Collector's corner

ELTON JOHN: What made you want to become a watchmaker?

FRANCK MULLER: It was an accident. When I was very young, I started to go to the antique market. One of the dealers, an expert on antique watches, said, "What do you want to do with your future?" I said, "I want to work with my hands because I don't get good grades in school." So I went to the school of watchmakers in Geneva.

EJ: When did you start your own company?

FM: For four or five years, I restored antique watches. Then I wondered, Why do collectors buy antiques and have no interest in new watches? So I made my first watch in 1986.

EJ: The thing that strikes me about your watches is that they're an Incredible marriage of beautiful, old, classic design, but with new ideas and colors.

FM: I have antique watch influences; I like art deco and art nouveau. But I think the world is changing, and I don't want to make what has been made before.

EJ: On the back of your watches, it says, "The Master of Complications." Did you think of that yourself?

FM: No. When I started my company in 1992 and exhibited my first collection, I had to think of a name. Before it was Franck Geneva, and then I made it Franck Muller. We also had to think of a slogan, and someone suggested "The Master of Complications."

EJ: "The Master of Complications" suggests that you are very interested in the inside of the watch as well as the outside.

FM: Yes.

EJ: Do you prefer the inside or the outside?

FM: Both.

EJ: Do you consider yourself an artist as well as a watchmaker?

FM: I think I am an artist in the way and the direction I work, yes.

EJ: How many watches do you make a year?

FM: When I presented my first collection, it was only eleven watches. Last year it was five thousand.

EJ: They're couture watches, really.

FM: Yes. When I start to make a watch, I just reproduce my feelings. The pieces are not mass-produced. So if you give me the number of one of your watches . . .

EJ: You can tell me who made it.

FM: Yes.

EJ: That's incredible. I mean, I love motorcars, and Aston Martins are the same. You can see who made the engine in the car: They write their name. So tell me, what do you want your company to become?

FM: In my life, I work only with feelings, so I don't set any direction. I do what I like. I don't make compromises.

COPYRIGHT 1998 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning