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We live in a very good time for independent watchmaking. I know that may sound like an oddly specific metric by which to judge the world, but it’s true. There was a time, not so long ago, when an enthusiast watch collector looking for a highly complicated watch would have struggled to find what they were looking for outside the worlds of Patek Philippe or Audemars Piguet. Perhaps the occasional Blancpain or Breguet might make a splash, but in the wake of the quartz crisis, the contracted watch industry focused on what it did best for the sake of its own survival, and we should all be grateful for that.
Thankfully, in 2024, those days are gone, or at least mitigated. Since the mid-‘90s, the rise of independents has been one of the watch industry’s key narrative arcs, and, now, collectors looking to patronize the sort of small, unique, highly technical brands lost to them in the ‘70s and ‘80s are truly spoiled for choice. It is out of this transition that Laurent Ferrier has emerged not only as one of the watch world’s preeminent names but as a perfect encapsulation of how the industry has evolved over the last few decades. And there is no better watch to summarize that point than Laurent Ferrier’s new Classic Moon, introduced at Watches and Wonders earlier this year.
But before getting to that watch, it’s worth spending a little bit of time thinking about Laurent Ferrier (the person, not the brand). Now, I’m not going to give you a complete accounting of the man’s life, but suffice it to say, Laurent Ferrier is a watchmaker of the highest order, and he’s got the CV to prove it. The son and grandson of watchmakers, Laurent Ferrier spent the early years of his career focused not on watchmaking (despite being a graduate of the École d’Horlogerie de Genève), but on car racing.
That’s right, after completing his course of study as a watchmaker and starting work at Patek Philippe, Ferrier would move on from watches, focusing instead on racing, while supporting himself by selling auto parts. But six years on, with the quartz crisis in full swing, and the world of high-end watchmaking in flux, Ferrier was lured back to Patek Philippe, joining the storied brand’s then-nascent R&D department, where he worked on the earliest versions of the Nautilus, among many other projects.
