The ‘terroir’ approaches are made for getting along, and so are those that combine craftsmanship. Watchmaking and cutlery, cousins and accomplices. In Neuchâtel, Place des Halles, a knife that’s creating a buzz and… the Watch Cafés. To kick things off!

Joël A. Grandjean, JSH Magazine & Swiss-Watch-Passport.ch’s editor in chief
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If you look at this full-handled “Laguiole en Aubrac” christened “Chasselas”, rarely has the aesthetic line of a knife been so close to the veins of a wood steeped in tradition: historic oak from 1858, that of an authentic Neuchâtel Chasselas cask, borrowed from the Jubilee celebration of a local winery, the “Auguste Porret” estate.

This limited series, from which there is still enough wood for future achievements, is in a way the birth of ‘Watchmaking Cutlery’”

Patrick Goussard continues to rich his “talking piece”‘s DNA, his ‘Canton’Halles’ with its silver handle and grand-feu enamel, a piece which has already created a buzz as far afield as the United States: transplanting the spirit of watchmaking and materials filled with local particles beyond the cobblestones of Place des Halles in Neuchâtel, where his boutique and bespoke space are located.

Wood with meaning, customisable, in your hand

In addition to the five other potential cantonal affiliations, bearing in mind that the wood of the oak barrel remains Neuchâtel, there is the chestnut tree for Geneva, the apricot tree for Valais, the plum tree for Jura and, who knows why, the birch tree for Vaud… The other cantons are also scheduled.

Then there are those other delightful and unexpected materials, all of which have been stabilised: peat, La Tène wood with its dizzying Celtic origins, and Hauterive stone, the mastery of which is almost complete.