Recipient of the Veuve Clicquot Bold Future Award 2022, former elite sportswoman Fanny Queloz was a panellist at the Arc Horloger roundtable of the Festival Suisse de l’Horlogerie 2024. She is an expert engraver and entrepreneur.
Joël A. Grandjean, JSH Magazine & Swiss-Watch-Passport.ch’s editor in chief
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A brand new breath of Métiers d’Art and rare skills, such as marquetry, is about to nestle in the superb architectural setting of a new wave of expansions at Concepto in La Chaux-de-Fonds: some 600 square meters more are ready to welcome new talents dedicated to the métiers d’Art. At 85, Rue du Collège, the major renovation work is still in progress.
Hand-engraving, respecting a heritage
Under the name Arts & Design Manufacture SA, Valérien Jaquet has taken over the spiritual heritage, a dozen craftsmen, the tools and the confirmed talents, Fanny and Julien Queloz, of a family entrepreneurial adventure that had its hour of fame. And so the century-old venture goes on, intimately linked to the history of hand engraving, which is still the pride of Switzerland’s oldest school of applied arts, the EAA in La Chaux-de-Fonds, founded in 1873.
In the world of top-of-the-range watchmaking, embellishments have always made a difference. And hand engraving, whether on watch components, dials or cases alike, has always been a major art practiced by Arts & Design Manufacture SA. It’s a multi-faceted craft that combines a range of different techniques, a mix of intaglio, chasing and relief engraving – techniques that few still know how to master.
The secret of engraved sapphire
Engraving, hammering, means listening to the character of each material, in tune with its specific properties and density: brass, various grades of steel, golds, platinum and, why not, more unusual materials, mother-of-pearl, meteorite and even wood. And then there are all those innovative materials resulting from research that need to be tamed and harnessed.
Above all, there is the ultimate engraving of sapphire, far more difficult than that of titanium, for example. It’s a truly unique mastery, specific to this unit of new talents, which, under the guidance of Fanny Queloz, is preparing to integrate the brand-new, luminous space that Concepto has dedicated to it. There’s enough place for the other talents of watch decorating to get along and stimulate each other, those of the miniaturists, painters or sculptors, those of the lacquer, varnish or gold leaf layers.
Fanny and Julien Queloz are delighted with this new showcase, given the high demand from watchmaking brands and interest from other sectors such as clocks, writing instruments and art objects. All the more so as they also intend to reserve space for the transmission of such precious know-how: the training and perpetuation of these fascinating skills.