fiogf49gjkf0d
By Roberta Naas
There are watch factories that produce thousands of watches a year – thanks to hundreds upon hundreds of employees, engineers, scientists and watchmakers. Then, there is the small, exclusive Montblanc watch factory in Villeret that began as Minerva. Here, every single piece of every single watch movement is made by hand, polished by hand and assembled by hand. Even the hairsprings are made in-house by a couple of experts whose hands and eyes are so deft that they do this work with -- what they would have you believe -- ease. Just 250 watches are born out of this workshop a year – and all carry the name Minerva on the movement and Montblanc, Villeret on the dial.
The Minerva watch brand has roots dating back to the mid 1800s when, in 1858, Charles Ivan Robert and his brother Hyppolite purchased the factory in Villeret and began to create watches under the H. & C. Robert name. Two years later, however, the workshops and brand were re-named Minerva, after the Roman goddess of reason and war. The brand won multiple prizes and awards in the late 1880’s and was the first to launch several important movements and movement parts. In fact, since 1902, it has been building its movements and cases in house, and was well known throughout the 20th century as a leading watch maker.
In 2000, the company was purchased by an investor who squarely put the focus on haute horlogerie, bringing in the creative mind of Demetrio Cabiddu as the technical director. Richemont Group purchased Minerva in 2006, and later “gifted” it to the Montblanc brand. The Minerva name was changed to Villeret, reflecting the brand’s tiny hometown nestled in the Jura Mountains, and the name to be carried on the dial of the Montblanc watches made there. (Though the building carries the name: Institute Minerva de Recherché en Haute Horlogerie.)
Needless to say, Montblanc continued with the exclusivity of high-watchmaking done there. In fact, upon entering the workshops today, things look very much like they did 150 years ago. The tools of the trade are hand-run machines that yield traditional techniques of watchmaking.
“The success of Montblanc’s watches is due to the trust of our customers,” says Lutz Bethge, CEO of the company. “They have known our writing instruments for more than a hundred years, and they trust us. In watches, we needed to fulfill that trust, and we rose to that challenge by creating our own manufacturing competence both in our LeLocle workshops and with the Villeret collection – made entirely by hand.”
Indeed, everything (except the base plates and the dials) in Villeret is hand-made, cut, polished and finished. The watches are assembled there and decorated by hand by the skilled watchmakers and artisans. Whereas in many watch factories, a dozen or more CNC machines exist, along with a great deal of CAD equipment, at Villeret, just three CNC machines are used – strictly for the initial cutting of the base plates. Thereafter, everything – every screw hole, even --is made by hand using a traditional hand tools and machines, The making of a single screw hole in the base plate takes three to four different operations and takes hours to complete.
At Villeret, the experts even make their own hairsprings. A tedious and time-consuming job, making hairsprings sets this company apart. Essentially – a very top-secret alloy that the brand’s experts developed is created and spun in threads onto large bobbins. The bobbins are then placed on machines and the operators of those machines stretch and stretch the alloy to get it incredibly thin. Ultimately, four strands of thread are then hand-wound into the initial spiral that will be set onto the balance wheel. One person is responsible correctly setting the spiral to the proper regulating speed, and for cutting the spring at the precisely right spot for optimum performance.
All of the parts of the movement are not only made in house but completely finished by hand. In fact, it can take a week to properly angle the surfaces of the components. Then one watchmaker assembles the components into the finished movement, which is assembled twice due to quality control standards. The making of a Villeret ExoTourbillon caliber can take as long as six to seven weeks to build. With just about 35 employees on premises to create the watches, only about 250 are built annually for worldwide distribution in select Montblanc boutiques.
“You always have to aspire to something to move to the next level,” says Bethge. “What we do here is artisanal – we don’t want to make thousands, we want to make exclusive numbers – and do it with traditional craftsmanship.”
Villeret also has a custom watch department, much like Montblanc’s custom writing instrument program, wherein consumers can order precisely the watch of their dreams – as long as they can wait a year for its completion.