Franck Muller is a Swiss

luxury watch A watch is a portable timepiece intended to be carried or worn by a person. It is designed to keep a consistent movement despite the motions caused by the person's activities. A wristwatch is designed to be worn around the wrist, attached by ...

manufacturer, named after its founder. The company's estimated total sales (in 2010/2011) were €290 million in watches with an average unit price of €38,000. Franck Muller's watches are worn by various celebrities, among them Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elton John,

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, David Beckham,

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, Chris Brown and José Mourinho.

Biography

The founder and former CEO of the brand, Franck Muller, was born in 1958. He spent his childhood in

La Chaux-de-Fonds La Chaux-de-Fonds () is a Swiss city in the canton of Neuchâtel. It is located in the Jura mountains at an altitude of 1000 m, a few kilometers south of the French border. After Geneva, Lausanne and Fribourg, it is the fourth largest city l ...

with his Italian mother and Swiss-born father. When 15, he enrolled in a watchmaking school. In the early 1980s, he graduated from the Watchmaking School of Geneva (french: Ecole d'Horlogerie de Genève). Afterwards, he began repairing top-quality pocket

watch A watch is a portable timepiece intended to be carried or worn by a person. It is designed to keep a consistent movement despite the motions caused by the person's activities. A wristwatch is designed to be worn around the wrist, attached b ...

es. Close to an independent watchmaker by the name of Svend Andersen, Franck Muller became responsible for handling watches from the collection of Patek Philippe. Most of the clientele were private individuals and museums. While he was working with complicated timepieces, he became passionate about their mechanisms and began to think of building his own workshop. Soon after, in 1984, Franck Muller designed his own

tourbillon In horology, a tourbillon (; "whirlwind") is an addition to the mechanics of a watch escapement to increase accuracy. It was developed around 1795 and patented by the Swiss-French watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet on June 26, 1801. In a tourbill ...

wristwatch A watch is a portable timepiece intended to be carried or worn by a person. It is designed to keep a consistent movement despite the motions caused by the person's activities. A wristwatch is designed to be worn around the wrist, attached by ...

. In the 1980s, few watchmakers were capable of creating such complicated timepieces, among them Patek Philippe and

Vacheron Constantin Vacheron Constantin SA () is a Swiss luxury watch and clock manufacturer founded in 1755. Since 1996, it has been a subsidiary of the Swiss Richemont Group. Vacheron Constantin is the second oldest Swiss manufacturer and one of the oldest wat ...

. The private clients of Franck Muller continued to come for new timepieces, and thus his business started growing. The House of Franck Muller opened in 1991, and his ultra complicated timepieces instantly became famous in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. Today, his factory, which is also the headquarters of Franck Muller, produces a limited number of watches for private clientele. Franck Muller's collections include a variety of designs and price ranges.Now the company has five sites (

Genthod Genthod is a municipality of the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. History Genthod is first mentioned around 1301-1400 as ''Gentouz''. Geography Genthod has an area, , of . Of this area, or 36.2% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 8.0 ...

, Lajoux, Les Bois, Plan-les-Ouates,

Meyrin Meyrin () is a municipality of the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. The main site of CERN, the European particle physics research organisation, is in Meyrin. Meyrin was originally a small agricultural village until the 1950s, when construction of ...

) and 570 official retailers.

World premieres

Franck Muller Boutique in Madrid, Spain, 200px Franck Muller is also known for its "World Premiers". Each year, the manufacturer launches at least one new line of timepieces, featuring something special and exclusive, that has never been seen before in the watchmaking industry. The first such world premiere was launched in 1993. The watches had a split seconds

chronograph A chronograph is a specific type of watch that is used as a stopwatch combined with a display watch. A basic chronograph has an independent sweep second hand and a minute sub-dial; it can be started, stopped, and returned to zero by successive ...

, a minute repeater, and a

perpetual calendar A perpetual calendar is a calendar valid for many years, usually designed to look up the day of the week for a given date in the past or future. For the Gregorian and Julian calendars, a perpetual calendar typically consists of one of three ...

. In addition, the watches included an indicator showing the internal temperature.

Notable products

The brand of watches carries the slogan "Master of Complications". Franck Muller

timepiece A clock or a timepiece is a device used to measure and indicate time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month and the ...

s are famous for their fusion of "modern" style, mostly inspired by American watches from the thirties, like "Elgin tonneau", and traditional Swiss watch manufacturing. Notable timepieces include ''Revolution2'', ''Revolution3'', ''Crazy Hours'', and ''Colour Dreams''. Further examples of Franck Muller's watches include the ''Endurance'', which is a simple chronograph, the ''Master Banker'', which is a tonneau-shaped watch capable of multiple time zone indication, and the ''Curvex Minute Repeater Tourbillon'', whose production is limited to 25 pieces. * Aeternitas * Casablanca * Color Dreams * Conquistador * Crazy Hours * Curvex * Long Island * Master Banker * Revolution2 * Revolution3 * Vanguard * Encrypto, a watch that also works as cryptowallet.

References

External links

*
Franck Muller Encrypto
{{DEFAULTSORT:Muller, Franck 1958 births Living people 20th-century Swiss businesspeople Swiss watch brands Swiss watchmakers (people) Luxury brands Watch manufacturing companies of Switzerland People from La Chaux-de-Fonds 21st-century Swiss businesspeople Swiss company founders