Christophe Golay

Christophe Golay was born in the late sixties in Geneva where he grew up in a family deeply forn of local traditions. His father, an electronic engineer, gave him a taste for high technology at a very young age, by enabling him to discover the mysteries of computers and the magic of racing cars. His mother, a culinary arts teacher with a passion for interior decorating, gave him an artistic outlook and an understanding of the harmony of shapes and colors.

Possessing a great ease with all scientific disciplines and motivated by a profound desire to discover and understand how things work, Christophe chooses to study for a Chemistry Laboratory Technician Diploma. It is then at the age of fifteen that he buys himself a self-winding chronograph with his first pay cheque.

After passing his degree, he decides to continue studying his studies and joins the brand new Ecole d'ingénieurs du Valais in Sion, Switzerland (now the Haute Ecole Valaisanne), where he passes his Chemistry Engineering Degree.

Christophe's career starts in a pharmaceutical research centre where he will successfully be in charge of production equipment maintenance, prototype fabrication and finally, galenical research. The relevance of his work will lead the company to patent one of his projects which he will develop through to industrial production.

Along side his professional career, he continues to be passionate about watch making, having a profound conviction that one day he will work in the industry.

Following the death of his father, Roland, Christophe inherits a custom-made watch with the "R. Golay" mark. Wanting to find out more about it, he looks for its creator. After a few months of searching and several meetings, Christophe realizes that what he thought to be a custom-made time-piece was in fact just an assemblage of pre-existing parts.

Soon after, Christophe wants to create his own custom-made watch but who would be able to make his dream a reality? Unfortunately, he has to accept that this dream is only obtainable at a high price.

Christophe then undertakes to meet each artisan involved in the making of a watch: watchmaker, dial maker, engraver, jewelers, hand maker, polisher, enameller, chain-maker, tanner, etc.

Christophe discovers each trade, learns their language and above all motivates and unites the artisans in a project: the creation and realization of custom-made watches.

What was utopia then would take another three years to come to fruition...

Emile Spierer

Emile was born in 1956 in Geneva. His father, a salesman with a background in mathematics, had a passion for the arts and mechanics and spent part of his free time in his workshop of engine tools he had set up in his basement. The smell of cutting oil and the flying metal shavings make a strong impression on Emile's childhood. Sadly, Georges Spierer succumbs to an illness in 1964, leaving his wife Hélène alone to raise their three young children.

Hélène Spierer, the daughter of one of the first women engineers in France, guides her children into university studies. Consequently, in 1982 Emile graduates as a mechanical and thermic engineer, from the prestigious Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland.

The early eighties prove to be a difficult time for the watchmaking industry which has been befallen by recession. Several businesses are made bankrupt. The field is devastated. There is no room for a young engineer whose horological experience limits itself to the impassioned disassembling of antique family time-pieces since the age of eight.

In the mean time, Emile establishes a small engineering firm and develops trade in stainless and special metals along with innovative miniature dental equipment. His first profits are spent on the restoration of older time-pieces.

In 1986, a great opportunity knocks at his door; an open administrative position which allows him to participate in the development of energy policies for Geneva. A new Constitution has just voted in the Republic and County of Geneva, thus requiring new policies that engage rational utilization of energy spending as well as the development of renewable energies. This not only gives Emile the opportunity to be one of the first people to initiate sustainable development in Geneva, well before this concept was public knowledge, but also to integrate its principles in several executive systems of the State related to energy and to teach its founding principles in seminars for student engineers, architects and professionals.

Ever since the end of his studies, Emile remains focused on the watchmaking world. He shares his passion with his friends and family and takes them for frequent visits to specialized museums of Geneva and La Chaux-de-Fonds or the Geneva museum of science history.

The true adventure commences when, in 2000, Emile decides he wants to wear a watch reflecting his desires, which marks the beginning of a frustrating quest. Despite the fact that the watchmaking field offers truly amazing watches, in his view the path to their acquisition is unsuitable and dry. He would like to be able to be a part of the watch creation, to influence it, to see the artisans at work with their engine-tools or at the workbench, to smell the metal which has been worked on.

This quest is the kind of obstacle Emile thrives on, a challenge which requires new logic and calls into question one's goals and ideals.

It is precisely in that state of mind that he meets Christophe and that they will complement each other.