Craft tradition with the heart in the right place.

Text: Britta Rossander

In the Swiss mountains a careful development of a cult-declared watch brand is going on. Bovet used to make 2 000 watches a year but has cut down to 800 in order to be able to satisfy the collectors' longing for unique watches. On the design side they have had an exclusive collaboration with Pinifarina and the watches from Bovet are collector's items long before they leave the atelier in the castle in Môtiers. Eqotime’s Britta Rossander tells more.

Brilliant businessman, watch nerd and with a big heart. That is how you can describe Bovet’s owner Pascal Raffy. A passionate watch collector who retired at the age of 36 after an extremely successful career in the pharmaceutical sector. The retirement became a short parenthesis in Raffy's life though, since on a friend's advice he took a look at and fell head over heels for the uncut diamond Bovet.  

Pairs of pocket watches

The Swiss watchmaker Edouard Bovet founded the brand in England in 1822. This was when the business along the silk road was flourishing and there was great demand in Asia for extravagant handmade pocket watches. Edouard travelled there to sell his beautifully decorated watches.

The earliest watches had hand-painted dials and were delivered in pairs. The reason for that was that if one watch had to be returned to Europe for repair (which could take months) the customer would have one left to use. The head office was in England but the watches were made in Fleurier, Switzerland, where they continued to be produced until the end of the 1930s.

Bovet for sale

In the year 2000, when Raffy learned that Bovet was for sale, the two men who owned the brand were working out of a small atelier in Geneva. They bought components and assembled roughly 140 watches a year.

– I listened to them, promised not to make more than 4 000 watches a year and there is a long way to go to that. I hurry slowly and am true to the genuine Bovet soul with unique and exclusive examples. Collectors do not want what everybody else has, Pascal told me when I was visiting the castle.

– I decided that Bovet's watches should be able to bear being very expensive and always be worth their price. We would go back to the roots of the 19th century with in-house production and make all the parts ourselves.

Bovet's latest model – Récital 26 Brainstorm Chapter Two (Brainstorm Chapter One came in 2019) resembles the Récital 22 Grand Récital, from 2018 which received the Aiguille d’Or (the grand prize) at the GPHG the same year.

Récital 26 Brainstorm Chapter Two

Chapter Two is a little different, it has a focus on the display of time zones and a more ”open” look for the various displays than its award-winning relative.

The case is made of synthetic sapphire with the exception of the lug attachments and the ring on the back which are in titanium. Sapphire is very light, lighter than titanium, so despite its large diameter and thickness (47.80 mm and 15.50 mm at the thickest point) it is light on the wrist. The case has, just like its predecessor, a sloping shape so that the reading should be as easy as possible, which is ingenious.

The display and the composition of the visible functions is different, which is Bovet’s signature. To begin with it has an eye-catching transparent blue dial at 12 o'clock that shows the time, at 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock sit two rotating domes. One for moon phase and one for a second time zone. The moon phase is shown for both the northern and the southern hemisphere, very handsome but nothing you really need.

The disc with the moon phase display has stars in the ”moons” and rotates one turn per month with one day's error in 127 years. And at 6 o'clock a flying tourbillon is placed which also shows seconds.

Limited luxury

They will good make 60 examples of the movement divided into 10 with a dial in blue quartz (as in the pictures). 10 with a dial in green quartz and 10 with a dial in aventurine (a favourite material for Bovet). That leaves 30 movements and they are in all probability reserved for Bovet's faithful collectors who want to put their own stamp on the watch they are going to buy. An exclusivity that is a really good example of real luxury.

The calibre for Brainstorm Chapter Two with a five day power reserve is made entirely in the Bovet 1822 workshop. The price is staggering. 383 000 dollars, but not unusually high for this type of watchmaking with such low production numbers and costly manufacture with not only assembly but all finishing and engraving done by hand up under the roof of the castle.

A little Bovet history

1797 Edouard Bovet is born in Fleurier, as the son of Jean-Frédéric Bovet, master watchmaker in Fleurier.

1818 he left London to go on board the East Indindiaman Orwell (which was launched the year before) on 20 April and arrived on 16 August in Canton in China. Once there he quickly sold four cooks for the then breathtaking sum of 10 000 CHF (= one million dollars today).

1822 he lives in Canton and together with the brothers Alphonse and Frederic, who lived in London, and Gustave, watchmaker in Fleurier, he starts a company with the purpose of trading with China. It is now that their watches become known for their outstanding decorations in jewellery enamel that the rich Chinese men could not resist.

1835 the castle Château de Môitiers in the canton of Neuchatel (built in the 15th century) was sold to Henri-François Dubois-Bovet.

1855 the company wins a gold medal at the Paris exhibition for an identical pair of watches ordered by the Chinese emperor.

1901 the business is sold at auction in Paris to Leuba Frères for 100 000 gold francs.

1918 it was sold on but was bought back by the Bovet family in the 1930s.

1948 it slipped out of their hands and two years later the watch production ceased and the brand became dormant.

1957 the Bovet family donates the castle to the canton of Neuchâtel.

The 2000s

2001 Pascal Raffy buys Bovet

2006 the authorities in Neuchâtel look for a new owner for the castle since the maintenance costs had risen over their heads. Pascal Raffy was the only interested party capable of securing a long-term preservation and could thereby let Bovet return.

Pascale Raffi had the assembly and engraving move into the castle. There is of course no problem having production there today since there are modern means of transport. Earlier the castle up on the mountain was inaccessible for large parts of the year. The new bright workshops fulfil all the quality criteria for the watchmakers who work with the best conditions that exist. Raffi lives periodically in a part of the castle and outside the big door stands a gleaming Rolls Royce that without any problem handles the narrow bends on the winding mountain road.