Yosuke Sekiguchi

Born in 1980 in Isesaki City, Gunma Prefecture, Yosuke Sekiguchi discovered watchmaking as a boy in Tokyo after coming across a movement that needed repairing — a fascination that never left him. He graduated from Meiji University and, at 23, left for France in 2004 to pursue what he has described as a self-taught watchmaker's pipe dream of working in Switzerland, even though his visa status initially barred him from enrolling in a watchmaking school. He earned the French national watchmaker's certificate (CAP) in 2007, and his talent was enough to win him a place at La Joux-Perret in 2008, where he worked on split-seconds, foudroyante, and tourbillon chronograph movements. In 2011 he moved to Christophe Claret, the Swiss maison known for some of the industry's most complex movements, where he built 'Maestoso' wristwatches fitted with a traditional detent escapement — a mechanism normally reserved for marine chronometers held in a fixed position, and one that would resurface in his own watchmaking. From 2016 he worked as the exclusive watchmaker for JUVAL Horlogerie in La Chaux-de-Fonds, undertaking antique restorations for several major watch brands alongside his own development. He went independent in 2020, founding YOSUKE SEKIGUCHI Le Locle, and released his first watch, Primevere, in 2021.

Primevere — French for 'primrose,' the flower that opens at the start of a new season — is, so far, Sekiguchi's only model, refined and re-released in small yearly batches rather than expanded into a wider catalogue. The 39.5mm case is finished with an inward-curving concave bezel and a domed sapphire crystal shaped to keep the dial's edges fully legible, the crown tip engraved with the initial 'Y.' Cases and hands are cut from solid 18k white or rose gold (and in early references, stainless steel) by Sekiguchi himself at supplier GMG Composants in Le Locle, where the ébauche plates and bridges — in German silver — are also finished by hand under microscope: chamfers and polished bevels checked continuously, since any slip with the graver at that stage cannot be corrected. The balance and hairspring are built from unsold 1960s stock, re-finished and heat-blued in-house, while the escape wheel is sourced from unused 1970s-specification stock and similarly re-worked, its bridge thinned and satin-finished for a deliberate contrast of looseness and sharpness against the polished chamfers elsewhere. The going-train wheels are gear-cut by GMG before Sekiguchi hand-finishes each tooth; the click spring is rounded rather than the conventional straight form, for visual harmony; and beneath a regulator styled to evoke an old pocket watch — apparently a plain steel frame with only an end-stone — an Incabloc shock-absorber is concealed to protect the balance staff, hiding modern reliability inside a deliberately antique silhouette.

The dial is grand feu champlevé enamel, fired by hand, with a small-seconds sub-dial and slim spade-shaped hands; recent references include a cream-white dial with blue enamel Roman numerals and a garnet-red dial with white-gold-toned Roman numerals, each paired with a matching alligator strap and 18k pin buckle. The movement, designated YS-Y01, is a hand-wound calibre beating at 18,000 vph (2.5Hz) with a roughly 40-hour power reserve, displaying only hours, minutes, and small seconds — a deliberately restrained set of functions that puts the entire emphasis on architecture and finishing rather than complication. As the watch-industry writer Alex Grouet put it, Primevere is less a sum of parts than 'a voyage into the creator's singular and organic vision,' fusing centuries of watchmaking tradition with Sekiguchi's own hand. Output is extremely limited — recent model years have been capped at as few as five to ten pieces — and the watch is sold through two agents: Watch Shop Koyanagi (Carillon Co., Ltd.) in Nara, Japan, and JUVAL Horlogerie in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, the same house where Sekiguchi once worked as house watchmaker.