On a cool but sunny September morning in the Swiss village of Villeret, inside a low-slung 19th-century building, about 20 skilled artisan decorators, finishers, engineers, and watchmakers are at work. Producing fewer than a thousand watches each year, they carry on the legacy of Minerva, a manufacturer that has been here since 1858.
The work, carried out on a small but steady scale, is detailed, slow, and meticulous. In one room, a veteran staffer with more than two decades at the company shapes, trims, and fits the in-house balance springs entirely by hand, using decades-old tools to ensure they oscillate precisely at 2.5 hertz. It takes half a day to produce a single hairspring, destined for watches assembled by the atelier’s own makers—and Minerva remains one of the last Swiss brands to produce its own.