Thierry Ducret

Thierry Ducret comes from a long line of watchmakers, and grew up tiptoeing around his grandfather's workshop watching him work; it was his grandfather's passing that convinced Ducret to pursue the craft himself. He studied at the Lycée Edgar Faure in Morteau — one of France's most prestigious watchmaking schools — graduating in 1981, and returned there in 1996 as an instructor, a role he has held ever since. Over nearly three decades of teaching, Ducret has shaped the skills of a generation of French independent watchmakers who studied under him at Morteau, including Rémy Cools, Cyril Brivet-Naudot, Luc Monnet, Théo Auffret, Colin de Tonnac, and Jean-Marie Bouquin.

In 2007, Ducret was named a Meilleur Ouvrier de France in horology — the only one of eight horologist candidates to receive the distinction that year — honoured at a ceremony at the Sorbonne alongside 233 other artisans across all trades, followed by a reception at the Élysée Palace. Alongside his teaching, he has also worked quietly behind the scenes on restoration and development projects for prestigious watch brands. He lives and works with his wife, Isabelle, in Flangebouche, a small town near Morteau in eastern France.

In 2017, Ducret began developing a watch under his own name for the first time: an 'exhibition' architectural wristwatch inspired by his admiration for Breguet's La Tradition, built around the idea of placing the openworked mainspring barrel and the time display on the same central axis. The construction is based on a heavily reworked ETA/Unitas 6497 calibre, modified almost beyond recognition — only the gear train, escapement, and remontoir survive from the original ébauche in altered form, with everything else, including the mainplate, bridges, balance wheel, levers, and springs, made entirely by hand in his home workshop. It took roughly four years to complete, using traditional watchmaker's tools: a 6mm Lorch hand lathe, a Schaublin 102 lathe set up for milling and gear-cutting, a Hauser M1 jig borer, a Meyrat & Luisoni type F1 mill, and a Manurhin KMX 80 mill. Only the crystals, sourced from Morteau, and the alligator strap, made three kilometres away by SIS in Avoudrey, came from outside his own hands.

MODEL n°1, presented publicly in 2021, was the result: a 45mm hand-made stainless steel case with a notched, rounded bezel and alternating brushed and polished surfaces, its exhibition front and back fitted with mineral crystal to expose the movement from both sides. The architecture places the gear train, escapement, balance wheel, and their stepped bridges around the periphery between 7 and 1 o'clock, the keyless works between 2 and 4 o'clock, and a finely polished plate engraved 'T. DUCRET' screwed on at 5 o'clock. The custom 21-jewel calibre runs at 18,000vph (2.5Hz) with 45 hours of reserve, on a Swiss lever escapement with a nickel-silver balance and brass bridges and plates, finished by shot-blasting, circular graining, black polishing, and chamfering; time is shown by two spear-shaped blued-steel hands against twelve grooves cut into the bezel in place of a conventional dial. Priced at over €50,000 and limited to ten numbered pieces, each watch is built entirely solo, by Ducret alone. A related Pièce Unique n°02, built on the same architecture, followed in a black-nickel-plated brass finish for a calmer, more monochrome look, and was later offered at auction by Ineichen in Zurich — evidence the project continues to evolve as a small, ongoing body of work rather than a single one-off statement.