exist in spite of the label of being a foreigner.

My father was a precision mechanic, a stamp maker. My mother was a seamstress. She made made-to-measure suits for gentlemen but also for people with disabilities who couldn't get dressed in standard shops. It's funny, my youngest daughter Léa is the spitting image of my mother both physically and in her choice of career. At times, I have the impression of seeing my mother as Lea. The fine facial features, this same passion for sewing, custom-made, drawing, many things bring me back to my mother. She was self-taught, she made her own sewing patterns. She was gifted at drawing, Léa is just as gifted. We are all in our own way, the heirs, and guarantors of any inheritance.

4. Have you ever had another profession?

No, I have never worked in anything other than watchmaking. I was lucky enough to be able to attend school without having to work alongside it. Once my watchmaking training was finished, I started working as a watchmaker-restaurateur in a small workshop in the region.

5. What made you decide to go in the direction you are currently in?

It is curiosity and observation of nature and the environment. I am still amazed by what nature brings us. Just look at what she can offer us. When we see the beauty of crystals or amethysts, we tell ourselves that we are very small next to her and her beauty. Isn't that wonderful?

Another profession that has long fascinated me and still fascinates me is architecture. I hesitated for a long time between the two, but at the time, architecture schools were far away and less easy to get to. So, it was watchmaking that won the day because I lived in a watchmaking region.

6. What’s the worst job you’ve had to do?

I wouldn't say it was the worst job, it was more about when and how. Starting my activity in adversity was very complicated because I had a very clear idea of the watchmaking profession and mechanics. Let's not forget, I started during the quartz crisis, watchmaking was by far not or no longer, a buoyant sector, on the contrary, we were running away from it. The banks were running away from it too. That's what was the hardest for me, going to against the current and with all that it implies. We were in an industrialisation of the watchmaking tool, and manual mechanical watchmaking takes and demands time. You must educate your hand, your way of seeing and anticipating things. Errors are quick and sometimes costly.

Watches are mechanical art, like a beautiful steam locomotive. It describes the kinematics and dynamics of movement, of gesture. It's the same in traditional watchmaking, everything is driven by the hand of the craftsman.

7.  What’s been the hardest moment in your life so far, and how did you overcome it?

There have been several of them, but we have always moved forward with my wife. I can't name just one because all of them were important in our life's journey, but we held on because we believed in ourselves. I say we because I lived this adventure as a family. My wife Monique has always been at my side. When I was in my workshops, she took care of our three children. We started from a distance, as I told you, the fact that we embarked on this adventure during the quartz crisis, our adventure was not easy. There were some very hard times when just feeding our family was a real challenge. Every penny was important. 

8. Who has had the strongest influence on you?

There have been a few, several even. But my clients have always been the ones who gave me the most strength and courage when I had the least. They believed in me, in my know-how and in my philosophy and vision of mechanical watchmaking, which was an art watchmaking.

There was another who meant a lot to me, Mr Marcel Jean-Richard - known as - Bressel. He was a great watchmaker and clockmaker. He made table clocks and pocket watches. I worked alongside him before going into business for myself and he was he who bequeathed me his knowledge but also his conviction that mechanical watchmaking would never die as long as there were enthusiasts and lovers of it. He was already of an advanced age when I was his collaborator, so he entrusted me with several of his works for private clients but also for watch brands that are still part of our watchmaking landscape. Like my parents, he also passed on to me a sense of observation, commitment, and involvement in everything I undertook.

9. What are you most proud of?

My children of course.

The three of them knew how to grasp what they were passionate about and make it their profession.

My eldest daughter, Anne-Laure, works alongside me. She is an engraver, watchmaker, and diamond gemmologist. My son, Nicolas, is a freelance landscape gardener. As for my daughter Léa, she has decided to fully launch her activity as a designer of clothing and fashion accessories. She perseveres despite the hard times and an activity sector that is always complicated for any new designer. My wife and I have always encouraged them to fight for what they want to do, like most parents do for their children. All we want is their happiness.

10.  What advice would you give to a 20 something someone thinking of taking a similar path as you?

It may seem paradoxical, but he'll have to do one or more business management courses (laughs)! Between will, knowledge and power, there are many stages and it still doesn't go hand in hand with the arts and crafts world. It's about knowing how to make a dream come true so that it doesn't remain just a dream.  Curiosity is what has always animated and driven me. I would say to all those who embark on an activity of any kind, it is to show curiosity, rigour, and a bit of madness too. But above of all REMAIN HUMBLE.

11.  Name three things on your bucket list. 

Satisfy my curiosity about Egypt. I would like to deepen my knowledge on the subject. I have long been fascinated by Greco-Roman history and art, but I have not yet taken the time to study this parenthesis of human history as I would have liked.

When I was younger, I would have liked to go to a school like no other to learn the watchmaker's trade. I still dream of a school that could approach work and the reflection of the object from another angle of what we are used to doing. Sharing to what extent the value that is given to any object, whether it is created from scratch or restored, is the value of the hand of man, that is what gives it all its uniqueness and preciousness. I would like to see watchmaking one day be considered as art.

The third thing on my list is to take the time. Time has become a luxury that fewer and fewer people can afford. I want to offer it to my wife and me, as well as to our family.

12. Where do you think the industry is going to be in 10 years’ time?

It's complicated to say where it will be in 10 years. Where will we be in 3 years? I nevertheless think that industrialisation will continue to develop through robotisation. Many tasks will be replaced by the robot's precision and speed. On the other hand, the human hand will always bring a unique finish to a part. Automation will certainly continue to take up more space, but it will not replace everything. I even hope that there has been a certain awareness and that jobs that are doomed to disappear will not be. This pandemic has allowed us to slow down and reflect, at least I hope so. This nature that is so beautiful is suffering and we are the ones who make it suffer. By rarefying the products, we are also preserving knowledge and skill. 

 To learn more about Michel Parmigiani