If there’s anything I enjoy even more than hanging out with my watch buddies, it’s doing it while visiting the people who make the watches we love!

So far this year I’ve had the opportunity to travel to Switzerland twice: once for the Watches and Wonders week, during which our “gang” majored in seeing our friends at the big host brands but minored pretty vigorously with the indies, and again in June for a very special event involving a legendary watchmaker and his family.

All of that is enough to fill several articles, but for now I’ll focus on the independents, starting with a sequential journey through our first trip.

First stop: dinner with Kari Voutilainen.

Unique Voutilainen Worldtimer

One of the great things about visiting with Voutilainen is that he always has something interesting to show, and often something unique that he has been cooking up behind the scenes for a client commission. On this occasion, it was the beauty you see above: a unique world timer with a mind-blowing guilloche dial, and under the hood a variant of Voutilainen’s new base movement – thinner than the workhorse Vingt-8 that preceded it, but still with dual escape wheels and the stunning finishing we’ve come to expect.

As has now been announced publicly, Voutilainen is expanding his production capacity once again, taking over the former watchmaking school in Fleurier and devoting a significant portion of it to the crafting of unique pieces and limited-run watches. Another independent we met during the week jokingly referred to Voutilainen’s ever-growing empire as “KVMH,” which is perhaps just a tiny stretch but hilarious, nonetheless.

DeBethune DB25sQP

The next day brought a visit with Pierre Jacques and his DeBethune team: my favorite of the watches we saw was a 2022 introduction, the downsized 40mm DB25sQP perpetual calendar shown above.

The atmosphere in the room was quite different from past years, with a healthy representation of WatchBox folks creating a more boisterous environment; it will be interesting to see how the brand and its offerings – and commercial strategies – evolve over the next few years.

Dinner brought us from “more corporate” right back to “tiny atelier” as we enjoyed a lovely evening with Gaël Petermann and Florian Bédat and their Ref. 2941 rattrapante chronograph.

Petermann Bédat Ref. 2941 Rattrapante

The cutaway dial, large jewel near 10 o’clock, and exposed keyless works immediately identify this watch as an offering from the Renens pair; and the choice to place the rattrapante works on the dial side, partially visible to the wearer, is both daring and admirable in my opinion.

Reverse view, Petermann Bédat Ref. 2941

The back side of the watch is nothing to scoff at, either, with the flawless black polish, subtle frosting, and scads of perfect interior angles we’ve already come to expect from these two makers.

After a full Monday at Palexpo, it was time for dinner with another leading young gun, Rexhep Rexhepi, and my first in-person look at a completed example of his latest, the RRCC 02. As you’ve likely already noticed with some of the other photos in this tale, restaurant lighting did no favors to my attempts to capture decent images; but I can assure you that this watch is everything it is cracked up to be – and Rexhep and partner Annabelle were as always both engaging and insightful in discussing Akrivia’s work, plans, and their views on the world of horology.

Pink gold, deep lustrous dial, purple hands (really): Akrivia RRCC 02 in restaurant light

Light was much better late the following afternoon in the airy space of MB&F’s MAD House, where we were treated to a tour of the watchmaking facility and a preview of some watches that have now appeared on the market.

Insert Tab A into Slot B: baseplate and design drawings at the MB&F MAD House

I didn’t sneak any photos of the plastic fantastic HM8 Mark 2, but I was more than happy to sit there wearing the LM Perpetual with its new salmon dial while Büsser and his team took us through fascinating tales of the design evolution of some of their most notable references. The changes from initial rough sketches to polished final watches were quite dramatic; and in every case we were shown I can say that the final versions appealed to me more than any of the intermediate attempts.

Happiness is: MB&F LM Perpetual salmon dial on the wrist

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