Parmigiani Fleurier SA () is a
Swiss brand of luxury
watchmaker
A watchmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs watches. Since a majority of watches are now factory-made, most modern watchmakers only repair watches. However, originally they were master craftsmen who built watches, including all their part ...
s founded in 1996 in
Fleurier
Fleurier was a municipality in the district of Val-de-Travers in the canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland. On 1 January 2009, the former municipalities of Boveresse, Buttes, Couvet, Fleurier, Les Bayards, Môtiers, Noiraigue, Saint-Sulpice and ...
,
Switzerland, by Michel Parmigiani. In 2006, Parmigiani produced the Bugatti 370, a driving watch which won the 2006 "Watch of the Year Award" from the
Japanese press, supposedly based on the
Bugatti Veyron
The Bugatti Veyron EB 16.4 is a mid-engine sports car, designed and developed in Germany by the Volkswagen Group and Bugatti and manufactured in Molsheim, France, by French automobile manufacturer Bugatti. It was named after the racing driver P ...
supercar.
The company is owned by the
Sandoz
Novartis AG is a Swiss-American multinational pharmaceutical corporation based in Basel, Switzerland and
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States (global research).name="novartis.com">https://www.novartis.com/research-development/research-loca ...
Family Foundation. Guido Terreni is the CEO of the company since January 2021.
History
Parmigiani Fleurier was started in 1996 in
Val-de-Travers
Val-de-Travers is a municipality in the canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland. It was created on 1 January 2009, when the former municipalities of Boveresse, Buttes, Couvet, Fleurier, Les Bayards, Môtiers, Noiraigue, Saint-Sulpice and Travers ...
. Founder Michel Parmigiani had conceived the brand as far back as 1976 through his work restoring watchmaking artifacts and his detailed knowledge of historical mechanical clocks and watches. The Parmigiani restoration workshop worked with the Sandoz family to restore the collection of the Room Maurice Yves Sandoz of the
Musée d’Horlogerie du Locle, which eventually led to the creation of the Parmigiani Fleurier company owned by the Sandoz Foundation.
In 2016, Parmigiani Fleurier unveiled the ''Hippologia'', a 55kg, oval-shaped table clock covered in a foil of white gold and elaborated with the French glassmaker
Lalique
Lalique is a French glassmaker, founded by renowned glassmaker and jeweller René Lalique in 1888. Lalique is best known for producing glass art, including perfume bottles, vases, and hood ornaments during the early twentieth century. Following t ...
. In December 2020, Parmigiani Fleurier inked a partnership with
Giorgio Armani to create the Giorgio Armani Fine Watches collection which was supposed to be launched by the end of 2021. In January 2021, Guido Terrni replaced Davide Traxler as CEO of the company.
Watches
Parmigiani carries a men's line of watches, and a line that caters specifically to women. All Parmigiani Fleurier watches are hand-made, taking at least four hundred hours to put together;
they are constructed with only
precious metals and
precious or semi-precious stones. In order to create exclusivity, only a few thousand pieces are produced every year.
Their watch lines include the Toric, Forma (renamed Kalpa) and the single watch, the Bugatti 370.
In 2006, the Bugatti 370 was awarded the "Watch of the Year" award by the Japanese Press. The watch is a driving watch based on the
Bugatti Veyron
The Bugatti Veyron EB 16.4 is a mid-engine sports car, designed and developed in Germany by the Volkswagen Group and Bugatti and manufactured in Molsheim, France, by French automobile manufacturer Bugatti. It was named after the racing driver P ...
supercar
A supercar – also called exotic car – is a loosely defined description of street-legal, high-performance sports cars. Since the 2010s, the term hypercar has come into use for the highest performing supercars. Supercars commonly serve as t ...
.
[ It is designed to look like a transversal engine, and is mounted in 18 carat ]gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...
. In order to make it readable while driving, the face of the watch has been placed in a vertical position on the case's front. The first Bugatti watch was given to car enthusiast Ralph Lauren. Only one hundred and fifty of the watches will be made each year, fifty of each of the three dial colors available.[ The watch will cost ]USD$
The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
200,000.[ In 2009, Parmigiani Fleurier and Pershing, the Italian Yacht Company announced that they will be offering the first ever line of Pershing Aquatic sport watches. The watch will be available in two different lines - the limited edition one-one-five, and the Pershing Chronographs collection. The watch is available with a rubber strap or steel bracelet, and is water resistant up to 200 metres.
]
Senfine concept
In 2016, Parmigiani-Fleurier presents the Senfine concept housing a new escapement taking advantage of the properties of silicon flat springs. The revolutionary concept uses an oscillator with high frequency and low amplitude for enhanced precision and power reserve.[Monochrome-watches]
"The evolution of the escapement and recent innovations"
February 2016
See also
List of watch manufactures
Watchmakers
This list is a duplicate of :Watchmakers, which will likely be more up-to-date and complete. Manufacturers that are named after the founder are sorted by surname. Names in this list require an article about the watch brand or watchma ...
References
External links
An interview
with founder Michel Parmigiani
Evolution of the escapement
''Monochrome-watches, Xavier Markl'', February 2016
{{Authority control
Watch manufacturing companies of Switzerland
Swiss watch brands
Design companies established in 1975
Manufacturing companies established in 1975
Swiss companies established in 1975
Privately held companies of Switzerland
Companies based in the canton of Neuchâtel