At Breguet, Creating the Patterns of Time

L’ORIENT, Switzerland — Of all the techniques employed by the luxury watch industry to make its products beautiful and special, guillochage is one of the most obscure.

To the eye, it seems to be little more than a pattern of dots or lines or swirls, typically on dials and cases, produced by a man — or, increasingly, a woman — sitting at a machine chockablock with gears.

But an afternoon spent watching guillocheurs at work is a revelation. The process requires an appreciation of art and design, an understanding of mechanics, an exacting eye and unlimited patience. The arms of an octopus would be nice, too.

Breguet is the industry’s recognized leader in guillochage; it was the first company to use the technique on timepieces and still showcases it today, with a workshop devoted to the technique at the company’s factory in L’Orient, one of the Swiss watch villages in the Le Chenit district of the Vallée de Joux.

The technique, developed in the 16th century, was being used about 300 years later to add a flourish to wooden furniture when Abraham-Louis Breguet encountered it in London. And the company’s founder liked what he saw, according to Vincent Laucella, now Breguet’s creative director.