Ulysse Nardin Watch Manufacture: Where Technology Meets Pride

Patrik Hoffmann was given the position of Ulysse Nardin CEO after the brand’s long standing CEO Rolf Schnyder sadly passed away in the spring of 2011. He recalls Rolf with extreme fondness, referring to how he treated him like a son in many ways, and how for long periods of time he would live at Rolf’s Swiss home while Mr. Schnyder lived in Malaysia for long parts of the year. In many ways he was being bred to take over the historic brand that Rolf saved during the quartz crisis in the 1980s.Just a few weeks before his death I saw Rolf at Baselworld who offered a small speech on the future of Ulysse Nardin. He seemed energetic but those closest to him knew he had been not well for a while. Nevertheless, it was important for Rolf to share news on the brand’s upcoming caliber UN-118 movement that would be placed in the brand’s highest volume watches such as the Marine Chronometer.The UN-118 will contain technology that I believe is very important to the watch industry’s future, and its story begins with the Freak watch that was released about 10 years ago. Ulysse Nardin likes to say that it is a product driven, not marketing driven brand. I don’t know what that means to the lay-person, but I understand their meaning well as being someone familiar with the watch industry. The idea is that they focus more on selling a product versus a lifestyle images created through marketing. When you look at things like Diamonsil, it is hard to disagree.The Freak watch was novel for showcasing silicium as a movement component. In the US we call it silicon. Silicon parts in watches are very hardy and require no lubrication. They are also more or less impervious to environmental conditions such as cold or magnetism. All-silicium watch movements are coming in the future in my opinion, but the material alone can be brittle. To solve the problem of silicium’s fragility, Ulysse Nardin invested in (and eventually bought), a company that applies diamond coatings to silicium parts (I think the diamond compound is actually grown on the silicon). The combination of the words silicium and diamonds is where the term “Diamonsil” comes from. The caliber 118 (as called internally) will have a Diamonsil hairspring and escapement – which Ulysse Nardin also makes entirely by themselves.Producing their own movement has more to do with practicality than it does image. For years Swatch Group owned ETA has been threatening to no longer supply brands with movements. Ulysse Nardin has long since relied on ETA bases for its mainstream movements which are then modified by Ulysse Nardin. The brand’s highest-end Ulysse Nardin pieces are another story. Delays, price increases, or complete lack of parts from ETA would be an unwelcome eventuality to say the least. The overall sentiment in the watch industry right now is that no matter what happens at ETA, the outcome in unpredictable. This has led to a surge of innovation and investments, whereby non-Swatch Group brands are either making their own movements, or looking for suppliers elsewhere. Ulysse Nardin as a high-end brand, would of course like to dictate its future as much as possible.