Renaud Tixier

Born from a friendship sealed over eight years, Renaud Tixier is the fusion of two extraordinary names: Dominique Renaud and Julien Tixier. Dominique Renaud — the first independent engine manufacturer in the history of watchmaking, co-creator of Renaud & Papi in 1986, architect of 25 calibres and complications over 40 years, working with the greatest watch houses. Julien Tixier — at 31 already making titanic pieces alongside Sébastien Rousseau, with the art of design, forging of materials, and precision machining reflecting his obstinacy for artisanal perfection. The two met in 2016; Julien was enthralled by Dominique's extraordinary DR01 and saw 'a vision of watchmaking without limits.' Together, their talents perfectly complement one another — combining the creative force of an R&D laboratory with the precision of a production workshop. Their collaboration led first to the Tempus Fugit: the world's smallest secular perpetual calendar, developed over two and a half years, incorporating the Gregorian calendar for 9,999 years — GPHG nominated 2022. Then, for Only Watch 2023, they completely rethought the mechanics of the secular perpetual calendar, making them compact and modular to an extraordinary level of finish.

The international watchmaking community's reception was resounding. Renaud Tixier was officially born. Their vision: rethinking the foundations — questioning established theories and conventional practices in watch mechanics, without piling on meaningless sophistications. Seven original innovations will be created, each integrated into a watch named after a day of the week. The Monday is their first creation: a micro-rotor paired with 'the dancer' — a micromechanical energy propulsion device offering a new take on the fundamental principle of watchmaking. Latest: the Monday Organica, created in unprecedented collaboration with Dominique Renaud and master artisan Olivier Vaucher, uses motifs based on movement components as an artistic spiritual skeletonization of the dial — covered by Europa Star and Worn & Wound. 'Today, collectors want to be directly and personally involved in the ongoing project — an opportunity that only independent watchmakers can provide.'

The Dancer mechanism at the heart of the Monday solves a problem every micro-rotor watch shares: a conventional rotor only transmits energy to the mainspring while it is physically turning, wasting the countless small, low-amplitude wrist movements of ordinary daily life. Renaud's solution suspends a central platinum inertia wheel inside the rotor on a spring-loaded arm — likened to the strings of a tennis racket storing and catapulting energy on impact — so the wheel keeps spinning and generating power even after the rotor itself has slowed to a stop; a second spring-loaded 'foot' doubles as a shock absorber, converting violent impacts into extra winding energy rather than simply damaging the movement. Housed in the hand-wound RTVI2023 calibre beating at 2.5Hz with 60 hours of reserve, the mechanism is visible through a cutout at 9 o'clock on the debut Monday, offered with grained and chiselled silver or salmon dials and diamond-cut hands. For Geneva Watch Days 2025 the duo unveiled the Monday Organica in collaboration with master engraver-jeweller Olivier Vaucher, limited to seven platinum-cased pieces: the barrel ratchet cover hand-chiselled and finished in violet grand feu enamel — violet being the colour the painter Vassily Kandinsky associated with Monday — echoing the dial's artistic skeletonisation. With six more days of the week, and six more foundational horological principles, still to come over what the brand itself has described as a project spanning nearly two decades, Renaud Tixier has positioned itself as one of the most quietly ambitious long-term projects in contemporary independent watchmaking.