Ochs und Junior

The personal brand of Dr. Ludwig Oechslin — one of the most extraordinary minds in watchmaking: scientist, philosopher, artist, archaeologist, and watchmaker. Born in 1952 in Gabice Mare, Italy, Oechslin holds a diploma as a watchmaker and Federal Master Watchmaker, a degree in Archaeology and Ancient History, a doctorate in Philosophy/History of Scholarship/Astronomy (University of Berne), and a habilitation in Pre-Industrial Technical Archaeology. His encounter with the Farnese astronomical clock (Vatican, 1725) during a restoration he carried out 1978–1982 was transformative: the clock's gear-based complications showed him that epicyclic planetary gearing was a more elegant solution than conventional levers and springs. This insight changed everything he designed afterwards.

For 20+ years he was the creative force behind Ulysse Nardin's most celebrated innovations — the Astrolabium Galileo Galilei (1985, Guinness Book of Records 1989 as world's most complicated watch), the Trilogy of Time, the Freak (silicon escapement), the Moonstruck, the Perpetual GMT, and the Sonata. From 2001–2014 he directed the Musée International d'Horlogerie (MIH) in La Chaux-de-Fonds. In 2023 GPHG awarded the Ulysse Nardin Freak an Iconic Watch Prize — celebrating his life's work. Founded in 2006 with Beat Weinmann, ochs und junior (named by his son Giorgio — 'Ochs' means ox, a playful diminutive of Oechslin) is now owned by the Oechslin family and based in an Art Nouveau villa in La Chaux-de-Fonds. His philosophy: radical simplification — designing the same functions with the fewest possible parts, all based on gear trains. Key signature: 130 watches per year, each individually calculated for the owner's latitude — moon phase, sunrise/sunset, and day/night display are calibrated to their exact location. Moon phase accurate to 3,478.27 years. Annual perpetual calendar in just 9 parts. No logo on dial — the brand is branded on the inside of the strap.

The catalogue keeps proving that Oechslin's radical-simplification philosophy has more room to run. The 2026 Calendario Quattro Anni sits deliberately between his nine-part perpetual calendar and his simpler annual calendar: correcting itself every four years rather than every year (or never), it tracks months of 28, 30, and 31 days and remains accurate for a century, all from a Grade 5 titanium case Oechslin designed down to the screw-down crown. The Day/Night model, first conceived as a one-off commission in 2018 and now an annual Holiday Edition, distills an entire astronomical observatory onto the wrist — sunrise, sunset, solar noon, and the sun and moon's live positions, powered by a 13-part module built onto a Ulysse Nardin UN-320 base, with a hammered 24k gold sun and hammered platinum moon crossing a hand-drilled brass starfield. In a nod to the brand's often-repeated tagline that its watches are 'not meant to be worn on the wrist' alone, seven signature models were reissued in 2026 as fully customisable pendant and pocket watches, extending Oechslin's radically simple mechanisms into a format that predates the wristwatch entirely. Notably, Christian Gafner — designer of the original MIH Watch decades earlier — joined the team as Head of Brand and Design, tying ochs und junior back to Oechslin's very first exercise in mechanical minimalism. Now producing around 150 watches a year from the Art Nouveau villa in La Chaux-de-Fonds, the house remains one of the purest expressions of an idea that has guided Oechslin since the Farnese Clock: that the most sophisticated solution is very often the simplest one.