An Introduction to
Jaquet Droz
Jaquet Droz is a brand that produces some of the most artfully designed, masterfully crafted timepieces on the market.
An Introduction to
Jaquet Droz
Jaquet Droz is a brand that produces some of the most artfully designed, masterfully crafted timepieces on the market.
Known for their heightened design sensibilities, the brand’s foundation is squarely rooted in mechanical excellence above all else. Their history is as fascinating as the watches they produce, so without further ado, let’s take a deeper look at just what makes Jaquet Droz tick.
Beginnings
The brand’s namesake, Pierre Jaquet-Droz, was born on a farm in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, in 1721. He would go on to study philosophy at the University of Basel and theology at the University of Neuchâtel, with a clear path for the priesthood laid out before him. However, the young Pierre would stray from that path after a chance encounter with a group of relatives (from the Brandt-dit-Grieurin, Sandoz, and Robert families) that would steer him in a more horological direction.
These older relatives would help educate Pierre in the field of horology, giving him experience in watch and clock making that would eventually lead to him producing a series of grandfather clocks. His intent was to create movements within these clocks that outperformed and outmatched anything existing at the time, and by all accounts, he succeeded. He would go on to introduce elements like music to help his pieces transcend the mere notion of time telling, a theme carried through the brand to this day.
His skills would develop for him a reputation that would, down the line, lead him to produce pieces for King Ferdinand VI of Spain (on this project, he would bring in a young clockmaker named Jacques Gevril…yes, that Gevril). But it wasn’t just clocks that were produced by the team – they also produced fine mechanical pieces of art known as automata. In highly simplified terms, automata are essentially mechanically powered robots, the kind of thing you might see in Martin Scorsese’s Hugo (or the book upon which the film was based). Several of these pieces have gone on to have a fame all their own, including a trio of life sized humanoid automata dubbed “The Writer,” “The Draftsman,” and “The Musician.”
By 1788, the brand, which had become a partnership with Pierre’s son Henry Louis and a friend named Jean-Frédéric Leschot, was at an all time high. They had three production workshops in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Geneva, and London, and were churning out some of the most complex and intricate mechanical timepieces and pieces of art the world had thus seen. It would, however, come to an end when, in 1790, Pierre Jaquet-Droz passed away, only to be followed by Henry Louis a year later.
A Modern Marvel
The brand remained dormant for the better part of 200 years when, finally, in 1989, they were revived. Investcorp, a company that owned such brands as Breguet and Ebel at the time, revived the name and launched a new line using some of the makers behind Breguet. In 1994, Breguet and Jaquet Droz went independent with some of Investcorp’s leading members, and then the biggest change in April 2000 when those two brands made their way into the hands of the Swatch Group.
Swatch Group is the owner of some of the most powerful and influential brands in modern Swiss watchmaking, from Hamilton to Omega, and now under their roof were two of the brands with some of the richest heritage in horology. For Swatch Group, the goal was to reinforce that heritage but in a way that echoed the modern world the brand found itself in. One of the first steps: relocate the brand to the very building in La Chaux-de-Fonds that started it all for Pierre Jaquet-Droz in 1738 (though they have since moved a little bit away to a building next to Greubel Forsey). The team running the reborn brand was made up of younger, more visionary people, who saw the heritage of the brand as the foundation upon which to build something that was unlike what other brands were doing. They showcased this in 2002 at Baselworld with a collection that surprised, intrigued, and embodied the work of the brand of old. This continued in 2003, when they introduced pieces that reinvented some of the original pocket watch designs and brought in techniques like enamel dials to heighten the artistic nature of their timepieces.
Gallery
