Take a view on a creative trail blazed by one of the most outstanding contemporary microbrands.
The tangible increased interest in complicated mechanical watches since the 1990s through to the mid-2010s gave a number of watchmakers the push they needed to set up their own niche ateliers. Almost none of them were industry newcomers without any solid experience working for famous watch companies.
One of the most impressive new arrivals who stands out from the crowd of fresh microbrands is Ludovic Ballouard — a master and inventor of unconventional ways to display the time. The idea of an original display is hardly a recent invention. Since the advent of mechanical watchmaking, these watches were more often than not seen as a way of entertaining the client, who would be invited to purchase a watch that wasn't just a practical instrument for telling the time, but a an exquisite mechanical curiosity, a casket full of wonders.
In museums and private collections, you can find many of these kinds of pieces from different periods of history through to modern masterpieces. There's still a demand for the exotic and unconventional, and it's intensified considerably in recent years. It seems the main problem watchmakers have, especially independent watchmakers, is not being able to come up with an original idea to encase in metal, something unique and unheard of which sets their watches apart from the authorship of both big companies and the rest of the go-it-alone watchmakers.
Ludovic Ballouard managed to do just that, and on more than one occasion. Ballouard is of French descent, born in Brittany in 1971, which is where he began studying watchmaking. The 1990s were hardly the best years for the French watchmaking industry, which, by the way, still isn't in great shape today. Ballouard decided to move to Switzerland, where the watch business boasted excellent performance indicators, and France was viewed as a suitable source of skilled watchmakers.
Ludovic Ballouard stands behind the assembly of the extremely complicated F. P. Journe Sonnerie Souveraine
He arrived in Geneva in 1998 where he began working at the company Franck Muller, but left three years later for a new job at another of Geneva's famous manufacturers — the company F. P. Journe. Ludovic Ballouard's seven-year career at François-Paul Journe's watch manufacture has to be acknowledged as successful, culminating in the assembly of the extremely complicated Sonnerie Souveraine watch with a minute repeater and grande sonnerie chiming mechanism with a movement that consists of 408 parts.
Working at the watch manufacture was problematic for the inventive watchmaker with his creative sense of imagination, where he would never be able to bring his own ideas to life, no matter how promising and appealing they seemed to him. Enterprises like the François-Paul Journe manufacture have their own priorities to pursue, which in this case meant bringing Journe's own ideas and inventions to life. There are many watchmakers who accept that's just the way things work, and they make the best of it, but that wasn't good enough for Ludovic Ballouard. That's why he decided to leave in 2009 to pursue his own projects.
He must have been planning it for years, as he seemed to have already had many things well thought out and calculated in advance. This is the conclusion we come to if we consider the fact that he only began working independently in May 2009, but he was ready to present his first Upside Down watch to the discerning public by December.
The thing is that it's extremely rare for a watch to be created from scratch within less than a year, and that's exactly what we're talking about here. This process is usually drawn out over a number of years, especially when it comes to unique complicated mechanics that haven't been designed or actually tested out in real life before. From a business point of view, Ludovic Ballouard admittedly picked a tricky time to set up his own independent company.
The world was in the grip of an economic crisis, and as a rule, the traditional clientele of luxury watch brands are usually busy trying to overcome the problems that arise as a result of the crisis at times like these. Ludovic Ballouard saw the opposite in this crisis — he saw new opportunities. In his own words, he drew inspiration from the 2008 financial crisis, and while everyone else was talking about falling numbers, he thought that if the numbers could be turned upside down it would be enough to survive.
The watchmaker began working independently in May 2009, but he was ready to present his first Upside Down watch to the discerning public by December
This is of course just an imaginative interpretation of what his first project was essentially about, yet it's a memorable and fitting description of how the mechanical Upside Down watch works. Its mechanics are unique, which was something the watchmaking community recognized straight away.
There are two hands on the watch dial, a minute hand and a small seconds indicator (some models don't have a second hand, which only serves to enhance the watch in my opinion), while the role of the hour hand has been taken over by the markings on the watch scale depicted on round rotating disks.
It’s easy to tell what the current hour is — it's the only numeral that's right-side up while all the other numeral disks are turned upside down. Ludovic Ballouard made it even easier to read the hour by adding an indicator-dot that's only visible beside the current hour, while dots beside the rest of the upside-down numbers remain obscured by the bezel.
Ludovic Ballouard was accepted as a candidate for the Académie Horlogère des Créateurs Indépendants (AHCI) in 2014, and became a full member in 2015. As dictated by the rules of independent watchmaking, Ludovic Ballouard's movements are created to amaze those who appreciate the art of watchmaking with a deliberate and even excessive level of complexity.
The serially produced ETA caliber 7001 which was used as the base was modified until it was essentially unrecognizable to create two or three standard forms of watch movement indicators. The Peseux 7001 is a compact, very thin movement, which is probably exactly why Ludovic Ballouard chose it. Its biggest drawback is probably that it isn't automatically wound, but that's perfectly excusable for a collector's watch.
The Caliber B01 movement in the Upside Down is seriously complicated, assembled from 228 parts including 51 jewels. What's probably more important is that it has a very complicated appearance. You only need to turn the watch over and take a glance at the movement through the watch’s carefully set sapphire crystal caseback to see why.
Most impressive of all are the twelve wheels shaped like Maltese crosses studded around the perimeter of the movement, which are responsible for turning the disks with the hour markings. Ludovic Ballouard played with the idea of how to indicate the hour again in his second watch called Half Time, cleverly moving the markings on the hour scale.
It's a similar idea, but the Half Time dials look nothing like the Upside Down models that he first designed. The Caliber BO2 movement in the Half Time watch is once again based on the Peseux 7001, which Ballouard assembled from over three hundred components including 53 jewels.
Again, peering through the sapphire case back, the movement doesn't look anything like a plain manually wound caliber without any bells and whistles. It's quite the opposite, everything about it screams that this is a complicated movement, and the B02 Caliber bears a strong resemblance to the intricate arrangement in a chronograph.
Ludovic Ballouard played with the idea of how to indicate the hour again in his second watch called Half Time, cleverly moving the markings on the hour scale
Nevertheless, this is another watch with minimal functionality. It doesn't even have small seconds, just a retrograde hand set on a half-circle to indicate the minutes and another rather cleverly integrated way of indicating the hours with two disks rotating in opposite directions. At the top of the hour, the minute hand jumps back to the beginning of its arc.
At precisely the same moment, the two disks rotate towards each other so that two halves of one Roman numeral around the periphery of the dial come together to mark the new hour. Ludovic Ballouard offers a variety of designs on Half Time and Upside Down watches for his clients to choose from, ranging from puritanically uncluttered to indulgently decorative.
Another of Ludovic Ballouard's creations made for the Harry Winston brand has met what you could call a rather mysterious and sad fate. The Opus XIII watch was to be presented at Baselworld 2013. However, they didn't see the joint project through to the end, as the Harry Winston brand was acquired by Swatch Group, whose management team mustn't have been able to see eye to eye with the independent watchmaker.
As a result, the Opus XIII was presented without the master watchmaker, breaking with the established tradition of the Opus series — Harry Winston's collaboration with the watchmakers who invented the brand's unusual watches. Despite reports that there would be a rather big release of 130 pieces, the watch has vanished — it's nowhere to be found on the secondhand market. There are photographs floating around the internet of what is apparently the only prototype ever "brought to life", assembled for the trade show in Basel.