Franck Muller, an acknowledged Master in the art of Grandes Complications, welcomed more than 2,500 guests to its Geneva estate for the 29th edition of the WPHH. The brand got the opportunity to present its two new buildings serving to accommodate all its watchmaking artisans in a single location, as well as unveiling its new timepieces, including the innovative and atypical Remember collection. In the heart of Genthod from January 14th to 18th, the unique Watchland site overlooking Lake Geneva and Mont-Blanc welcomed more than 2,500 guests for the 29th WPHH (World Presentation of Haute Horlogerie). The watchmaking elite met there to discover the two freshly completed buildings on the very spot where Franck Muller has been established for nearly 30 years. This project now makes it possible to accommodate on a single site the 450 craftsmen and employees required to handle each stage of watch production. The two new buildings, which represent an additional 16,000 m2 of floor space, underline the unique character of the Watchland site. Featuring characteristic Swiss architecture, they vividly illustrate the success of the Maison Franck Muller.
Vartan Sirmakes, the watch brand’s Chief Executive Officer said he was “happy to be able to welcome so many people to this unique place and to share the passion that drives us”. The participants in the event were able to stroll through the gardens of this undeniably beautiful place, while enjoying encounters inside the two new buildings with the brand’s watchmakers. On this occasion, Franck Muller unveiled several of its 2019 collections, including the Vanguard Crazy Hours™, Vanguard™ Lady Skeleton, Vanguard™ Racing, Vanguard™ Yachting Anchor Skeleton and Skafander. Not to mention a new collection featuring an avant-garde reading of time, named Remember. The Maison Franck Muller is consistently capable of standing out from the crowd by offering ingenious timepieces demonstrating perfectly mastered know-how and expertise. On the occasion of WPHH 2019, it presented its new collection, entitled Remember, which lives up to its name as an invitation to recall, to recollect, everything and at all times. The timepiece offers an unconventional reading of time, in a counterclockwise direction. The applied Arabic numerals gracing a sunray guilloché dial appear in the opposite direction to the conventional order, thanks to a mechanical self-winding movement that notably offers a 42-hour power reserve. Beating at a frequency of 28,800 vibrations per hour, the heart of the watch reinvents the reading of time. The undeniable Master of Grandes Complications blends poetry, technique and precision in this elegant and disconcerting timepiece, available in rose gold, white gold or steel.
Once again, Franck Muller takes an uncommon approach to the very notion of time off the beaten track. An invitation to remember, to cultivate the fabulous and precious power of remembrance. The Master of Complications states with his new collection remembers that no law of physics assures us that time only moves forward in a unidirectional way. A real facelift, this timepiece with its fabulous rejuvenating properties takes us into a world where time flows backwards. The collection Remember thus offers a new reading, presenting the hour figures in the opposite clockwise direction. Historically, the hands have always moved in chronological order from 1 to 12, rotating from left to right at the top of the dial and from right to left at the bottom, following the direction of movement of the shadow projected on the horizontal sundial in the northern hemisphere. Thanks to a self-winding mechanism, the hour, minute and second hands will follow an unconventional rotation, making a circle in a “counter-clockwise” direction. A romantic complication that invites us to take our time, as if we could extend our most beautiful moments to infinity.
Amazing, disconcerting and elegant, the collection Remember is available in 18k rose or white gold or stainless steel. Its dial, entirely set with diamonds or stamped guilloche with sun pattern, finished with 20 layers of lacquer and the emblematic hologram numerals of the House, will seduce the wrists of women and men. A timepiece that perpetuates the Franck Muller tradition while establishing a new philosophy that invites each aficionado of Haute Horlogerie to proclaim their independence from the established order of time. CJ
