Since 2005, when I first began to truly realise a burning desire to indulge my long-held passion in watches by establishing Chronolux Fine Watches, I have shipped thousands of beautiful new timepieces to new homes and happy owners all around the world.
However over time I also came to realise how little of the real and personal world of watch making I knew about. Sure, we all know as household names many of the biggest brands in the industry, but as I took my first curious steps on this road less travelled before excitedly quickening my step, I found that there was so much more to discover, a whole avant garde cosmos of Independent Watchmaking bubbling energetically just behind the romanticized veneer of the Big Business watch industry.
For many years I have written about this fascinating world of Independent Watchmaking, and in the course of doing so I have come to befriend a great number of people whom I, and the horologic cognoscenti, consider to be the very best watchmakers of our time. These are men and women whose investment in their profession goes a lot further than can be measured in cold, hard financial terms. The life and career of the Independent Watchmaker is quite literally as dedicated an existence as that of a monk in his monastery. OK, I know from experience that they still know how to kick back and have fun, but the serious side of their work is often one of solitary, silent and patient concentration - not to mention the myriad demands of running their business.
Although I still have the same fondness for the watches which first pricked my curiosity, and indeed spend the majority of my week sourcing brand name pieces for my clients, I have decided to push these often unsung heroes, the Independents, to the forefront on Chronolux Fine Watches.
In particular I have established a close and enduring friendship with many of the members of Independent Watchmaking's premier collective, the Académie Horlogère des Créateurs Indépendants (AHCI), a not for profit association established in 1985 by Svend Anderson and Vincent Calabrese. The AHCI serves to preserve traditional watchmaking skills by uncovering and nurturing new talent, and once established helping them to promote their work under one roof. It is my particular pleasure to offer a selection of timepieces from several AHCI members, as well as from many other award winning Independent Master Watchmakers.
As world-renowned connoisseur, expert and collector of important horologic icons Prof. Harry S.K.Tan advised some years ago on the subject of the emergence of Independent Watchmaking: "rather than acquire high complications from big brands where many hands make a single watch, the holy grail of watches is to have a watchmaker who will have had his hands on every single element of the watch". I concur Mr Tan.
So please set aside a few minutes to browse through my personally curated selection of sublime timepieces from the true heart of watchmaking - and that does not exclusively mean Switzerland - but anywhere that artisan haute horlogerie is carried on in the quiet and the arc of light which illuminates the watchmaker's bench late into the night.
When you select a fine watch from us you can be assured of a personal communicative service from purchase through to delivery, which places us among Europe's finest sources for quality and service in luxury watches.
