Pascal Raffy is ready to write the next chapter of Bovet with his children

PASCAL Raffy wants his watches to speak to him; not for him but to him. Raffy is the owner of Bovet, a powerhouse of artisanal Swiss watchmaking, so you might think he wants Bovet watches to convey his vision to the world, but this is only partly true. What is more important to Raffy is that Bovet watches speak for themselves; they must have anima, in other words. To Raffy’s credit, Bovet watches are instantly recognisable, which is no mean feat considering that they are all round. To really understand why this is, you would have to get your mitts on a Bovet, which is harder than you might think because Raffy caps production at 1,000 pieces annually. And he is not flexible on this.

What troubles Raffy is the lure of industrial scale, which confronts high-end watchmaking with an uncomfortable identity crisis. When production figures climb, the artisanal soul that once defined haute horlogerie can easily be diluted or lost entirely. For Raffy, who remains the driving force behind the brand he acquired more than 20 years ago, the solution to this contemporary dilemma was decided from the start: remain fiercely independent, strictly cap annual production, and run the manufacture through the exacting eyes of a collector.

Founded in 1822 by Edouard Bovet in the Swiss village of Fleurier, Bovet quickly attained formidable renown, crafting ornate pocket watches for the imperial court of China’s Qing Dynasty, where the name “Bovet” became the generic term for a luxury timepiece. In 2001, Raffy, a former pharmaceutical entrepreneur and an ardent watch collector, acquired the storied brand. Rather than trading solely on heritage, he orchestrated a comprehensive vertical integration, acquiring the historic 14th-century Chateau de Motiers and the specialised manufacturing facilities of Dimier 1738 in Tramelan.

Today, Bovet is among the vanishingly rare manufactures capable of producing virtually all its own components internally, right down to the balance springs that regulate its movements.

Meeting Raffy reveals an executive who is nothing like an executive; his commercial discipline is inseparable from emotional instinct. In conversation, he reflects on how self-sufficiency, bespoke craft, and the emerging design sensibilities of his children are guiding Bovet into its next chapter.

Integration as pure luxury

For Raffy, complete vertical integration was never merely a hedge against supply-chain volatility; it was an investment in creative autonomy and workplace harmony.

“Being truly integrated offers you that freedom, dynamism, and the ability to involve all your artisans from Day 1 of any project,” Raffy explains. “Usually, technical bureaus work on the side – they engineer movements in isolation and don’t really share with the watchmakers. From Day 1, I insisted: Engineers, please never forget that your watchmaker must be comfortable when assembling the movement.”

This collaborative culture underpins Bovet’s most technically audacious creations, from the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Geneve Aiguille d’Or-winning Grand Recital and astronomical Asterium to the Recital 28 Prowess 1, which famously solved the mechanical puzzle of daylight-saving time, and the brand-new Recital 31 perpetual calendar.

“If we were not integrated to that degree, every one of those projects would have taken far longer,” Raffy says. “When component production, hairspring manufacturing, and hand decoration all happen under the same roof, prototyping and fine-tuning are immediate. Everyone shares the journey. It is demanding, but it removes every limit on your imagination.”

The 1,000-piece ceiling

While luxury groups continually chase volume growth, Bovet maintains the aforementioned rigid production ceiling of approximately 1,000 timepieces per year. This scarcity is not artificial marketing; it is a structural necessity driven by the house’s expansive bespoke programme.

“In an average year, bespoke commissions account for around 30 per cent of our output, and in some years, up to 40 per cent,” notes Raffy. “During those peak bespoke years, we don’t even reach 1,000 watches – we complete between 900 and 980 pieces, because bespoke work is exceptionally resource-intensive.”

The world-time Recital 30 illustrates the complexity. Collectors frequently request bespoke city rollers to replace standard reference hubs with personal hometowns or favourite destinations. “People assume (creating a bespoke) Recital 30 is merely pad-printing a new word,” Raffy says. “In reality, it requires dedicated technical (effort), custom photolithographic films, and specialised hand-printing on curved surfaces. It is an art form in itself.” This self-imposed restraint has insulated Bovet from the inventory shocks that periodically plague the wider luxury watch market. “Since 2001, we have crafted more than 23,000 timepieces,” Raffy points out. “Yet if you scour the global secondary market today, there are fewer than 500 available. Keeping production tight means every watch is genuinely desired by a human being.”

A family dialogue in design

While Raffy’s reverence for classical watchmaking remains steadfast, the company’s latest novelties reflect a distinct contemporary energy, driven by his three children, aged 22, 25, and 33. Their perspectives sparked the unexpected introduction of high-tech ceramic into Bovet’s high-complication portfolio.

“I am naturally a conservative person, but I am neither stubborn nor narrow-minded,” smiles Raffy. “I listen to the present generation. They want sportier, more modern materials. Ceramic is highly scratch-resistant and visually appealing. As long as the mechanics within remain pure, uncompromising haute horlogerie, I welcome it.”

The dialogue extends across the Recital 30, 31, and 32 collections. “The mechanics belong to the father; the design belongs to the children,” Raffy says proudly. It was his children who championed the integration of sporty rubber straps for the Recital 30, developing five tailored colourways that subsequently inspired the aesthetic of the bespoke city rollers, inverting the palette to feature crisp white rollers accented by emerald-green typography, for example.

Depth over convenience

That same balance between innovation and tradition governs Bovet’s exploration of metallurgy. While the brand recently introduced mirror-polished Grade 5 titanium cases, housing skeletonised perpetual calendars composed of 744 hand-engraved components, Raffy is measured regarding the use of titanium for internal movement architecture.

When asked whether titanium mainplates and bridges are on the horizon, Raffy confirms that research is under way, but adds a caveat rooted in aesthetics: “The challenge with titanium plates and bridges is that the hand-finishing cannot always achieve the same lively depth. When I turn a watch over, the movement must speak to me. If an engraving is not deep enough and lacks structural body, that is a blocking point for me.”

Genuine depth is a core principle at Bovet’s ateliers. In the Recital 31 perpetual calendar, that philosophy manifests both mechanically and artistically. Mechanically, the watch introduces an intuitive, collector-friendly feature: discreetly engraved labels on the caseback beside each corrector pusher, indicating its specific calendar function.

The practical solution was born when Raffy noticed even seasoned watchmakers hesitating for a moment when setting the watch.

Artistically, the Recital 31 showcases geometric hand-engraving across its movement bridges, conceived by Bovet’s chief engraver. Watching the snowfall through the workshop windows in Tramelan, she sketched a crystalline snowflake pattern that requires 25 hours of painstaking hand-carving per movement. Unlike shallow machine etchings, the deep-relief engraving plays dynamically with natural light, mirroring the brilliance of gem-setting.

“For a perpetual calendar paired with an astronomical precision moon phase, snowflakes are pure horological poetry,” Raffy observes.

At Bovet, that poetry remains anchored by industrial independence and family stewardship, proof that in fine watchmaking, the most sustainable path forward is often the refusal to cut corners.