The health of the Swiss watch industry is judged not only by exports that soar from one record to the next, but also by the number of new brands founded by young designers and entrepreneurs. SWI swissinfo.ch speaks to members of this new wave of watchmakers. In the Vallée de Joux, western Switzerland, the watchmaking company Jaeger-LeCoultre has not forgotten Antoine LeCoultre and Edmond Jaeger, the founders of this prestigious luxury brand. In Geneva, Vacheron Constantin keeps alive the memory of its founders, Jacques-Barthélemy Vacheron and François Constantin. Abraham-Louis Breguet no longer leads Breguet, but his presence lives on. The great watchmaking classics are a product of the genius of young visionaries. Two centuries later, in the years 1990-2000, a cohort of new designers took over the watchmaking landscape: Maximilian Büsser of MB&F, Felix Baumgartner and Martin Frei of Urwerk, François-Paul Journe and Kari Voutilainen, to name a few independent watchmakers whose ...
