The Renaissance of French Watchmaking: Inside the Pequignet Manufacture

The Renaissance of French Watchmaking: Inside the Pequignet Manufacture

Discover the authentic emblem of French haute horlogerie. In this exclusive interview at Watches and Wonders, we sit down with the President and CEO of Pequignet to explore how this historic brand is reviving the art of the French manufacture.

From its roots in the 1980s as a design-focused brand for ladies to the 2010 launch of the groundbreaking Calibre Royale, Pequignet stands as a symbol of independence and engineering excellence. We dive into:

The history of French watchmaking and Pequignet’s 50-year heritage.

The engineering marvel of the Calibre Royale with its integrated complications.

The Calibre Initial" and the brand's commitment to sustainable, local production (within a 50-mile radius!).

A hands-on look at the new Royale Paris Chronograph and their elegant sport collections in titanium.

If you value "French Touch" design paired with in-house mechanical innovation, Pequignet is a brand you need to know.

Explore the collection & try them on virtually: WatchDNA.com/Pequignet

Read the full story and explore the brand in depth 

Discover more about the event
-WatchDNA.com/Watchesandwonders

Discover the brand | Read the article
-WatchDNA.com/Pequignet

For more brands, access all links in one place:
-Link in bio → WatchDNA.com/Discover

Timestamps
00:00 – Pequignet: The symbol of a unique French manufacturer
01:04 – The origin story: From ladies' fashion to technical manufacture
01:57 – Understanding the Calibre Royale: Integrated complications
02:22 – The Calibre Initial: A modern, thin in-house movement
03:20 – Defining luxury vs. high-premium value
04:00 – Lifetime repairability and the 5-year warranty
04:23 – Sustainability: Components sourced within 50 miles
05:13 – Where to find Pequignet: Paris, Besançon, and beyond
05:54 – Hands-on: The new Royale Paris Chronograph
06:57 – Sport Elegance: Titanium and rubber strap innovations
08:25 – Why Pequignet is the perfect "everyday" luxury watch

#Pequignet #FrenchWatchmaking #LuxuryWatches #WatchesAndWonders #CalibreRoyale #FrenchManufacture #Horology #WatchCollecting #InHouseMovement #MadeInFrance #MechanicalWatches #WatchDNA #HauteHorlogerie #PequignetParis #WatchReview

