Building Tessé: How Thomas Brissiaud Designed a Watch Brand with Intention

In a watch industry often defined by rapid launches and familiar designs, Tessé Watches has chosen a different path—one rooted in clarity, purpose, and thoughtful execution. 

Founded in 2024 by Thomas Brissiaud, Tessé is an independent microbrand built around a simple philosophy: create meaningful timepieces without compromise. At the heart of the brand is the Michel GMT, a Swiss-made watch designed to prioritize balance, functionality, and timeless aesthetics over fleeting trends. 

In this episode, we sit down with Thomas to discuss the inspiration behind Tessé, the journey of launching an independent watch brand, and why building something intentionally can be more rewarding than chasing the latest market trends. 

🎯 In this episode: 

• The story behind Tessé Watches
• The inspiration and philosophy of founder Thomas Brissiaud
• Why the Michel GMT avoids common design clichés
• The challenges of launching an independent watch brand
• What it means to build something slowly, thoughtfully, and with purpose

 
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Stay tuned for more conversations with watchmakers, entrepreneurs, collectors, and industry leaders from around the world.
 
#TesseWatches #ThomasBrissiaud #MichelGMT #WatchDNA #IndependentWatchmaking #MicrobrandWatches #SwissMade #WatchCollector #Horology #TimeConnectsUsAll
 

Transcript

0:00

Hey everyone, I am with Thomas. You get the double Thomas. Lucky you with Tesse Watches. Welcome to Vancouver. Thank you. The show is Thursday now. How's the show for you? Pretty good. Being an um a brand new brand, new model we just launched a few days ago. So it was good for us to have people see the watch, feel the watch, give us some feedback. The feedback has been amazing. Amazing. It's pretty good. Cool. Really happy. Can you give us obviously an introduction about the brand? But what I also love to know is one day you decide one day to wake up, be like, hey, I should create my own watch. Craziness. Tesse is the name of a village in France where my grandparents uh lived. That's kind of the history behind the brand as well. So I've always loved watches. I've been collecting, accumulating watches. And when my grandfather uh Michel passed away, I inherited his watch. Um, very typical watch of the 70s on the lip French brand. No way, I just got one from my dad, a lib. When he got tour one day, sorry, I'm jumping out of here, but I went I went back home in November, and then my dad keep my parents keep moving, and then I go to his office and I see a box, and I open as a kid, you know, I opened the box and I'm like, oh, there's a safe and it's open. I opened and there's a watch, a lip. And I'm like, oh damn, look at lip. He's like, whoa, I didn't find I it's been like 10 years I couldn't find it. And because moving around, he's like, oh here, can you fix it for me? Because obviously it was like he got it when he was uh when he turned 18 and now he's 73, you know, so yeah, lip. That's cool. Yeah, it's like even for my grandfather. My grandfather was very modest, so he worked in um in a car factory for uh Renault his entire life. Okay, started working, he was 16, retired at uh 65 from the same company. Yeah, and I remember him wearing this watch all the time. He was very proud of it. Yeah, it was made in France, mechanical, yeah, automatic. Yeah, he was he would show it to me wearing it all the time. And he loved gardening, and I remember as a kid, he would remove it every time. He would go gardening just not to damage it, yeah, and hang it on a nail somewhere in his house. Yeah. And after he passed away, I went and visited my grandmother, and the watch was hanging on that nail. Oh. It was like, oh, I want that watch. That's what triggers that, really. And uh the watch itself takes some uh design elements of that. So we have some of the the initial tunnel shape that I modernized a bit with uh a bit of a cushion applied on it. You have the hour markers and uh and the hands that are very typical from the 70s as well. Yeah, he was very proud of it being like made in France. He was very a big supporter of like you know craftsmanship and everything. Yeah, I just went to Switzerland. I love it. We have a nice Swiss movement, nicely decorated, beautiful finish. Really wanted something with uh a lot of details, okay, uh nice finishes. Where's the village? Which area in France? Um it's in uh Charente, so about two hours from Bordeaux. Okay, uh very rural, very quiet. For sure. Yeah, okay, beautiful. Listen, Thomas, it was a pleasure. Good luck for the likes there, enchanté, yeah, but thank you again. And you guys make sure you go on watchdnna.com slash tace because we have listed 262 brands as of now. All the brands of the show are there, and you can go get information, and there's a direct link to their website. So if you're interested to learn more, contact Thomas or whatever it is, just reach out to them. So watchdnna.com slash tace.