Cédric Johner

Cédric Johner is a one-man watchmaker and jeweller based in Carouge, Geneva, whose career spans over forty years of uninterrupted independent craft — beginning with a jewellery apprenticeship at Chopard in 1982, at the age of fifteen, and continuing through a training at the École d'Horlogerie de Genève in 1993 before he launched his own brand in 1997. He describes his practice as 'intuitive watchmaking': he works alone, with his two hands, without CNC machines, without computer plans, using traditional tools and a mastery of virtually every watchmaking and jewellery trade accumulated through decades of bespoke commissions. The range of work he is capable of producing entirely by himself is extraordinary — from three-hand watches to perpetual calendars with tourbillons, from engraved cases to dials adorned with precious stone inlays. The Geneva Hallmark, one of the most demanding quality certifications in watchmaking, has been granted to his creations.

In 2000 he created Cadraniers de Genève as the commercial development arm of his enterprise. A period of difficulty followed in the 2000s when Johner lost control of his original brand name and his signature Abyss case design to DeWitt — a painful episode that cost him years of commercial traction and legal energy. The 2009 restructuring was the response: a return to human scale, to the workshop, to the individual relationship with clients and collectors that defines what he does best. He celebrated 30 years in the watch industry in 2021 with a limited re-edition of the Abyss in chronograph format. By 2024 he had achieved sufficient stability and recognition to attract a collaboration with Louis Erard. In 2025 he launched his first manufacture movement — the CJ-101 — completing a milestone he had been working toward for decades.

The Abyss is the name Johner gave to his original case design in 1997, and it is the typological anchor of everything he makes. The defining feature is a hexagonal opening in an otherwise tonneau-shaped case — a signature that creates an immediate visual distinction from any other watch, and that carries geometric and aesthetic coherence across every reference in the collection. The case shape has been the subject of bespoke variations from three-hand to grand complication over the full twenty-eight-year life of the brand. The Abyss 1072/4 — the chronograph variant — houses a column-wheel chronograph on an openwork titanium dial, available in a 316L stainless steel case with dial colour variants including rhodium, yellow gold, rose gold, and ruthenium finishing. For the 30th Anniversary in 2021, Johner used a beautifully restored Valjoux 23 calibre — the legendary column-wheel movement first developed in the early 20th century and used historically by Rolex, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, and Vacheron Constantin — in a 30-piece limited edition. All dials are handcrafted with delicate engravings, turned hour and minute registers, and precious stone inlays that carry the visual vocabulary of his jewellery background. His signature typographic style for Roman numerals — bold and highly individual — appears across all Abyss variants and was recognisable enough that Louis Erard reproduced it faithfully in their collaboration.

The Prémice (Collection 2026) is the first watch to house the in-house manufacture Calibre CJ-101 — a milestone launched in 2025 and available in the current 2026 collection across multiple references (Refs. PREMICE 53101, 48101, 52101, 20101). The PREMICE 53101 is limited to 24 pieces in 18K rose gold, with the movement visible in ruthenium plating. The Louis Erard × Cédric Johner collaboration (2024), initiated by Louis Erard CEO and Artistic Director Manuel Emch, produced the Le Régulateur Louis Erard × Cédric Johner in two editions of 178 pieces each (blue and mauve), priced at CHF 4,000 before taxes. The round 39mm case carries a domed hexagonal sapphire crystal that creates the same visual impression as the Abyss hexagonal bezel opening — the collaboration watch wearing like an accessible entry into Johner's distinctive aesthetic. For each of the 356 pieces in the collaboration, Johner personally decorated the oscillating weight with 230 hand-applied beads — 'petites graines' — one by one, using a traditional perloir machine, at his Carouge workshop. Johner's watches are made entirely to order and may be enquired about directly through the website or via email.