Interview: A Collector's Discussion With Kari Voutilainen

May 28, 2015

Kari Voutilainen is one of a small handful of independent watchmakers considered to be at the pinnacle of watchmaking today. His watches are known for their beautiful finishing and multitude of customization options. We recently sat down with Voutilainen to discuss his early career, talk about the watches hes made since going independent, and get some background on his notable collaborations with other watch companies.Voutilainen was born in Finland in 1962. He attended watchmaking school in Tapiola, Finland, and later attended the WOSTEP complicated watch course in Switzerland, which was focused on the restoration of complicated watches. From there he was recruited by Parmigiani Mesure et Art du Temps, where he spent nine years restoring some of the worlds rarest and greatest timepieces. Voutilainen then spent the next three years teaching at the WOSTEP School of Watchmaking, heading the department of complicated watches. Finally, in 2002, Voutilainen decided to go independent and opened his own watchmaking atelier. Other than yourself and Sarpaneva, we dont know a lot of Finnish watchmakers. What was your watchmaking school like in Finland?First of all, its the only school in the world that is a private school, but at the same time owned by a watchmaking association through a foundation. They have a program that is taken from the classical school in Germany. Its a very good program. In Finland, there is no fabrication, but there is a culture of the workshops there doing restoration and repairs.Can you talk about some of the most special pieces you worked on while at Parmigiani?When I started, I was restoring pocket watch movements. They were tourbillon movements used for chronometer competitions, but customers wanted to have them in new condition. They were lying in drawers for 40-50 years. My job was to refresh them so they would run well, but also so that they would look good. The [finishing] was only functional because for chronometer competitions there was no need for them to look nice. So that was a big challenge to make them look really nice.This sounds very similar to what you did for your Observatoire, for example.Yes, very much. The [experience at Parmigiani] was very good, because I learned a lot. Then I was able to do complicated pieces. At that time, I came across a Breguet movement with the natural escapement. That was 1992 if I remember right. That was something that woke me up. How many people are in your workshop now, and what are their roles?I have about 15 people. We are two mechanical guys that run machines and produce components. We have two people doing decoration C anglage and so on. We have one person making dials C machine turning, and so on. My wife is in the office. Then there are eight watchmakers and myself. But the watchmakers are also doing finishing work like heat treatments and polishing shafts and burnishing pivots C because decoration is [not only] aesthetical work like bridges and mainplates, but also mechanical like decoration on pinions and wheels and polishing the shafts with machines and so on. So watchmakers are doing a lot of that sort of thing as well.How many pieces do you make per year under your own label?Since 2006 it has been varying between 25 and 52. In 2013 we made 45, last year [2014] we made 38. It depends if they are more complicated, or less complicated. Im not trying to push the numbers up. It was 2006 when I was facing the reality that demand was very high. At that Basel fair, a lot of retail shops all over the world were trying to order many pieces. I returned home and I decided that Im not going to do that, and I wrote back to those retail shops and I didnt take those orders. We have only a few retail shops representing us, and the rest of the watches are sold direct, and I think its one of the best decisions Ive ever made. You make everything excluding jewels, mainsprings, and hairsprings. Does that mean you make screws?Yes.Straps and sapphires?No.Cases?No. I have made a few cases, but its not my profession. I can do it, but were facing other problems afterwards. Working with gold and platinum you have to recycle the metal. Also you have machines that only work with gold and cant mix with steel. The hands of your watches are made of three pieces, correct? Yes, the connecting tube is steel. The ring is steel, the body of the hand is gold. The ring is friction fit into place. You have to be precise with that. Theres just a .01 mm of a difference in diameter. Its important that its precise. If its .02 mm, then its too hard and you cant push it anymore. If its .005 mm, then it doesnt stay C so its pretty precise.I would say your signature aesthetic traits include very high legibility, beautiful applied indexes, and guilloch work. What are your thoughts? What I like is the presence of the watch. There is a glow and a presence. And I like sleek forms, like the lugs. They are rounded and when they are rounded in the beginning, they remain rounded. We can polish as many times as we want, and it stays rounded. These things are important things to me.I first became familiar with you because of your Observatoire. Was that your first series watch?No, I had a chronograph series.That was the Master Chronograph? That was first?Yes.