ThePuristS Interviews Montres Delaloye

by Jack Forster

© April 2007

Montres Delaloye, a new watchmaking firm established by watchmaker Nicolas Delaloye and his brother Christophe, is a guardian of the values of traditional watchmaking. Nicolas Delaloye, born in 1970, is still relatively young but has accumulated an impressive resume of experience in the industry, and has taken the daring step of striking out on his own with his own manufactory, as well as an in-house movement, Calibre ND01s. This movement is housed in Montres Delaloye's "Garde Temps" line of men's watches.

Cal. ND01s. All steel parts black polished, all screws chamfered and black polished, hand-anglaged plates and bridges, unique design of the snail cam regulator, Breguet overcoil hairspring, large diameter screwed balance. Running in 22 jewels with a power reserve of 72 hours.

"Garde-Temps" men's watch

In addition, Montres Delaloye has introduced a line of women's watches, "Les Pleiades" :

in both plain gold and jeweled gold cases, housing a Felsa cal. 22 movement:

a s well as a chronograph, in a case with a hinged, decoratively enameled case back which opens to allow the owner to view the beautifully decorated and meticulously adjusted vintage Valjoux 71 column wheel movement within; one of the highest evolutions of classic chronograph design:

and the lovely Valjoux 71 movement and caseback:

I must say that the design of the Montres Delaloye cal. ND01s is right up my alley. With a design informed by both classic wristwatch and pocketwatch design, a large balance with overcoil, jeweled back to the barrel and meticulously hand finished this is classic watchmaking in its highest form, with every part the focus of unrelenting attention.

During the run-up to the annual fairs, getting a few minutes of any watchmaker's time is not an easy thing but Nicolas and Christophe Delaloye very kindly took the time to discuss their philosophy, features of their movement, and their AHCI candidacy with ThePuristS.com.

What was the inspiration for starting Garde Temps?

In deciding to create his own watches, Nicolas Delaloye is guided by a respect for traditions and uses all of the inheritance, genius and search for perfection of his past masters. He wants to transmit in the realisation of his own movement his skills and knowledge, and therefore continuing the outstanding tradition of the finest watch making in the world

Can you tell us a little about Nicolas Delaloye's background? I understand that he has worked for a number of haute de gamme manufacturers including Patek Phillipe and Roger Dubuis.

Having successfully obtained his watchmaking "rhabilleur" diploma from the Ecole d'Horlogerie de Genève, he is then employed during 3 years by one of the most famous watchmaking firms: Patek Philippe.

He begins in the department of "réglage et echappement", after this, he comes into his own in the workshop of high complications. He specialises on the chronographs calibres and perpetual calendars.

He participates in the start up of Roger Dubuis's firm in Geneva and becomes the workshop manager.

He joins François-Paul Journe where his know-how is called upon to develop a 'grande sonnerie'.

He returns to Patek Philippe as a qualified watchmaker. For over two years, he specialises on the 'rhabillage' of outstanding antique and rare pieces (1887 to date).

He gets involved in the start up of a new make, Cedric Johner (now Dewitt S.A.). His acquired skills are essentially used on complication pieces, such as tourbillons, minutes repeater and chronographs.

What experiences led you both in the direction of creating watches which are more traditional or conservative in design?

We estimate that traditional design translates the most our vision regarding our philosophy: The respect of traditions. We strongly believe that a traditional design will stay through the years to come. We really want to keep this traditional touch.

The movements in the "Garde Temps" watches are remarkably beautiful and give a first impression of practiced, elegantly simple watchmaking. Is the movement a new product as well, or a refinement of an existing movement?

It took 2 years for Nicolas Delaloye to create his own movement. From the plate to the bridges, all parts have been designed with a horological engineer. The case has been created as well from a wax ébauche.

What case materials are you using?

We only use pure gold 18 carats (red, grey or yellow gold) .

The watches you have shown thus far are elegant and formal; do you have any interest in a more casual or sport oriented line or will Garde Temps watches remain focused on finely finished traditional dress watches?

For the time we really concentrate to this line. We want to develop Garde-Temps but we want as well that this line is associated to our vision. We appreciate to produce watches that we really like and that we are proud to wear.

What are you most proud of in your introductory line of watches? The visible finish of your movements, which include refinements such as a black polished escape wheel cock, screwed down chatons for the jewel settings, wolf's teeth profiles for the crown wheel, and a whiplash fine regulator all speak to a commitment to the preservation of both traditional skills and traditional values.

W e are very proud of the movement in his entire finishing. All details have been carefully finished in order to preserve the traditional values. We really want to pay an extra care of all details around the watches as well. The presentation-case has been as well developed to respect our philosophy. We have worked as well with a talented web designer who was able to translate within our web site our visions with respect to our philosophy. Our web site is on line since 2 weeks under www.montresdelaloye.ch

Can you tell us a little more about the regulator? The design is very idiosyncratic, I can't think of any other current production watches using a snail-cam regulator.

It was my intention to develop a better design for the regulator. Instead to have"simple" screw acting on the pointer, I elected to design a snail cam that can be seen in antique watches.

The engraved movements are lovely, are they a standard production model or must they be individually ordered?

For the time they must be ordered individually. But we may propose this version as a standard production as this engraving seems to be much appreciated.

Will you seek ACHI membership, and will you be showing at Basel this year?

Yes we are very proud to be accepted as candidate for the AHCI and we will be showing at Basel the entire collection. We will present" Le Garde-Temps" line as well as ladies watches and 1 chronograph. We are very excited to show our work to the public and to customers for the very first time. We are very proud as well to be surrounded within the Academy by some very talented watchmakers. To see the work of the others is a huge motivation for us!

Congratulations, Montres Delaloye, and good luck!

Jack Forster for ThePuristS.com

All images courtesy Montres Delaloye

We welcome comments, suggestions, and corrections to this interview.

© April 2007 – Jack Forster and PuristSPro.com - all rights reserved