Tissot watches, Rolex watches, Tag Heuer watches and Tudor watches are important parts of luxury watches. Of course there are great people behind them. It is common that we admire watchmaking guards because of their spectacular creations and innovations in terms of complications; however, we do not know who the mastermind behind that greatness, who designed a new movement that will set the tone in the world with its spectacular complications, components, materials and designs only from authentic creative geniuses.

Here we present the three great major watchmakers in Switzerland

Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani

The world’s thinnest watch, Octo Finissimo Minute Repeater, is the work of an extraordinary designer, Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani, who is the Director of the Bulgari Design Center. Fabrizio began his career by studying at the Rome Institute of Industrial Arts, where he explored the roots of Italian design, which characterized his style by appreciating the aesthetics of each individual object that makes up a project, be it a chair, car seat or clock.

Fabrizio’s two great passions – which, by the way, he shared with Paolo and Nicola Bulgari -, cars and watches, had certain similarities. He mentioned that car design must suggest its use, its performance and, in some cases, dreams.

Octo Finissimo Repetición de Minutos, which is part of a very fine Bulgari watch, is Fabrizio’s masterpiece, but what makes this watch special is that it has the most complex complications: minute repetition, only reserved for some prestigious brands

This watch presents soneria with impressive acoustic quality, a privilege usually reserved for very large watches. Octo Finissimo Repetición de Minutos represents a new milestone in the watchmaking world, a phenomenon never seen before, because all the technical sophistication only fit in a box that is only 6.85 mm, BVL 362 caliber, which is developed and produced internally, with a precise thickness of 3.12 mm. This is a great achievement, one of those who framed Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani’s career, making him one of the best watchmakers.

Carole Forestier

Behind the magnificent creations of the Cartier house is a woman whose creativity knows no limits. We speak of Carole Forestier, the Director of the department of Creation of Movements of the brand’s manufacture, for which she has made scintillating designs that defy the time scheme, being endowed with a futuristic character but under the most sophisticated complications.

Born in a family where watchmaking was a tradition, her journey was clear to her from a young age, since it would be at the School of Watchmaking in La Chaux-de-Fond where she would be professionally trained to soon get her first job at Conseilray SA at 22 years. There she would work as a movement builder and among her projects highlights the development of Zenith’s Elite movement. Later her promising career continued when she joined Renaud & Papi, leading her Design Studio for four years.

Franck Muller

Another of the great master watchmakers is undoubtedly Franck Müller, who, since his birth in Switzerland in 1958, was already heading to the world of Haute Horlogerie. From his multicultural environment -because he was the son of an Italian mother and a Swiss father- he inherited creativity and rigor, which earned him a great interest in mechanical devices from an early age.

The perfect example of the expertise of Franck Müller is its most complicated timekeeper, the Aeternitas Mega 4, which has nothing more and nothing less than 36 complications and 1,483 components of which 25 are visible. Among the many complications of this watch are the great and small sonería, a tourbillon suspended by two ceramic spheres, the perpetual calendar, the rattrapante needle mechanism and the indication of lunar phases, among others, complications that reaffirm it in his title of Master of the Complications.

Luxury watches are a blend of technology, ideas and artwork. The three united to form what is called “identity”.