A Visit to Le Brassus: The Heart of Watchmaking

Nestled between the mountains, above the fog, and through the winding roads you arrive at the heart of watchmaking in the Valle de Joux. Just a little over a hundred years ago, watchmakers from the region would take this journey by foot, returning from Geneva after selling their wares and engaging in trade. Making this journey yourself, albeit a much more expedited version, I truly believe to be important for any connoisseur of horology.

The village of Le Brassus is a quiet hideaway above the clouds. The very forefront of horological innovation is juxtaposed against the livestock that share the valley. The ties to tradition are strong as watchmakers assembling Grand Complications overlook the same fields that Jules Audemars and Edward Piguet had over 150 years ago today.

Hôtel des Horlogers

I had the pleasure of staying at the Hôtel des Horlogers, whose history dates to 1857 as the Hotel de France until Audemars Piguet took over ownership in 2003, radically transforming the hotel into an art piece in itself. When you arrive at your room you are greeted with a small gift basket containing a water bottle, a vial of salt with flavors of fir trees from the valley, a bit of garlic bread, and some tea.

The room was beautiful with panoramic sweeping views of the valley. I highly recommend the restaurant Brasserie Le Gogant where Emmanuel Renaut has put together a wonderful menu of local mountain flavors that capture the essence of the village.

The hotel has so many charms and quirks. Pretty much everything in the hotel is for sale. On the floors leading to your room there are items posted for purchase: clothing, jewelry, perfumes, random bits of art. It's kind of like a mall. I even asked the front desk if the little bobbles decorating the counter were available for purchase and to my surprise they were.

The Journey to the Musée Atelier

For the day of the tour, you have two options of getting to the Musée Atelier. There's the direct route that allows you to walk next door to the museum, or the more interesting route involving a small detour behind the hotel. Along this path you will see art commissioned by AP Contemporary, including a triceratops skull cast in bronze and a white rabbit statue, as well as really taking in the views of the valley. This route also gives you a great view of the glass-framed building and its spiral design with grass-covered roofs.

The Tour

When you arrive for your tour, you are greeted in an intimate room where you sit and take in the atmosphere of where it all began. You are offered coffee and tea as well as small treats while your tour guide goes over the building and its history. What follows is a journey through time from the discovery of iron in the region to the families establishing themselves here and the journey AP took from creating highly complicated movements to becoming a leader of horological innovation in the modern era.

As part of the tour you get to try your hand at some watchmaking techniques, including applying perlage to a brass Royal Oak-shaped bezel as well as applying a brushed finish to the front, leaving you with a nice little trinket from your trip. If you want to do more watchmaking they offer workshops. I unfortunately didn't have a chance to go to any of the watchmaking workshops, but I've heard they're a great experience and have been recommended by many.

The tour concludes with a special 150th anniversary room where you can see some interesting designs from the archives and watch some short vintage films from AP through the years. There's also a photobooth where you can take pictures. Finally, there's a wishing tree where you can write a wish and attach it to a tree. I of course wished for the RD #6, although I'm still excited for the more standard complications to come out in the wake of the RD line finishing.

There is a small gift shop at the end of the tour where you can buy a museum program and a selection of AP publications, a couple of which are hard to find now as they've been out of print. There's also some notebooks and, of course, chocolate.

Why You Should Go

After embarking on this journey my appreciation for AP has only grown. There's a deep personal connection with AP that most brands can't seem to capture. When you wear an AP you feel a tie to the valley, the watchmakers, the families, the history, everything. As an AP customer you are a patron of the contemporary arts and a supporter of traditional watchmaking that pushes the bounds of what is possible in the field.

I highly recommend anyone curious as to why AP is AP to take a visit to Le Brassus and check it out for themselves.