Today I would like to tell you about a watchmaker that aims to deconstruct and distort time through its watches. You may have guessed it, I am going to talk about the eponymous brand Emmanuel Bouchet. Before I speak about his emblematic model and the relaunch of the brand in 2025, I will retrace the life of this watchmaker whose motto is “Life is only a moment, an hour that passes, a day that slips away.”
Born in 1963 in Maîche in the Doubs in eastern France, Emmanuel Bouchet comes from a family deeply rooted in what was once a major center of French watchmaking. He grew up in the Franco Swiss village of Charmauvillers, located on the border between Switzerland and Germany, where he was seized by a passion for watches like his father and his grandfather, while also dreaming of being a cyclist, a mountaineer, or a pilot. His father, a watchmaker, was a local figure who won the Chronometry Prize several times for different movements in the nineteen fifties. Emmanuel Bouchet first attended the Morteau School of Watchmaking, where he became an outstanding student guided by a higher force, before taking over at only twenty one the family business of watch and jewelry repair and restoration located in Ancerville.
Soon after, he obtained the Poinçon de Maître, a guarantee of his responsibility for Swiss watches. Surrounded by a team of six, he created jewelry, repaired measuring instruments for the largest manufactures, and maintained clocks in the French national museums. After sixteen years, he wanted to discover what he calls great Swiss watchmaking and joined Jaeger LeCoultre in 1999. His suggestions for the Reverso Perpetual Calendar Retrograde earned him a place within the department of Grandes Complications. He stayed there for three years, then after eleven months at Frédéric Piguet, he left for Parmigiani Fleurier. As head of the complications laboratory, he worked on the Bugatti, a watch with a unique tubular form, as well as on the Thirty Second Tourbillon.
Passionate about haute horlogerie from design through industrialization, Emmanuel Bouchet co founded Centagora in 2008 with a micro engineer, a mechanical engineer and watchmaker, a computer and sales engineer, a project engineer, and a project manager in order to put his technological know how and watchmaking expertise at the service of the industry. This multidisciplinary structure offered services in design and development, consulting, coaching, technical analysis, training, outsourcing and co innovation, as well as the assembly and casing of special small series or particularly complex timepieces. To give you an idea of their work, they realized the Harry Winston Opus 12.
Yet once again, Emmanuel Bouchet had another ambition. In 2014, he founded his own company Emmanuel Bouchet Architecture Mécanique in Fleurier in Switzerland, driven by a vision to make the movement the centerpiece of the watch, not hidden but revealed. He also created MaClef which is a name composed of his name and those of his wife and children, a company providing watchmaking services. At the same time, in the same year, he also presented his first watch, the Emmanuel Bouchet Complication One, which we will discuss today. However, as his company MaClef expanded, he decided to put his dream of creating watches under his own name on hold until today in 2025. He now wishes to express himself freely, to build a brand, and finally to give his eponymous mechanical and artistic creations the attention they deserve.
In a world governed by an ultra connected and globalized society where we often lose the sense of time, Emmanuel Bouchet wants to create a vision of watchmaking that revolves around the deconstruction and appreciation of passing time. Learning to slow time can only be beneficial. “If life is only an hour, a minute, a fleeting second, then we must slow time to better contemplate the present moment. By slowing down, we can perceive beauty. Slowing down allows us to focus on a detail that escapes us at full speed. Logically, I therefore decided to slow the mechanical instants of my gestures.” For the occasion, he relaunched with the help of Aurélie Picaud his first model, the Complication One, a watch that places the key elements of the movement, the escape wheel and the anchor, at the center of the dial. In doing so, he pays tribute to traditional watchmaking while challenging conventions through a bold reinterpretation of the design of these components. Now let us move on to the presentation of this watch.
Table of Contents – Emmanuel Bouchet Complication One Aleph
What are the features of the Emmanuel Bouchet Complication One Aleph?
Case
The Emmanuel Bouchet Complication One Aleph features a uniquely refined case that is fully polished in white gold and fitted with two glassbox crystals that offer a beautiful opening onto the dial side and the movement side. Its design is not only elegant, it looks like no other. With a diameter of 44 mm and a restrained thickness of 11.2 mm, this watch is, as you can see in the photos, disproportionate for my rather thin wrist. Nevertheless, its lines are fluid, with a perfect continuity created by the lugs and by the light and transparency effects produced by the shape of the crystal, which makes the style of the watch very light, if not aerial.
I like the design of this case a lot, but I only regret the positioning of the lugs which, if they had been placed flush with the glassbox of the caseback, would have allowed the watch to be more comfortable on the wrist. One point to specify is that the case was designed before the movement. In addition, as a tribute to watches of the past, the caseback is snapped and not screwed as on contemporary models. Also, the sapphire back and the mainplate are both curved for optimal ergonomics.
Dial
The Emmanuel Bouchet Complication One Aleph is adorned with a pastel green mainplate on which suspended transparent sapphire sub dials can be found. One could describe the dial of the Complication One by Emmanuel Bouchet as a traditional regulator, since it has separate dials for seconds, minutes, and hours. In reality, each element of the time display is itself deconstructed, a deconstruction that is deconstructed. The display of hours and minutes is unique. The hands position themselves instantly, unlike most watches where they move slowly.
The hours are indicated at eight o clock, and the minutes and tens of minutes at four o clock with two hands. The most surprising feature lies in the display of the minutes. The shorter and thicker hand indicates the tens of minutes, while the longer hand displays the exact minute. Thus, only the longer hand uses the full scale from zero to nine on the sub dial, while the shorter hand returns to zero after five minutes. At twelve o clock, there is a seconds indication, and a resolutely contemporary day and night indicator also appears at twelve o clock on a disc located under the seconds disc, thereby underscoring the power and harmony of the design. The tips of the hour hand and the tens of minutes hand are in frosted sapphire, which improves legibility and brings a refined and elegant touch.
