Iconic Watches – Our Blog

Franck Muller Watches!

Franck Muller is the self proclaimed “Master of Complications” , he is the man behind the relatively young watch brand that shares his name. Growing up on a diet of studying and repairing Patek Philippe’s, it seems that this early induction of such quality timepieces had a profound effect on him. By the age of just 26 he had already designed his own Tourbillon movement – a feat. still very impressive these days!! The Franck Muller tourbillion put him and his watches in the same league as Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin for movement complication.

The Company Franck Muller was founded in 1991 making it currently only 19 years old – a complete child when compared to brands with pedigrees like Breguet or Patek. But as much as we respect and value a timepiece with history and a legacy you can not take the fact away from Franck Muller, that they strive to produce some amazingly complicated watches – one cannot help but draw comparisons with a young Monsieur Abraham Louis Breguet who as a young man had similar such aims and accomplishments.

From creating some exquisite movements, Franck Muller went on to miniaturising his complications, he created the cintree curvex case, a case that is curved meaning his movements would have to be modified to accommodate this spectacular design. The cintree curvex was inspired by the 1920’s Patek Philippe watches and really does identify the Franck Muller watch range.

Again like Breguet,  Frank Muller wants to be the first to produce certain complications in 1993 his world premier (each year he showcases a watch featuring a never before seen complication or combination of complications) item featured a split seconds Chrono, a minute repeater and a perpetual calendar.

Franck Muller went as far as to produce the worlds most complicated wrist watch in 1998. The watch included the following; a Grande and Petite Sonnerie (with 3 positions), a Minute Repeater, a Perpetual Calendar (with retrograde monthly equation), 24-hour indicator, a split-second Chronograph (with 60-minute timer), a flying Tourbillon, indicator of the internal temperature of the mechanism, power-reserve striking-mechanism, power-reserve movement. This really established the brand as a “master of complications” the ingenuity in the design and the handmade craftsmanship produced some of the world’s finest watches.

One very innovative design by Franck Muller, which we think is marvellous, is the creation of the crazy hours range, to a rational person a watch should always tell the correct time, however this line of watches have the hours in a jumbled order, the watch tells the correct time, but a wearer is forced to think about the time. The crazy hours range is great for parties and a real talking point while wearing the watch.

In the early 00’s Franck Muller went through a bit of a boon becoming very popular with footballers and celebrities, he had some exceptional celebrity endorsement this really raised the watches profile among the masses, unfortunately this translated to the watches loosing favour with some of the traditional watch collectors. Although their marketing department has recently made an effort to polish their image it still isn’t uncommon to hear Franck Muller pieces degradedly referred to as “footballers watches”. However, we must not forget that Franck Muller, in its 19 year history was granted the first prize, in the men’s category, of the Geneve Watch Making Grand Prix. This exclusive prize confirms the watchmaker’s exceptional talent.

All in all we are a huge lover of watches and complications, we think they are intriguing and we’re not so bothered about who else wears a Franck Muller as having one on your wrist and being so close to passion that strove to keep pushing the boundaries of horology feels pretty special. It’s while studying these exceptional time pieces that we just fell in love with them, definitely a Franck Muller belongs in everyones watch collection. New Franck Muller watches retail from about £3,500 to £500,000 and from iconic watches you can expect a great deal. We love FM and we have several years of sales experience with this brand.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 28th, 2009 at 1:56 pm and is filed under Watch Info and tagged with Casablanca, Cintree, Cintree Curvex, curvex, franck, franck muller, Franck Muller Watches, master of complications, master square, muller, patek philippe. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.