The town of Fleurier is a cornerstone of a region that has been dedicated to Swiss watchmaking for nearly three centuries. Driven by ancestral tradition and exceptional expertise, the Val-de-Travers, in the Swiss canton of Neuchâtel, has long produced watches and clocks that have been exported worldwide. Today, the former municipality of Fleurier hosts the Fleurier Quality Foundation, which awards a label synonymous with excellence in the world of mechanical watches.

Fleurier’s Watchmaking Heart

How did the town of Fleurier, now an integral part of the Val-de-Travers municipality in the canton of Neuchâtel, become one of the beating hearts of Swiss watchmaking history?

Until the 18th century, the economy of this rural hamlet was based on agriculture. However, in 1730, a young man introduced the watchmaking ‘bug’ to Fleurier: at 18, David-Jean-Jacques-Henri Vaucher completed his watchmaking training and returned home, bringing with him the expertise that would profoundly change the future of his region. Where did he receive this training? Who taught him the subtle arts of watch mechanics? No one knows. Some suggest an apprenticeship with the great Daniel JeanRichard. Others, more prosaically, refer to a stay in Geneva.

Regardless, Vaucher quickly demonstrated his talents: he was capable of designing and manufacturing an entire watch, with all its components. What happened in Le Locle around JeanRichard then occurred in Fleurier: through the sublime expression of his passion, Vaucher attracted the attention of the villagers, to whom he passed on his techniques, so that by 1750, about fifteen watchmakers were already working in the hamlet. By 1794, there would be over a hundred, including three descendants of the great man who founded the Vaucher Frères company. Concurrently, this watchmaking-related development was accompanied by a demographic explosion, doubling Fleurier’s population to 800 souls by the end of the 18th century.

Nevertheless, for the inhabitants of Fleurier, watchmaking was still nothing more than a supplementary activity. During lean agricultural periods, farmers transformed into artisans to produce mechanical parts at home, supplying passing merchants with components to assemble clocks and watches themselves. Local production was diverse: watch parts, textiles, absinthe, tobacco, bicycles. This economic diversification allowed Fleurier to escape the violent crises affecting surrounding localities that relied on a single activity.

Fleurier’s watchmaking production, however, continued its development, especially thanks to the export of its clocks and watches to the Chinese market from 1820 onwards, driven by Edouard Bovet. And because a skilled watchmaker requires suitable tools, the region saw the emergence of specialized tool manufacturing companies. So much so that the Val-de-Travers would eventually have up to 20 such factories, dispersed between Fleurier and Couvet.

Then came the era of industrialization at the end of the 19th century – a seismic shift whose epicenter was in the United States. Fleurier reacted quickly: thanks to Jules-Samuel Jequier’s foresight, mechanized factories rapidly took their place in the municipality, replacing traditional workshops. In the wake of this, Fleurier experienced significant demographic growth, forcing it to hastily construct housing for watchmaking laborers, as well as adequate infrastructure – this would also be the case, on a larger scale, in the nearby towns of Le Locle and La Chaux-de-Fonds. Soon, part of Fleurier’s urban planning responded to the needs of watch production: a grid-patterned district, architecture as rational as it was understated, and buildings designed to meet the demographic challenge.

The Current State of Watchmaking in Fleurier

The quartz crisis in the 1970s nearly swept away the entire Swiss watchmaking industry – and Fleurier’s production did not escape the tsunami of electronic watches. The number of watchmakers plummeted from 742 to 160 in just 20 years; the hamlet lost a quarter of its population. Only the Piaget company managed to weather the storm, from the small municipality of La Côte-aux-Fées where it is peacefully established.

Once calm returned, the entire local watchmaking industry decided to turn towards the very high-end – a market that, while restricted, was highly promising, as the future of global watchmaking would prove. It was this ambition for renewal that marked the birth of the Parmigiani Fleurier company, whose first creations were launched in 1996, a date that signifies the return to business for Fleurier’s watchmaking production. Since then, the town of Fleurier has continued to shine on the international stage with its high-end productions, the presence of the Fleurier Quality label proving its excellence more than ever.

Today, 1,500 employees work in the watchmaking sector in Val-de-Travers, 700 of whom are based in Fleurier. Major watch brands have their headquarters or production centers there:

  • Bovet Fleurier
  • Chopard
  • Parmigiani Fleurier
  • Valfleurier (part of the Richemont group)
  • Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier
  • Voutilainen
  • Waeber HMS (hands manufacturer)

Finally, for both connoisseurs and enthusiasts, the Regional Museum, which reopened its doors in November 2016 after 3 years of renovation, showcases numerous masterpieces from Val-de-Travers’ watchmaking heritage – including pendulum clocks, clocks, watches, and various mechanisms that recount three centuries of history.

The Fleurier Quality Label

Established in June 2001 and inaugurated in 2004, the Fleurier Quality Foundation reflects the region’s appreciation for watchmaking precision and aesthetic beauty. Launched at the initiative of several brands based in Val-de-Travers (Chopard, Bovet Fleurier, Parmigiani Fleurier, and Vaucher), the Foundation is an independent body that issues a high-quality watchmaking certification, the Fleurier Quality mark.

Any certification from the Foundation requires meeting 5 conditions:

  • The watch must be entirely Swiss-made.
  • The movement must meet exclusive aesthetic finishing criteria.
  • The movement must have successfully passed a series of aging tests.
  • The movement must first be chronometer-certified by the Official Swiss Chronometer Testing Institute (COSC).
  • The watch is tested by a simulator that reproduces the movements of a human wearer, alternating between active and calm phases.

The dual particularity of this prestigious organization lies in its attention to aesthetics and finishing, and in the fact that its certification is the first to apply to a finished watch, presented in its final casing and ready for commercialization. Open to all Swiss producers of high-end mechanical watchmaking, the “Fleurier Quality” mark demonstrates, if proof were needed, that the region’s influence in watchmaking is not about to enter a new period of obscurity.