Vianney Halter, or watchmaking for the sheer pleasure of it

Passion Horlogère readers are already familiar with the work of Vianney Halter, which we have featured on several occasions. In 2013 he even received the very first Passion Horlogère Watch of the Year award for his Deepspace Tourbillon. Since then he has won a prize at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève and was honoured by his peers as laureate of the Prix Gaïa. These many distinctions mark the career of an unconventional, highly creative and truly endearing watchmaker. Now we invite you to get to know the man himself, the better to understand his work.

Which stage of creating a watch do you enjoy most?

I don’t really have a favourite stage in the creative process. Every moment spent in watchmaking, from reading, “browsing aimlessly” on the Internet and “tinkering” at the bench to debriefing new ideas with my team, is part of a process that has no single “best moment”. First and foremost, the goal is to enjoy ourselves, to “let our imagination run wild”, and then, from time to time, to actually build these “wild ideas”. And every one of those moments is a pleasure.

What is your relationship with the watchmaker’s bench today?

My relationship with the bench is a rather pleasant one, because it reminds me of who I was as a child. It reminds me of discovery, of working “for yourself”. You are in your own bubble, carrying out your activity, your work, by yourself. There are good moments and moments that are less so. But for me, time at the bench is a “privileged” moment.

In 2020, is precision still the watchmaker’s holy grail?

In mechanical watches as we make them today, precision belongs to our past. And it certainly won’t be part of our future! In pure mechanics, precision has been overtaken by technological progress. It is easier to get something precise on your mobile phone than in a watch.

I think it’s interesting to have a watch that tells the time, since it remains an object that was originally meant to divide time, or to show you what time you are living in. It’s good for it to be accurate so that it’s practical, but it doesn’t need to be extremely precise. If you need that, you’ll find it elsewhere.

So the watchmaker’s world as we practise it now, at our level, making gears and making screws, is about finding something other than precision.

Could we one day imagine a collaboration between Vianney Halter and a “major brand”?

A collaboration between Vianney Halter and a major brand? Of course, that is always possible. It has happened before. I have worked with various people, various manufactures, various big names. For me, one of the biggest names I have collaborated with was certainly Harry Winston. It touched me, in my own story and in what shaped me as a child. So working with a company like that, or with a name like that, meant stepping into another world.

What would you like people to say about Vianney Halter one day?

What I could imagine people saying about me, when I am no longer around to understand or hear it, is that I was a nice guy and that people had a good time with me.

Nicolas Gregorieff for Passion Horlogère