THIS YEAR MARKS THE FIFTEENTH ANNIVERSARY of one of the longest running experiments in the watch business . Back in 2006 , Ludwig Oechslin ( of Ulysse Nardin fame and until 2014 curator of the Musée International d ’ Horlogerie ( MIH ) in La Chaux-de-Fonds ) and his fellow Ochs und Junior co-founders asked the watch world a contrary question – if you could buy a watch with complications that were distilled down to their most basic level , would you ?
Then they took it a few steps further . What if the case was not polished , but somewhat , well , basic ? In other words , what if you could buy a watch conceived by one of the most famous watch creators of recent times , one that possessed marvelous complications that apart from the dial of the watch , remained hidden away beneath a solid caseback ?
In a world where watches are meant to be highly polished and eerily similar in look and feel , what if you went a different way ?
Fast-forward to 2021 . While the experiment continues , it appears to be a resounding success with Ludwig Oechslin and Ochs und Junior continuing to swim against the mainstream . Here ’ s a short , three-part history of the idiosyncratic watchmaker .
THE FOUNDATION This period involves Ludwig Oechslin , Beat Weinmann and Kurt König ( the owner of Embassy , the Lucerne-based jewelry store that Beat Weinmann was working for at the time ). Ochs und Junior produced a very small number of esoteric watches . These were known to a small group of collectors .
THE GROWTH PERIOD This was when Ulysse Nardin was brought in as a partner and Ochs und Junior set up shop in a studio space , a little bit off the beaten path in Lucerne .
The trio of Settimana models . They colorfully indicate hours , minutes and seconds , and all seven weekdays by a clockwise rotating dot between 1 o ’ clock and 7 o ’ clock .
All three Ochs und Junior Calendario Cent ’ anni models .
FALL 2021 | INTERNATIONAL WATCH | 33