Cutting across a vast expanse of rolling green hills and sparkling blue lakes, the narrow road to Vallée de Joux snakes through 10 tiny towns that make the world’s most expensive watches. Home to legends like Audemars Piguet, Vacheron Constantin, Blancpain, Breguet, Patek Philippe and Jaeger-LeCoultre, this valley was once dominated by farmers who took up watchmaking as a lucrative pastime during dreary winters.
Today, the farms and barns here are far and few between, with hamlets like Le Sentier and Le Brassus representing Switzerland’s cradle of high watchmaking. About an hour’s drive north of Geneva, the picturesque village of Le Sentier is where Jaeger-LeCoultre’s original workshop was established in 1833 by Antoine LeCoultre.
By 1888, LeCoultre’s tiny workshop had expanded to become one of Vallée de Joux’s most respected manufacture — “La Grande Maison”, which employed over 500 watchmakers and artists and had several patents to its credit. Masters of micromechanics, Jacques-David LeCoultre and Parisian watchmaker Edmond Jaeger started collaborating on ultra thin watches in 1903. The two established their proficiency in miniaturisation with the creation of the Duoplan, the world’s smallest mechanical movement in 1925. However, the watch that actually sealed their longstanding bond and paved the way for manufacture
