Once the cream of the watchmaking crop, independent movement constructors have seen their commercial prospects, profitability, and even relevance dwindle. Specialist workshops that supplied chronographs, tourbillons, minute repeaters, and groundbreaking complications had their heyday through the mid-2010s. Major luxury groups then went shopping – either buying up the specialists outright (witness Louis Vuitton with La Fabrique du Temps or Montblanc with Minerva) or rendering them redundant by building out massive in-house manufacturing infrastructure. To be sure, this also happened to independent casemakers, dialmakers and more, but that is a story for another time.

In the landscape of continuing consolidation, Concepto Watch Factory is a singular outlier. Our sister title in the UK, WatchPro, even goes so far as to suggest that the future is divided between the movement haves and have-nots. Concepto begs to differ. Not only did the La Chaux-de-Fonds movement maker navigate the turbulent waters of the recent past unscathed, it is now celebrating its 20th anniversary without having posted a single unprofitable year – not even through the height of the pandemic. Having emerged from global lockdowns at full throttle, it has neither slowed down nor downsized.

There is a straightforward reason for this endurance: Concepto can develop and manufacture virtually anything a watch brand envisions – including mechanisms said brand did not yet realise it needed. Part industrial manufacture, part pure research bureau, its repertoire ranges from razor-thin calibres to architectural grand complications, anchored throughout by two foundational specialities: the chronograph and the tourbillon.

Persona

A company’s personality often directly mirrors that of its founder. Rarely has this held truer than at Concepto. Valérien Jaquet – its founder, sole owner, CEO, and master constructor – has shaped the manufacture around his personal ethos, his family heritage, and an unrelenting, if quietly held, ambition: to create extraordinary calibres without ever resting on his laurels.

As the son and grandson of watchmakers, Jaquet is heir to the Jura lineage that founded Jaquet SA (later renamed Manufacture La Joux-Perret). Having watch wheels and mainsprings running in his veins, he understands better than most the regulatory, industrial, and reputational pitfalls of the Swiss watchmaking ecosystem. Consequently, his operating philosophy prioritises absolute mechanical reliability, complete manufacturing autonomy, comprehensive integration of savoir-faire, and, above all, making his enterprise indispensable to his clients.

That client portfolio has welcomed nearly a hundred brands across two decades. Concepto’s foundational milestone was supplying Hublot’s original Big Bang with several thousand chronograph calibres. Today, its roster includes Bulgari, Jacob & Co., Corum, Porsche Design, Louis Moinet, Berneron, Ressence, and Parmigiani Fleurier, alongside several tier-one houses that insist on strict non-disclosure. Even though Concepto is renowned across the industry as a seal of mechanical legitimacy, the enduring code of Swiss secrecy means much of its finest work remains discreetly uncredited.

Industrial Muscle

Discretion notwithstanding, physical growth is impossible to conceal. Concepto’s facilities have expanded in stages to cover 7,500 square metres, outfitted with enough precision machinery, profile-turning lathes, and watchmakers’ benches to deliver an annual output of 20,000 to 30,000 movements – around 1,100 of which feature a tourbillon.

Its most visible tour de force has been the co-development of ultra-thin movements with Bulgari. Concepto worked hand-in-hand with the Roman firm (and its Swiss workshops) to engineer the technical milestones that anchored the Octo Finissimo legend. This collaboration kicked off in 2014 with the record-breaking Octo Finissimo Tourbillon manual calibre (just 1.95mm thin inside a 5.00mm case) and culminated in the astounding Octo Finissimo Ultra family, reaching an unprecedented total case thickness of just 1.70mm. One could make the case (no pun intended) that Concepto industrialised the production, small series though it is, of the components for these very special movements.

Total Autonomy

To execute these physics-defying projects, Concepto recognised early on that vertical integration was non-negotiable. What began in 2006 as a movement design office transformed first into a component contractor, and ultimately into an entirely autonomous manufacture.

