Lundis Bleus

Lundis Bleus began as dinner conversation. Johan Storni and Bastien Vuilliomenet met in 1994 as students at the watchmaking school of La Chaux-de-Fonds, the cradle of Swiss horology, then took different paths — Storni into the International Museum of Watchmaking and a watchmaking-construction-technician qualification, Vuilliomenet into an industrial design degree at La Chaux-de-Fonds' University of Applied Arts. On the evening of December 30, 2004, the two friends made a pact over dinner to eventually join forces and build something of their own in watchmaking. It took a decade of building experience first — stints at Richard Mille, Renaud & Papi, La Joux-Perret, and Corum among them — before they were ready, and two more years of development before their first model, the Ref.1100, launched in November 2016: 22 years, in total, from idea to first watch. On August 1, 2021, after five years working together, Bastien Vuilliomenet became the sole owner of Lundis Bleus and has run it as a one-man operation ever since, personally overseeing design, 3D engineering, technical drawings, supplier selection, project management, inspection, assembly, quality control, sales, and the brand's signature kiln-fired enamel work.

The name — French for 'Blue Mondays' — refers to a centuries-old tradition dating to the 16th century, in which the most highly skilled, best-paid tradesmen would simply choose not to work on Mondays, a custom that ended with the Industrial Revolution as independent craftsmen became factory employees. For Vuilliomenet, the name is a statement about independence: a willingness to trade comfort for the freedom to create entirely on his own terms. The brand's logo is, fittingly, a graphical rendering of an alcohol molecule, a wink at the conviviality the old Blue Mondays tradition implied. Lundis Bleus is explicit that it is not a manufacture in the traditional sense, with the exception of its kiln-fired enamel dials, which are made entirely in-house in a 1692 building at Rue des Moulins in Neuchâtel; component manufacturing is outsourced to long-trusted partners, including some of Switzerland's finest specialist artisans for hand engraving and miniature painting, while the enameling, final assembly, adjustment, and quality control all happen on Vuilliomenet's own bench. Yearly production stays under 100 pieces.

The modern catalogue centers on the Ref.1120, fitted with a Swiss automatic Sellita SW300-1 Premium movement in a 316L stainless steel, box-sapphire-crystal case, priced from CHF 3,500 up to CHF 12,000 for the most complex cloisonné enamel executions — with dials built using traditional kiln-fired vitreous enamel, hand engraving, miniature hand painting, or ornamental stonework, fired in the workshop's own kiln an average of six times and sometimes as many as fifteen before a dial is finished. In September 2024 Vuilliomenet introduced the Ref.1125, a higher-end evolution of the 1120 built around the hand-wound LTM5000 calibre from Le Temps Manufacture (19 jewels, 60-hour reserve, 4Hz, perlage and rhodium-plated bridges with straight Côtes de Genève) in a 40mm steel case with a solid white-gold, hand-guilloché grand feu enamel dial. Its launch took the form of two absinthe-themed limited editions of five pieces each — the Ref.1125 'La Fée Verte' and Ref.1125 'La Bleue,' named for two famous absinthe liquors historically distilled near Lundis Bleus' Neuchâtel home, each dial hand-guillochéd by a master guillocheur on antique rose-engine lathes in patterns meant to evoke the visual distortion of drinking a little too much green or blue absinthe. Beyond its named references, Lundis Bleus also produces genuinely unique pieces, built to a client's own specification with no two dials ever quite the same.