Year after year, Franck Muller continues to surprise the lovers of finest watches and his peers following his most important idea: to create the most complicated wristwatches in the world.
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From a very early age, Franck Muller develops a growing interest for all mechanical devices. During his teens, he collects antique astrological instruments bought at the flea market. Mechanics and time, an equation reveals itself naturally: it is Time to which he is going to devote himself.
Franck Muller entered the famous Geneva School of Watch making in 1981 and after four years of remarkable studies, he receives the highest distinction and prizes. Faithful to his independence of state and mind, he chooses the most difficult path: to create his own workshop instead of joining a brand or a group of watchmakers. It does not take long before his reputation is made: gifted by exception technical talent, auction houses and collectors from all over the world send him their treasures for restoration.
After a few years he started to created a unique timepieces under his own name. Throughout his studies and first years as a watch restorer, Franck Muller comes to a conclusion regarding the horology world: since 19th century, few technical inventions have been developed and applied to wristwatches. Willing to change this situation, he decides to devote his work to the realization of unique wristwatches which offer the same level of technical feats as those presented in pocket watches.
In 1983, after months of research and micro-mechanical tests, Franck Muller is proud to present his first wristwatches. They all present a complicated movement that has been entirely created by him. From 1983, Franck Muller unveils a World Premiere once a year: the gifted watchmaker reveals his invention, may it be a Tourbillon (1983), a Tourbillon with jumping hours (1986), a Tourbillon with Minute Repeater (1987), an inverted Tourbillon with Minute Repeater and Perpetual Calendar (1989) or some other technical achievement.
In 1992, the man that is called the "watchmaking genius" by his peers as the privilege to see one of his models granted the exclusive title of "most complicated wristwatch in the world". This unique timepiece is forever in the history of Fine Watchmaking because never before has such a complicated wristwatch been made: Grande and Petite Sonnerie, Minute Repeater for the hours, quarters and minutes, a Perpetual Calendar programmed to the year 2100 with date, day of the week, month and monthly retrograde equation, leap-year cycle, 24-hour moon phase indicator, indicator of the internal temperature of the mechanism. ■