FREAK HOUSE

Now hailed as the Manufacture of Freedom, Ulysse Nardin is back to its independent ways. We finally get to visit and pay tribute to one of our heroes

-  ASHOK SOMAN

We spend a lot of time reading about watches. From press releases to coverage in dailies, we also read everything we can from the trade press and then some choice bits from specialist press like ourselves. Given that we also read books about watches, none of the above sounds surprising. Still, the industry does find ways to confound our expectations. For example, we are astonished that hardly anyone has published anything about the Ulysse Nardin manufacture in the last 10 years. EuropaStar last did a major story on the brand’s manufacturing capabilities in 2011, which is actually an important year that we will come back to.

To be fair, stories about manufactures are uncommon, especially when compared with news about new watch releases. This is to be expected since brands are in the business of selling watches, which they have to make in the first place so having strange people traipsing around the workplace is hardly ideal. Still, it is quite something that a major independent such as Ulysse Nardin seems to have missed the spotlight. Perhaps the brand might consider making the Manufacture of Freedom, as they style themselves, a bit more prominent. After all, a watch such as the Freak must come from an exceptional place, especially when that place had to practically reinvent the wristwatch to turn what was once a concept watch into a proud reality that even has several variants in series production.