Alchemists

Alchemists is one of the most singular and philosophically unusual independent watch manufactures in Switzerland — founded in Saignelégier, in the Jura Valley, and housed in a restored 19th-century Villa Jolimont where one of the most meticulously equipped small-scale manufacture facilities in the country has been installed. The brand is the creation of Hervé Schlüchter — master watchmaker, founder, and the creative mind behind the in-house calibre — who trained at Bovet and worked personally under Philippe Dufour before establishing this enterprise. Dufour, who described Schlüchter as a prodigy, is among the very few watchmakers whose influence on Schlüchter's movement design and finishing standards is directly acknowledged. Schlüchter is joined in the project by Fabrice Thüler and Denis Vipret — the three together forming what the brand describes as a community of specialists who chose to combine their individual forces around a shared philosophy, using watchmaking as the vehicle for their artistic expression. The brand produces approximately one watch per month and aims to remain permanently at human scale, explicitly declining to grow beyond the point where quality can be guaranteed by hand at every stage. The name Alchemists references not medieval mysticism but the alchemical impulse itself — the drive toward perfection through materials and craft — which is also, as the founders note, the deepest impulse of Haute Horlogerie.

The watches are structured as an ambitious trilogy of three chapters of increasing technical complexity, each sharing a common modular base movement. Chapter 1 is the Cu29, first presented in March 2019 — the founding piece and the watch from which the brand's entire identity radiates. The name carries precise meaning: Cu is the chemical symbol for copper (from the Latin cuprum), and 29 is copper's atomic number in the periodic table. Copper has been associated with healing properties since ancient times across Chinese, Greco-Roman, and Ayurvedic traditions; the Alchemists' original quest was to find a pure, stable, and noble horological material rooted in this tradition, leading to the development of Cuprum 479 — their own patented alloy of copper and gold, a closely guarded formula whose blending produces a material harder than raw copper, completely resistant to oxidation, with a warm cupric colour that is maintained permanently. Cuprum 479 is present throughout the movement and case: the base plate, the shield-shaped bridges, the dial bases, the case, caseback, and crown are all produced from it, giving the watch an unusual tonal coherence between the case and movement materials — an effect rarely achievable in conventional metal watchmaking. The Cu29 Creative Act II is the second interpretation of Chapter 1, presented in 2021: the same calibre, same case, but with re-designed shield-shaped bridges, a new hours-and-minutes dial hand-curved by the watchmaker then circular-grained and silver-galvanically coloured, and a skeletonised seconds dial — evolutions designed to reveal more of the hand-decoration work that had previously been partially concealed. It comes in a limited edition of five pieces at CHF 163,000.

The movement architecture of the calibre AC003 is directly inspired by the Hanging Gardens of Babylon — conceived as a series of stacked levels and structures, creating height and visual depth that the dome of the atmosphere-shaped sapphire crystal then amplifies into a theatrical three-dimensional spectacle. The crystal itself is a technical achievement: its pronounced curvature widens from base to top and extends down to embrace the winding crown, ensuring no break in the continuous atmospheric volume.

The movement is inverted — the dials are mounted on what would conventionally be the movement's rear face, elevated above the plate on shafts set over aventurine glass surfaces whose embedded metallic particles scatter light differently at every angle (alternative versions use grand feu enamel dials). At 6 o'clock, the symmetrical double barrels present a unique visual moment during winding: both mainspring pawls — moustache-shaped, black-polished and individually angled by hand — can be seen compressing with each click of the ratchet, a mechanical performance rarely visible on any watch at any price. The elevated balance wheel is suspended on a single titanium bridge hand-formed into a flowing curve and finished to near-perfection; the blued cylindrical hairspring — a tribute to the marine chronometers that represented the apex of 18th-century precision horology — adds a philosophical dimension that Schlüchter describes as representing spiritual elevation. The 362-component, 56-jewel calibre (21,600 A/h, 72-hour power reserve) is hand-finished throughout using techniques that include black polishing, anglage, engraving, circular graining, lacquering, dial marker three-dimensional printing, and blued screws, with pivots rolled on a lathe and pinion leaves polished on wooden wheels — a manufacturing vocabulary associated with the very top tier of Swiss horology. Philippe Dufour himself has acknowledged the quality of Schlüchter's work, and reviewers at aBlogtoWatch compared the finishing standard to Greubel Forsey. Each watch is made by a single watchmaker from beginning to end.