Sébastien Perret

There might be twenty of them left in Switzerland tops. Their natural habitat? Cities like Geneva, La Chaux de Fonds, Neuchatel, and (recently) Lausanne. They live and breathe horology night and day. They were born with a pencil in their hand. Who are they? The top Swiss watch designers in the industry, that’s who. They’re a tough bunch to find, much less observe and question live. But due to my newly minted “horology pass”, I was lucky enough to sit down with one of the hottest upcoming designers in the field Sébastien Perret. For a quick teaser click here.

Sébastien and his design studio Etude de Style is all the rage lately. It took me five tries to finally pin him down for an interview. And I finally nailed him at his Neuchatel headquarters one recent afternoon between two meetings. And he’s taking off like there’s no tomorrow. Clearly, the man and his talent are in demand. I wanted to find out what it takes to make it to that level in this business.

When Cécile Maye acquired Marvin in 2002 and started reviving the brand, Sébastien was already working with her husband Jean-Daniel designing Nina Ricci watches. So when Marvin was reborn, he was naturally asked to help create the new collections. Since then, he’s had a hand in virtually all Marvin designs (including the latest Malton lines) since the brand’s inception. Sébastien and Jean-François Ruchonnet (yes, Mr. Ferrari) are now essentially the Marvin Dream Team.

I spent quite a few hours at Marvin HQ sitting in on Malton design sessions with these two heavy-hitters. Sébastien is the nicest, unassuming, genuinely nice guy you can ever meet. It’s not an act in false modesty either – the guy is actually shy! And yet he’s one of the hottest upcoming designers in the industry with brands lining up at his door for a shot at his talent and expertise.

Etude de Style Client Perrelet on the Walls

In the interview, I didn’t want to focus so much on his Marvin work. My interest was more along the lines of  how one becomes a superstar watch designer – Is it all about genes, hard work, luck, or both? I wanted to do this for aspiring young designers who might wonder what the best route to success was. And so I asked a lot of questions about his beginnings, his academic background, his business, his vision of the industry, upcoming trends, and what it takes to make it in this very exclusive business. We covered a lot of topics in half an hour including academics, career paths, running your own design shop, skill sets required, Jorg Hysek,  Alain Silberstein, industry trends, and much more.

www.etude-style.com

I think the series of six videos (the total interview time is about 30 minutes) speaks for itself. Sébastien is more comfortable expressing himself in French. And consequently, we’re providing a dubbed transcript of each segment. You can find each interview segment here:

Arriving at Sébastien’s HQ in Neuchatel
Part 1 of 6 (French) – Part 1 of 6 (English)
Part 2 of 6 (French) – Part 2 of 6 (English)
Part 3 of 6 (French) – Part 3 of 6 (English)
Part 4 of 6 (French) – Part 4 of 6 (English)
Part 5 of 6 (French) - Part 5 of 6 (English)
Part 6 of 6 (French) – Part 6 of 6 (English)

I hope you’ll have as much pleasure listening to and learning about Sébastien as I had interviewing him. Give us your thoughts!