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Even the most dedicated of watch collectors could be forgiven for not knowing the name Olivier Vaucher. But if you are only dimly aware of the current mania for métiers d’art, then you will be familiar with the work of his Geneva atelier. Over 47 years, his art dials have helped change the perception of what a watch face can be. Fancy a watch with hour markers of 12 tiny gold knights at their round table? He did that for Roger Dubuis. Or maybe you are more inclined to have a dragon entwined around the movement? He has created that for Richard Mille.
“I love working with Richard. He came to me saying, ‘I sold this watch from a drawing and now I have to make it,’” Vaucher says as we meet at his atelier. “We had to install a big new CNC machine equipped with ultrasound to do it.” Now in his early 70s, he is a striking-looking man. Tall and lean, he is blessed with handsome features that can still be described as chiselled, and hypnotic eyes somewhere between aquamarine and turquoise in colour that sparkle with enthusiasm.
The dreary office block in one of Geneva’s more unassuming suburbs that houses his workshops belies the polychrome abundance of beauty within. Every scrap of wall space is covered with renderings of and designs for some of the most memorable watches of the past few decades. It is like seeing old schoolfriends after many years.
A condition of our meeting was that I would observe the discretion of his clients, which range from fashion houses to centuries-old watch brands and include some of the most famous names in luxury and high watchmaking. Brands have specific requirements and different styles for their dials – yet all are made by the same hands. We walk past brightly lit workshops in which numerous pairs of said hands are engaged on intricate tasks, including gold micro-sculpting so detailed it requires the craftsmen to work at 10x magnification, and miniature enamel painting that – brushstroke after minuscule brushstroke – shrinks celebrated masterpieces until they fit onto the confined space of a watch dial. Everywhere there are engravers, goldsmiths, enamellers and jewellers going about their work with practised ease.
Vaucher acquired his métier at the engraving school in La-Chaux-de-Fonds. “There were only three of us in each year, with 12 students in total. I started my own business in 1978,” he says of a time defined by “skeleton movements”, which required elaborate engraving. “I worked a lot for Audemars Piguet, as back then they did not have an in-house engraver.” As time passed, a group of young artisans coalesced around him in his historic workshop near Geneva’s famous Jet d’Eau. “We worked in a very idealistic way,” he continues. “I wanted to break the codes and hierarchies of the traditional atelier. We shared everything and remained open to new ideas.”
Over years, this artisanal “commune” grew into the multidisciplinary atelier that bears his name today. “In 1995 we began making engraved dials, and dials with animated figurines that raise their arms to indicate the hours and minutes. Later, watchmaking houses like Corum and Piaget approached us and we gradually specialised in producing dials.” He pauses momentarily, lost in a memory. “For 30 years I worked with a burin in my hand,” he says.
He is obviously delighted at having a full order book, but also aware that he must retain the creativity and imagination that make his works so highly prized. It would be impossible to describe his work as a production line and he wants it to stay that way, keeping his craftsmen motivated and interested rather than just repeating themselves. “Making a big series of watches kills the métier,” he says.
He has his daughter’s marriage to thank for a new creative partnership. Her husband’s half-brother Olivier Gaud (39) worked as an executive at Richemont, with stints at Cartier and Vacheron Constantin. “I kept meeting Olivier and his wife Dominique at family gatherings,” says Gaud, “and they started talking about having their own watch on which they could display the atelier’s craziest projects. But they didn’t really have the time to devote to it. As soon as I left Richemont in 2021 to start my own brand, Oligo, I called Olivier to say that I had time to work on his dream project.”
As compact and businesslike as the other Olivier is tall and dreamily creative, Olivier Gaud may have a degree in business, but he is much more interested in explaining how a friend, who is a teacher at the school of watchmaking, taught him the craft over seven years of unofficial night school. “I’m basically a watch geek,” he says with evident pride. Of Olivier senior’s skills he adds, “In 47 years, he has created one of the best métiers d’art ateliers in Europe. He is always open and excited about new technology. Sometimes he can seem a bit naïve when it comes to business, but he has incredible intuition. We first spoke in June, and by September Olivier had found me space for a workshop within his atelier.”
The result is Taos: 10 watches (actual watches, not model lines) that are barely big enough to be called a brand. At time of writing, one watch had been sold and an order taken for a bespoke piece. Vaucher believes the real value of the project doesn’t lie in sales. “Taos enables us to explore uncharted territory and engage in concrete research, to keep pushing creative boundaries for our clients,” he says. Leaving artistic Olivier and his wife to create, executive Olivier sourced the rest of the watch. The case is made in Geneva. The movement comes from La-Chaux-de-Fonds, and an engraver spends between 80 and 150 hours transforming it into something worthy of fitting under a Vaucher dial.
Talk of engraving brings a wry smile to his face. It appears that recent days have been consumed with discussions between the two Oliviers about the depth and amount of engraving on a watch currently in production. By the look of mild frustration that passes over executive Olivier’s face, negotiations have not been going entirely his way. He shrugs fatalistically. “Part of my job is to try to constrain some of the more ambitious ideas,” he says. “And moments like this can be a bit challenging. Thankfully we have a good relationship.”
“I’m liable to wander down all sorts of creative avenues, but he always puts me back on the right track,” concedes artistic Olivier, diplomatically.
Not unpredictably, the dials are remarkable. One named Kaleidoscope is a mosaic of lapis lazuli, turquoise, tsavorite and engraved mother-of-pearl. Broderie is a dial on which hundreds of tiny strands of molten enamel are arranged to create an uncanny simulacrum of lace. My favourite, Euphorie, is literally, and figuratively, a firework display.
“This is a new technique we’ve developed – it’s layered paillonné enamel,” explains Gaud, referring to the carefully arranged flecks and filaments of gold and silver trapped between layers of transparent red enamel like prehistoric flies in amber. “It was a nightmare to reach the desired quality. Each time we fired a layer, the silver and gold paillons behaved differently at different temperatures. Each layer of enamel has to be fired at a lower temperature than the one before. And even if we finished a dial, Olivier might still reject it if he thinks it is too pink or too orange. Then we put the dial in acid to dissolve the enamel and start again.” He pauses, before adding stoutly: “We will not be doing that again.” Looking at the grin that appears on artistic Olivier’s face, I would not be too sure.
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