That autonomy extends to the innermost soul of the mechanical watch: the regulating organ. Concepto manufactures its own hairsprings, balance wheels, pallet forks, and escape wheels in-house, alongside everything from mainplates to winding stems, bridges, and gear trains – whether off-the-shelf or built from a blank sheet of paper. Upstairs in its La Chaux-de-Fonds facility, the manufacture partnered with Arts & Design Manufacture SA, the fine-craft atelier led by Fanny and Julien Queloz, whose hand-engraving and artisanal finishing have long earned the trust of houses like Patek Philippe. Concepto has also introduced a dedicated casemaking workshop to retain total control over delivery timelines, tolerances, and exterior finish.

Concepto does not merely manufacture parts to order; it embeds itself directly into a client’s creative and engineering process. Its longstanding collaboration with Jacob & Co. – which sources most of its high complications from Concepto – goes far beyond contract manufacturing. The engines powering the Bugatti Chiron Tourbillon, the Bugatti Tourbillon, and the vast majority of the three-dimensional Astronomia collection were realised through this intimate, iterative dialogue.

Mastering The Whirlwind

Meeting client brands as an engineering equal is arguably the core secret to the manufacture’s longevity. Brands do not hire Valérien Jaquet for standard catalogue work. He and his team of 30 watchmakers conceptualise, engineer, prototype, and industrialise between four and six entirely new calibres each year – nearly all featuring a tourbillon.

The rotating carriage is both Concepto’s signature and its genesis: Jaquet’s first commercial calibre was a tourbillon with sapphire bridges. Over time, he has cultivated what is arguably the industry’s most comprehensive stable of tourbillons. Concepto currently produces 13 distinct types: ones ranging from single- to four-axis configurations; incorporating one, two, or four cages; rendered as flying, cantilevered, or traditionally bridged architectures; and running from the classical 60-second rotation down to a blistering four seconds per revolution.

Yet these days, movements alone do not consume all of its bench time. Concepto has expanded haute horlogerie mechanics into the stratospheric realm of automotive engineering.

Mechanical Convergence

While it might seem like a premeditated corporate tie-in, the automotive crossover began as two separate developments. On one side, Concepto had engineered the intricate mechanical movement for Jacob & Co.’s Bugatti timepieces from the very beginning. That automotive–horological relationship was already well established.

Then, in late 2023, Jaquet received an unexpected call from Bugatti CEO Mate Rimac. Out of the blue, Rimac asked him to apply Concepto’s high-precision micro-mechanical expertise to produce the entire instrument cluster for the upcoming Bugatti hypercar. Rimac had chosen to name the machine the Tourbillon as an overt tribute to traditional Swiss horology, deliberately banishing disposable digital screens in favour of analog permanence.

Concepto took on the challenge, integrating Bugatti’s design cues with automotive-grade tolerances while navigating the complex electronics of the fixed-hub steering wheel, instrument display, and paddle shifters. The manufacture has since carved out a high-security workshop dedicated solely to assembling these 600-plus-component titanium and sapphire instrument clusters. The space will soon double as a private hospitality suite: future Bugatti Tourbillon owners will visit La Chaux-de-Fonds to configure their mechanical dials before taking delivery of their €3.8 million hypercar.

Centre Stage

Having long operated behind the curtain as an industry ghost-builder, Concepto is now receiving overt, public credit from its partners. Its maker’s hallmark is visibly engraved beneath the lugs of the Octo Finissimo Ultra Tourbillon, and Bulgari openly celebrates Jaquet’s team in its record-setting announcements. Concepto has evolved into a recognised guarantor of mechanical pedigree – a badge of honour that brands are proud to display rather than conceal.

Valérien Jaquet never pursued celebrity for its own sake, but this hard-earned spotlight represents a well-deserved validation for him and his 185 craftspeople. In an industry governed by corporate acquisitions, homogeneous supply chains, and fleeting trends, remaining an autonomous, profitable master of mechanical complications is no small victory. For one of the last true independents standing, that recognition is the ultimate dividend.

This story was first seen as part of the WOW #87 Legacy 2026 issue.

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