To conclude the dial section, at six o clock we find the dial side escapement, which regulates the hours and minutes and performs one oscillation every fifteen seconds. More precisely, a lever placed between the fork and the escapement transmits its force to the movement, creating a pause in time. It is a moment, however brief, when time seems suspended. Conversely, the movement side escapement, which regulates the seconds, beats at its usual rhythm. Such a display of time requires from the owner a period of acclimatization, especially for the minutes, but once it is mastered, legibility causes no issue.
Movement
The Emmanuel Bouchet Complication One Aleph houses the calibre EB63, a unique and fully integrated hand wound mechanical movement with no modules. It is fitted with a variable inertia balance spring with a Breguet overcoil and has a frequency of 18,000 vibrations per hour which is 2.5 hertz. It is equipped with two barrels, each driving an independent gear train, one for the seconds and the other for the hours and minutes, and it guarantees a minimum autonomy of 55 hours. This may seem a modest power reserve for two barrels, but the jumping hour, the decimal jump, the minute display, and the retrograde function require considerable energy.
There are also two Swiss lever escapements, each with its own escape wheel. One is on the back for the seconds and the other is on the dial side for the hours and minutes. The additional transmission escapement, which is perfectly visible on the dial side, beautifully illustrates an emotional approach to time. While maintaining extreme precision, the Emmanuel Bouchet transmission escapement is 75 times slower than the classic Swiss escapement which delivers energy to the balance and to the seconds hand of this watch, thus ensuring one oscillation every fifteen seconds. As a result, the two barrels allow, on the one hand, the supply of the regulating system that drives the main gear train, and on the other hand, the accumulation of the energy required to activate the regulating system on the dial every fifteen seconds. It is a much slower tick that makes it possible to deconstruct time.
The synchronization of the large seconds is obviously also highlighted. This is the reason why the sub dial of the sweeping seconds is the most important and why it is located at the top of the dial. When the escapement module performs its movement, the seconds hand stops to synchronize. Here then is a purely mechanical watch that reminds me of the behavior of Swiss station clocks. But here the synchronization takes place every fifteen seconds. The animation of the dial should therefore be considered as being composed of both the escapement module and the seconds hand. Also, every detail has been taken into account for watchmaking excellence, for technical and mechanical reliability, and for an aesthetic that is enhanced by high level horological decoration finishes.
Strap
The Emmanuel Bouchet Complication One Aleph is delivered with a green alligator strap and a white gold pin buckle with the very discreet logo of the brand.
What is the price of the Emmanuel Bouchet Complication One Aleph?
The Emmanuel Bouchet Complication One Aleph is offered in limited production priced at CHF 127,000 (excl. VAT) for the titanium version and CHF 150,000 (excl. VAT) for the gold version.
Emmanuel Bouchet Complication One Aleph: a watch that deconstructs time
The Complication One Aleph is the expression of a philosophy through mechanical watchmaking of extreme precision, offering a new form of philosophical complication. He wants people to slow the rhythm with these watches. Life is only a moment. I like this concept a lot because it reminds us that life is only a succession of moments that will become memories. We must appreciate these instants and give importance to the time that we cannot catch up with.
The concept of synchronization pleased me greatly and I must admit that the two sub dials dedicated to the time display quickly appeared to me as accessories. Emmanuel Bouchet has therefore paid a beautiful tribute to the Swiss lever because thanks to the Complication One it has become the center of interest of his watch both from a technical point of view and from an aesthetic point of view. It allows the wearer to contemplate the movement and to understand the mechanical functioning of time in a captivating and unique way while offering a remarkable indication of the time.
At Emmanuel Bouchet, each watch is a statement. Assembled by hand in their workshop in Les Bayards in the mountains of the canton of Neuchâtel, they reflect an almost artistic approach to watchmaking. Each Emmanuel Bouchet creation embodies a dialogue between architecture and emotion. The brand highlights the beating of time, offering a poetic interpretation of the mechanical movement. Far from industrial production, each piece is designed in Switzerland at one hundred percent, like a work of art that combines technology, emotion, and design.
I wanted to thank personally Emmanuel Bouchet and Aurélie Picaud for their welcome and their explanations at Geneva Watch Days 2025. Emmanuel Bouchet already has projects for the next twenty years and I look forward to seeing in 2026 the new line named Contemplation, whose name alone suggests another original way of approaching time and a space conducive to meditation.
Emmanuel Bouchet Complication One Aleph – Watch Specifications
- Brand: Emmanuel Bouchet
- Model: Complication One Aleph
- Case Material: 18-Carat White Gold
- Dial: Openworked
- Functions: Hours ; Minutes and Tens of a Minute ; Seconds ; Day & Night indication
- Movement: In-house designed movement EB63, Manual-Winding, 18’000vph frequency (2.5Hz), 71 jewels and 314 parts
- Power Reserve: 55 Hours
- Water Resistance: 3 ATM
- Crystal: Sapphire
- Caseback: Sapphire
- Case Dimension: 44mm × 11.20mm
- Strap: Green Alligator with Titanium Double Pin Buckle
- Availability : Limited Production
- Retail Price: CHF 127,000 (excl. VAT) for the titanium version and CHF 150,000 (excl. VAT) for the gold version
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What do you think of the revival of the Emmanuel Bouchet brand. Are you also sensitive to his approach to the deconstruction of time. Feel free to share your opinion in the comments.
For more information about Emmanuel Bouchet, click here.
