One for the ladies – Armand Nicolet present a new exquisite addition to their portfolio, the Armand Nicolet LL9 Limited Edition.

Armand Nicolet, the Tramelan-based manufacture create some of the finest artisan timepieces available.  Hand-crafted guilloché faces and fine attention to detail are signature features of this very special brand.  Way back when the WatchPress was in its infancy and I didn’t know a ligne from a lug, Johnny wrote a bio on the brand and its history.  I was fascinated and quickly became hooked.

The LL9 is the brand’s first Limited Edition piece exclusively for girls.  The silvered dial is a combination of mother-of-pearl, guilloché, applied numerals and diamonds.  There are more diamonds on the bezel – 54 Top Wesseltons.  It has a pretty face, of that there is no doubt but the beauty of this piece is certainly not just skin deep.  The open work on the dial allows the wearer (and envious on-looker) a glimpse of the automatic AN704 Calibre, a reworking of one of the brand’s vintage movements from the 1950′s.

The Armand Nicolet LL9 has a stainless steel case and is water resistant to 50m.  Rarety of the movement dictates that the piece will be a limited edition of just 500.  Other versions available are grey or black dial with matching alligator strap and a combination of steel case with 18 carat pink gold bezel and crown.  However I predict that the white-on-white version shown here will most definitely be the gem of the collection.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Armand Nicolet Manufacture film

Armand Nicolet the man was born in the small town of Tramelan, which nestles peacefully, surrounded by the lush green meadows of the famed Jura Valley, the French-speaking Swiss canton so synonymous with the craft of watchmaking since the fifteenth century. The Armand Nicolet name first came to notice towards the last years of the 19th Century.

In 1902 when the young Nicolet, son of a watchmaker himself, and after a brilliant apprenticeship proudly presented the rose gold pocketwatch which featured a complete calendar, a chronograph function, and repeating hours, quarter hours and minutes. A magnificent tour de force which had come from his own hands.

Nicolet soon assembled a group of enthusiastic young watchmakers and he trained them in his own style which advocated the skills of the artisan, focusing on building complication timepieces from scratch in-house with astonishing attention to detail. Armand Nicolet passed away in 1939, leaving his son Willy to assume creative and importantly, commercial direction of the manufacture.

By the 1950s, Armand Nicolet had become one of the largest producers of in-house complications in all of Switzerland. Employing over eight hundred skilled technicians who were accommodated in well over one hundred workshops, the company were continuously innovating and introducing new complications and variations of complications.

As demand for the artisans’ craft which had been so carefully nurtured by the Armand Nicolet manufacture (and many others) faltered and subsequently dried up in the late 1970s, due to the revolution which came in the form of the ever-accurate and much less expensive quartz driven watches, the management were forced to either reorganise or slip quietly beneath the waves. By making their services available to other prestigious Swiss watchmakers, in providing movements, mechanisms and complications the company was able to continue, much downsized from its heyday, but crucially still in touch with the industry and still able to provide some of their skilled craftsmen with projects and continuity.

Enter, in 1987, the Italian entrepreneur Rolando Braga, who having met Willy Nicolet, now aged 63, in a chance encounter saw the latent potential within the Armand Nicolet brand and assets. Braga himself had amassed over twenty years experience in horology – principally in watch design – and the foundations for a harmonious collaboration fell into place. By 1990 direction of the now re-emerging Armand Nicolet manufacture was in the hands of Rolando Braga, and the year was marked with the opening of the refurbished workshops originally used by Armand Nicolet himself. Under the guidance of the Braga family, the Armand Nicolet manufacture is now producing some of the finest artisan timepieces available anywhere!

In the tradition of the mentor, the watchmakers at Armand Nicolet continue to create a growing range of imaginatively designed hand-crafted timepieces, still featuring beautiful guilloche faces with applied markers, and of course the signature in-house movements which were central to the brands reputation. The attention given to detail is remarkable and contributes to what makes an Armand Nicolet watch so distinctive – not easy considering the confines of the watchcase. Note this brand! We see a lot of watch for the outlay!

Popularity: 28% [?]