[About the Observatoire] I felt that I have to be able to do it by myself, but I wasnt ready at that time. At the same time I found some bauches and thats why I was able to do that watch.How many Observatoires were made?Less than 50 watches. There were also some unique versions that added complications to the Observatoire.Was the Chronomtre 27 your next series?Yes. What I like is the presence of the watch.There is a glow and a presence.– C Voutilainen on some signature traits of his watches How did that one come about?In the same way. I was lucky enough to find some movements, and Ive always admired the watches made in the '40s, '50s, and '60s by Vacheron and Patek. They have those rectangular watches, with fancy shapes sometimes. Ive always admired them and I was thinking that would be ideal to do something like that from this movement. I made lots of drawings and designs and we ended up with a small series of that.How did you find these movements? It seems very lucky.Its one of those things, once you start to buy, people start to offer them because they know that youre buying.How many Chronomtre 27s were made?A bit more than 20.Your current collection has the Vingt-8, GMT-6, GMR, and Tourbillon 6, is that correct?No, the Tourbillon 6 is sold out, and the GMR is also sold out. They were limited series.Where does the naming of these watches come from? What does the 8 mean in Vingt-8, and the 6 in GMT-6?Im not very creative in my names. Ive been keeping the caliber names. Like Caliber 27 in the Chronomtre 27. The Observatoire I call Caliber 26. The Master Chronograph I call Caliber 25. It comes from the year I started working on them C 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, etc. The Vingt-8 I started in 2008. It took me three years and it launched in 2011. So I just dropped the zeroes to get the names. I didnt want to call it 28 because that name has been used by other companies. So I used the French word for 20 and I got Vingt-8. What about GMT-6?I have some watches with a GMT [indication] at 12 oclock, and here the GMT is at 6 oclock.Ah, because its located at 6 oclock. What about the GMR?Well, it is the GMT, but adds power reserve.No, I mean why is it not the GMR-6?I thought it was getting too complicated. [Laughs]So all of these watches have the Voutilainen escapement, which is a direct impulse escapement with two escape wheels. Can you talk more about the escapement?I first encountered the natural escapement of Breguet in the beginning of 1990s, and I was very surprised and happy with that escapement. Ive created an escapement where the geometry is done in a way so that we can machine the components by ourselves. Its part of the independence and liberty of creation C to be able to do things by myself. For the Swiss lever escapement, the escape wheels are difficult to make. You have to use special machines or you use high-tech stuff like silicium, but I dont do that. To be able to fabricate myself was one reason. Another is that it gives direct impulse to the balance wheel and it has a security device like we have on the Swiss lever escapement. In case of a shock, the escapement cannot escape C its always hooked. There is a secured end. It can receive shocks and it keeps running. It has the angle of the draw that pulls the lever against the banking pin. So it has all these advances yet it we can still do it ourselves.I did the first prototype in 2008/9. I had experience with other escapements already because I did the prototype, for example, for Urban Jrgensen. There are always pluses and minuses of anything. Ill start with the minuses:There is more inertia on the wheels. So we dont use gold on the escapement and the driving wheels. And I use steel on the escape wheels because we cant break them. If we did the escapement with gold it would run without oil, but its a question of weight, and Im afraid the thin tips of the wheels will bend. Thats the reason why we have steel. The plus is that when we are impulsing directly we gain about 30%, which is why we have 65 hours of power reserve instead of 50 hours. Once we made the first prototype, we had far too much power, so we had to reduce the mainspring and increase the power reserve, so now we have a much thinner and longer mainspring and 15 more hours of power reserve. We knew that there would be more power, but there was much more than we expected. When you have something new, it is very exciting to work on it and make it better. And thats what we were doing during the three years of development. Other than your escapement, can you talk about other innovations we find in your watches?I would say that I present very classical watchmaking in a way that the movement is rather thick C 5.6mm thick. For example, the Peseux 260 [used in the Observatoire] is 5 mm thick and that was already thick. 