Franck Muller Watches
Know More About Franck Muller Watches
History of Franck Muller
Franck Muller was born in 1958. His Italian-Swiss heritage naturally became a founding stone for his creativeness and technical expertise in mechanical watch-making. After successfully completing his horology course in the Geneva School of Watch Making, Franck Muller began his career as a restorer of vintage watches for auction houses and private collectors.
In the 1980s, as an independent watch maker, he started crafting limited series of mechanical timepieces under his own brand name. His creativity, fierce passion for innovation and the technical know-how in complex watch mechanisms helped him to create one-of-a-kind grand-complication watches for private clients.
In 1984, Franck Muller succeeded to create the world’s first tourbillon wristwatch with a visible tourbillon complication on the front dial. This impressive feat ensured him a prominent place in the exclusive list of most talented geneva watch makers. Widely recognized as the "Master of Complications", his mastery over the tourbillon and other complex watch-mechanisms has been widely recognised.
Vartan Sirmakes is a descendant of a prominent family of Armenian jewellers. He moved to Switzerland when he was eighteen years old. Vartan learned jewel-setting and then established his own workshop in Geneva.
The immense success of his first venture encouraged the young businessman to invest in the manufacturing of watch cases and bracelets. His expertise in the watch making sector clubbed with the zeal for the new entrepreneurial ventures, enabled him to set-up a full-fledged manufacture. In 1991, Vartan Sirmakes and Franck Muller jointly laid the foundation of a premium watch-making enterprise, which is now known as Franck Muller Watchland SA.
In 1995, the new Franck Muller watch manufacture was founded in a picturesque location at Genthod, in the canton of Geneva. Gradually, the company has expanded this site to accommodate various branches involved in the luxury watch manufacturing. Perfectly harmonised with the scenic beauty of the region, this magnificent production facility is known as Watchland, which attracts several watch aficionados and celebrity watch-collectors every year. Franck Muller Watchland SA is one of the rare Swiss high-end brands that maintain an integrated manufacturing facility capable of handling various stages of the making of a watch.
Hallmark of Franck Muller
The Franck Muller manufacture has been renowned for its unconventional approach in watch-case designs. Introduced in 1992, the Cintrée Curvex case made an unexpected entry into the world of round and rectangular case watches.
Extremely difficult to produce, the Cintrée Curvex case became a hallmark of Franck Muller watches. It was also challenging to create dials and other parts that perfectly suit the silhouette of this curved tonneau case. Due to the complexity of manufacturing, it required sophisticated machines to produce case, dial and other exterior parts. The well-timed business decisions by its business leadership helped the company to set up integrated manufacturing facilities for producing its own cases and dials.
Franck Muller Watch Collections
The Cintrée Curvex classic line offers an extensive range of timepieces. It includes time-only, skeleton, chronograph, perpetual calendar and big date models as well as watches with diamond setting. Apart from this classic line, the collections like Casablanca, Conquistador, Mariner and Croco are also based on the Cintrée Curvex concept. Among the Cintrée Curvex collections, franck muller casablanca is a popular watch thanks to its simplicity, elegance and casualness.
Interestingly, Franck Muller also creates timepieces featuring rectangular, square, oval and round cases. The Long Island is a collection of art-deco styled rectangular timepieces featuring unique arrangement of large numerals. Its Master Square series offers square-case models featuring a perfectly balanced design. The Round line by Franck Muller is an extensive collection of round-case mechanical manual-wound or automatic wristwatches.
Franck Muller also introduced a new tonneau case design named Vanguard, which is a sporty evolution of the iconic Cintrée Curvex. Based on this new case design, the brand created a new family of watches highlighted with clean and futuristic aesthetics. The franck muller vanguard range offers models like Three-hands with date, Grande-date, Chronograph, Tourbillon, Skeleton, Yachting, Camouflage, Gravity, Golf and Master Banker. The Vanguard watch models feature an integrated strap attachment system instead of regular spring-bars.
Introduced in 2003, the Crazy Hours is a fine example for the brand’s expertise in creating playful and unique horology mechanisms. It is an unconventional timepiece featuring an irregular arrangement of hour-marker numerals. This timepiece offers a mesmerizing display of the hour-hand that quickly jumps to the next hour despite the unusual order of the numerals.
In 2019, Franck Muller introduced Skafander, a unique diving watch presented for the first time in a tonneau shaped case. The other maritime inspired creations from the brand are: the Mariner and the Vanguard Yachting.
The Franck Muller manufacture is a bona-fide maestro in producing wide range of grand complication watches. The brand enjoys an admirable track-record when it comes to extremely complex horology mechanisms. On the top of its notable achievements in this field is Franck Muller Aeternitas Mega, the most complicated wristwatch in the world. This grand-complication watch features 36 complications and 1’483 components. Introduced in 2003, the Revolution 3 is the first tri-axial tourbillon in the world. The other two noteworthy accomplishments are: Fast Tourbillon (the quickest tourbillon watch) and Giga Tourbillon (biggest tourbillon complication in a wrist-watch).
The Franck Muller Watch Fair
Every year, the manufacturer conducts its own watch fair: the WPHH (World Presentation of Haute Horlogerie), where the Franck Muller group of brands proudly display their expertise and exclusive novelties. In addition to the Franck Muller Watchland in Genthod, the brand also operates other production sites in Switzerland to handle the activities like dial manufacturing and case stamping.
Proud Franck Muller Watch Owners
Franck Muller has been preferred as favourite watch brand by several celebrities and affluent clients from all over the world. Elton John has been an admirer of Franck Muller’s timepieces since beginning. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jay-Z, Kanye West, David Beckham, Chris Brown and José Mourinho are some prominent clients of the brand. The most recent addition to this list is Christiano Ronaldo, who proudly wears a Franck Muller Cintree Tourbillon watch worth a whopping 1.5 million US dollars. The well-known celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Brooke Shields, Eva Longoria, Alex Hirschi and Paris Hilton also belong to the brand’s client list.