Transcript

0:00

This is something that you can keep all your life. You can keep this watch 50 years. This is a symbol of a unique French manufacturer. Yeah. Hey everyone, I'm very excited to be here with Ug, president CEO of Pekinier. Exactly. Alright, thank you so much for having us. My pleasure. Some people might know about Pekinier, some people might not know about Pekinier. What will you tell somebody that never heard about the brand? First, I mean we are the French manufacturer. Okay. So Pekinier is a French brand, but also a French manufacturer carrying all the uh history uh of the French watchmaking. As you know, watchmaking born in France many centuries ago. Yeah. And so in somewhere we are the heritage of this long history of watch manufacturing in France. So something that is very important for me. Yes, I love watches and I love the object, but for me is the DNA, the story behind. And I'm sure you have a story behind not just the brand but also yourself. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey? The story of uh Pekinier is that manufacturer was created about 50 years ago, a little bit more than 50 years ago, by Emile, Emile Pékin. So this is the name of the company. And Emile was more a designer. He was creating one of the first working on and maybe the first working on real female watches, watches for ladies. So the brand started with ladies' watches? Mainly with lady watches. And uh at that time, so back in the 80s, he was uh not doing his own movement, he was buying Swiss movement. So he was uh making a lot of new collections every year of very nice, elegant, very French watches. So that is one part of our DNA. Yeah. The second part of our DNA is when Emile sold the company, sold the company to uh watchmaker from a family of watchmakers, so he decided that Pékin should become a manufacturer. Then they decided to invest into making own movements. The first movement made in-house was in 2010. So Pekinier presented his first movement in 2010, which was the uh calibre royale. Calibre Royal is a very uh very specific movement where the complications are from the beginning built-in, it's not calibre, then you put the complication on top. This is a movement which has been created with integrated complications, so the jumping date, so 96 hours of uh power reserve, moon phase, and so jumping dates are really uh three disjumping at midnight uh instantly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that is a very special dwell of uh of the company. Then the company had some uh financial difficulties, and four employees bought back the company in 2017. Then something was missing in the company, which was a small movement, so they decided to develop the calibre initial, which is an in-house manufactured caliber but thinner, less diameter, and uh with still 65 hours of power uh reserve but only jumping date, three needle jumping date. So that are the two feats of the campaign, and then decided to create a small group of companies which is called maison and manufacturers. The idea is to take small companies which have a real know-how French making in France and so try to grow lots of them. Everything is highly premium. I don't like the word luxury because I think that uh what we are doing is very, very nice product with a lot of attention, of course that has a price, but you know, is it luxury or not? I this is something I would not say. Everybody has his own opinion about luxury, and everybody and in the end of the day, what I love to say is that for some people a million dollars is no money, for some people $500 is a lot of money. It's not about the money, it's about the value that you give to an object. Exactly and the story behind and the time. A lot of people buy watches when they graduate, when they have their first child, or when they there's a wedding anniversary, whatever it's for a specific moment. And specifically on a watch, uh a watch, a pekini watch, this is something that you can keep all your life. Yeah, you know, we are uh at first, I mean, the watch is warranted by during five years. Okay, and then after we are repairing, you know, we have a very good after-sale service and we can repair lifetime. So of course it's an investment, but if you look at the fact that you can keep this watch 50 years, exactly. So very high quality product is not that expensive because it's last. And so I think it goes also well with the protection of the environment, etc. Specifically at Peking, all our components are purchased in a radius of uh 50 miles around the campaign. Really? Okay, where is the company base? The company base is in France, just at the Switzerburg border, okay, in Morteau, okay, which is uh an area which in France has a long tradition of watchmaking. So this is where we are. Now what we want to do is to mix those two DNAs. You know, I told you Emile Pecinier DNA was the style, uh creativity, French touch, etc. Yeah, yeah, and the DNA of uh Mr. Libingwood, which bought the Cameron after, was manufacturing, engineering, etc. So now Pekinier is really the mixture between this French touch design and high-tech manufactured watches. This is where we are. And where can people go and see a Pekini on their wrist? Well, first in our boutiques. So we have one boutique in Paris. Where is it in Paris? Uh it's uh just in Saint-Germain-des-Prais. Saint-Germain-després, okay. Okay, we have one boutique in Besançon, which is uh the heart of the watchmaking area in France. And then we have a website also, of course. You cannot test on the web, but you can acquire the watch and you can get it, and if it doesn't fit, you can start selling back. So we have those three channels which are our internal channels. Yeah, then we have uh distributors, so we have quite a lot of distributors in France, in Belgium, okay, Japan, Germany, Italy. We are in watching wonders now. This is our third time here. Okay, yeah. And so we are developing a network. Now we begin to have watches in Abu Dhabi, Iraq, Vietnam. Okay, and I think I see a few watches. So let me grab one or two. I mean, do you want to grab one or two? I don't know which ones. I will grab one. Yeah, for sure. Here we have three watches which are characteristic of what we do at uh Pekinier right now. This is our new model, the model that we are launching at Watching Wonders. It's a chronograph. Uh the chronograph is made uh on the basis of our calibre initial. Okay, and the case is uh Royal Paris chronograph with a very nice bracelet, yeah, which is very typical of the know-how of Pekinier, okay, you know, with a very specific way of mounting the bracelet. Very, very soft, very supple. Here it's uh another thing which is also characteristic of Pekinier. This is the French elegance. We have diamonds because we are capable to insert the diamond inside our manufacturer. We did that ourselves with a very nice and elegant color of dial. Before you you use the word elegant, that's the word that I was trying to tell for this watch. It looks very elegant, very sophisticated. It is a gold. Yeah, and here this is what we may say that Pekinier is about uh sport watches. Okay, it's elegant sport, it is titan, titan case, and uh rubber, uh rubber bracelet with a quick yeah, easy clip, yeah, easy clip uh that you uh you can uh um very adjust easily. Okay, and then you can change for a metal bracelet if you want. Okay, beautiful. So is this one as the no, it's uh it's a different, right? It's a different but also has uh the easy clip ability. Okay, you can change your uh your chronograph with a strap or a bracelet. Okay, okay. So this is only I like the matching of the color. Yeah, the colour is very nice. We we try to do that uh the best we can. So that is you with these three samples, a taste of what Pekinier is today between elegance and uh a certain vision of sport, okay, a certain vision of elegance. Okay, and if you look at the the one I'm wearing, this is about the same ID. So it's an elegant, very elegant watch, but with a lot of complication because here we have the moon phase, we have uh the 96 hour purple reserve and the small second and the jumping date. Okay, beautiful, yeah. See, and very well finished with a lot of uh polishing and uh surface grinding, etc. Amazing. So, last question for you. As we know, there is the second customer which is the majority, which they know they are ready to purchase, they have a budget in mind, but they're not sure yet. Do they want a pekinier? Do they want to announce the brand? People that maybe are looking for their first watch, or maybe they're looking for a collection, a second or third one. What will you tell them quickly so they can decide? Okay, you know what, Pekinier is a brand that I will consider. First, you will have with Pekinier a symbol of uh the unique French manufacturer. Yeah, okay, so that is something very special already. Then the second thing is that with Pékinier you will have a very reliable watch, okay, a watch that you can wear every day. We at Pekinier we don't want to sell watches for people that put that in a safe. We want we want we make watches to wear, to experience. And so if you like to have a nice product, elegant product that you can wear every day, then you can choose. Alright, perfect. Listen, it was a pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you for it. It's a really pleasure. And you guys make sure you go watchdn.com slash pekinier. You will have information about the brand. Very soon we're adding the product so you can even try virtually the watch, and hopefully, we can have the store locator and the location so you know where to buy them. Alright. Again, thank you so much. Merci beaucoup.