5.6mm is very thick. The mainplate is very thick. I prefer that. The shafts are long, and I have fairly big pivots. I dont have tiny small screws with tiny threads. I have big screws with 1 mm thread and big screw heads. I like that sort of thing that is sort of robust instead of very small and delicate. We can screw the screws and they wont bend.So, other than the series weve already talked about (Chronograph Masterpiece, Observatoire, Chronomtre 27, Vingt-8, GMT-6, GMR, Tourbillon 6), you also have a few other series. The Model 2-Eight was limited to 10 pieces, the V-8R Power Reserve was limited to 25, and the Masterpiece Chronograph II was limited to 10 pieces. Is everything else youve done basically a piece unique?Yes, the rest are unique.So your work for companies like Ma?tres du Temps, MB&F, and Urban Jrgensen may be well known, but are there any other things you did for other companies that you can talk about?One of my first jobs when I was independent was making a pocket watch for a brand. It had a tourbillon, minute repeater, perpetual calendar, split-seconds chronograph, and power reserve indication. This was a unique piece?Yes. It took me two-and-a-half years, although I did many other things at the same time. It had almost 1,000 components. It was an bauche movement, which I finished and I made the tourbillon and I did this and that.Also, I did lots of prototypes for many companies.Do you want to talk about your collaborations with Ma?tres du Temps, MB&F, and Urban Jrgensen?In 1994 I finished my evening work, which was a pocket watch tourbillon. here was an exhibition at the museum in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1995/6, and that watch was exhibited there. Mr. [Peter] Baumberger, who was the owner of Urban Jrgensen, went to the exhibition and saw the pocket watch and wanted to buy it. He called my house, and my wife picked up the phone and said I dont think [Kari] is going to sell the watch. I didnt sell the watch, but I started working with him then C around 1996. It was a very good collaboration, and also a friendship, and I kept working with them over the years. For Ma?tres du Temps, I met Steve Holtzman a few years before we started to collaborate. When I started on my own, I saw the experience of people like Franck Muller and Daniel Roth and how they lost their independence, and I thought [independence is] something I really want to keep. And to be financially independent is the reason I worked for a lot of other companies to get money. Unique pieces, prototyping, continuing with Urban Jrgensen, etc., brought in cash flow and I could still do my own watches. It was part of my plan to keep up finances because you need a lot of money. With Ma?tres du Temps I think it was 2008 that we started to collaborate. And with Max [Bsser of MB&F] it was also because we had mutual respect because I had met him many times. It was a little different because it was not construction C it was aesthetical work. That was also interesting work for me. Also for me its important that its not only about business, but also about mutual respect and collaboration. That part is important.In total, how much of your workshops time is spent doing Voutilainen watches versus work for other companies?In 2002/3 it was 90% [for other companies], but now its 95% [for my watches]. What has changed in this last year is my dial factory. I dont know if you know, but I was lucky enough to buy a dial factory last year. Its a company that was in our valley called Dialtech, and it went into bankruptcy because the owner passed away. They had machinery and equipment for galvanic plating. And I was the only one who was interested. Now its been one year.When you bought it, of course you got all the equipment. Did a lot of the employees stay?No, it had been closed for half a year, so there were no employees. Now there are seven people.Comblmine, thats the new name?Yes. Its named after the street that my workshop is on.So you make dials for other companies now?Yes, my own workshop is the smallest customer. So the engine turning for most of your watches is done at Comblmine?No, in my workshop. Now we have so much business there that were doing some of Comblmines work in my workshop.So instead of you moving some of the work for your watches to Comblmine, youre actually helping them do some of their work?Yes.Do you have regrets about your career so far C things that you wish youd done differently?No, I dont have regrets. I was extremely lucky because the period when I started, I saw other independents facing troubles, and I knew what I shouldnt do. I didnt know what I should do, but I knew what I shouldnt do.Also, one of my first customers, who was also a customer of Franck Muller and Daniel Roth, pushed me to keep it small. Small is beautiful. And this is one of my values today.Can you give any hints about whats coming next?Its a watch that is slightly smaller in diameter than the Vingt-8, but a bit thicker and with more functions. Id like to thank Kari Voutilainen very much for taking the time to speak with me. I hope you enjoyed our discussion!