Introducing
Alcée Montfort
Through the series Women in Horology we continue to explore the rare and unique paths of female watch enthusiasts, content creators, and professionals. And through each story we learn of a new achievement, a success which most of us have never heard of (because, once again, they are rare) and which deserve to be related and amplified as widely as possible. And the more we explore the topic of women in horology the more stories they are to tell so that we all—and especially we men in the hobby—acknowledge the fact that women should and will occupy an integral part of our community. The latest story on Katlen Schmidt gave us the opportunity to learn about one of the highest achievements one can hope to reach, that of working for a renowned brand, having started from knowing close to nothing about watches and now speaking on behalf of a brand to enthusiasts, collectors, and industry professionals in North America.
Today’s story will take us to one of the world’s oldest cradles for watchmaking which has been revived in the past few decades by a handful of independent brands—France. As a Frenchman I would already add that I find my folks to be particularly old school and conservative when it comes to entrepreneurship and women's advancement, which makes Alcée Montfort’s story a powerful and even more important one to relate. Not only did she create a successful brand which has become known, in just a few years, as the go-to for high-end DIY horology, but she herself has accumulated unique experiences in the field and has shown throughout her entire career thus far, incredible boldness. For Alcée, there is no idea too small and no goal too far that could stop her. And that’s darn inspiring to all humans who have a passion for the things that tick.
Alcée Montfort
Going Straight Into the Deep End
Unlike many of us and most men who got into horology, women who I’ve had the honor of interviewing for this series of articles rarely were “watch people” in their youth. Alcée’s oldest memory of a watch goes back to when she was 7 or 8 years old when her father gifted her (and most likely her siblings as well) a Swatch to learn how to read the time. She remembered getting this watch for this particular purpose but not much else. The other memory she has regarding a machine that keeps track of time is an alarm clock which she cherished for many years. Other than that, her recollection as to her first earliest experiences of watches is a blurry one and for many years she didn’t wear timekeeping devices. (Oh, sacrilege!) Far from horology actually, Alcée studied engineering and fundamental physics in college and for one reason or another she did her first post-grad internship at Hermès in their silk department.
Although she didn’t study horology or industrial design or arts and crafts (which we call “métiers d’arts” in French which vaguely translates to “artistic professions” in English), Alcée became immediately fascinated by the complexity of the fabric, of the various techniques which are used to work and shape it into beautiful objects, and how the process of printing patterns on the silk varies based on the weather, the temperature, and the viscosity of the material. So there was, actually, already a connection between her engineering background and what she studied and worked on at Hermès although the connection was not a self-evident one. She loved working for Hermès so much that she did another 6-month internship in their leather works workshops in Paris where, as Alcée put it, artisans are front and center in the operation. In other words, they are the stars of the show. To her, working there was akin to taking classes in gourmet cuisine where she could touch and smell the fabrics and observe professionals at work.
After her second internship at Hermès, Alcée did a stint working in eyeglasses before she got her first job in horology for the Richemont group managing 60 experienced watchmakers. What was absolutely fascinating for Alcée was the fact that these artisans worked on all types of watches coming from the various brands the group owns and operates, all being worked on under one single roof. Each watch, some of them ancient, had unique stories to tell, and coming from high-end watch brands, the watchmakers showcased a solemn reverence toward each and every one of them, almost ceremoniously presenting themselves to the watch before opening the case-back to work on the movement. (Most watches were in for service for a movement overhaul.) It was this respect for horology and the mechanics of these watches which seduced Alcée into entering our niche world, in addition to the dichotomy between engineering and the philosophical concept of time—something we will go back to later.
Moving Up an Working at TAG Heuer
After one year of faithful service at Richemont global, her husband, who works in the car manufacturing industry, was transferred to the east of France near the Swiss border. So down they went. For a while she hesitated as to where she should work and saw two job openings within the group. One was for doing quality control which she knew she could do, and the other one was for managing a team of 30 experienced watchmakers, a position which required 5 to 10 years of relevant experience which she didn’t have. Whilst interviewing for the first job, she managed to skillfully turn the interview around and to redirect the conversation toward the second job. She convinced the hiring manager to give her the better job thanks to the sheer strength of her character and high degree of conviction that she could do it, and also because she offered something unique: being someone who’s not from the watchmaking industry and who could bring a different perspective to things.
Her new job for Tag HEUER consisted of running a team of 30 watchmakers who assembled the 01 and 02 calibers for the brand. Her mission came with multiple challenges, for example working with many men in a male-dominated world (although her team comprised several female watchmakers) and many young ones who purposely spoke to her using specific technical terms as to subtly indicate that their work was not for her to understand. Their job was a complex one and she needed to understand what they were doing because she was responsible for delivering the movements on time and in good order for the next steps of the watch assembly process. Alcée was also a 25-year woman from Paris working in the heart of Swiss watchmaking which further complicated her task (or which made the challenge even bigger.) Luckily for her, there were a few older watchmakers who were eager to transmit their knowledge to the younger generations and amateurs of horology.
Alcée and husband Benoît
There was one older gentleman in particular who left a deep impact on Alcée. And his message to her would later guide her next professional moves and the eventual creation of Maison Alcée. This gentleman said “I’m afraid that watchmaking is dying because we don’t know how to transfer the knowledge.” She was shocked by the duality of his statement and of the state of the industry as a whole, as on the one hand, there are watchmakers who want to keep their knowledge like closed guarded secrets, while others want to share them. Alcée is of the mindset that knowledge grows and prospers by buying generously shared with others, whether the “others” are professionals or aren’t. And she welcomed his willingness to share his knowledge because she had to understand what he was doing, so she could ask many questions, make mistakes she would learn from, and try again.
The Genesis of Maison Alcée
Then her husband Benoît got transferred again to Reims, one and a half hours east of Paris. At the same time Alcée gave birth to her first child and all of these changes meant that she was ready for something new. Although she wasn’t a horology child (should we coin this expression?) Alcée has always been into creating things with her hands and doing crafts. She explained that using her hands feels natural as we humans have been using our hands to shape tools, create the most exquisite works of art, and engineer new technologies for centuries. There is something unique that one gets from manual work which is a delicate and beautiful symbiosis between the object, beauty, and our emotions. As a child, each Christmas she would ask for a DIY kit in pottery, soap making, or to make chocolate delicacies. When she delved into her hands-on work, she would enter her bubble, be cut-off from the world, and feel immense pride having created something with her own hands.
So having moved to Reims, Alcée wondered what she could do in that artistic vein. She thought about all of the materials she’s handled in her career so far, silk, leather, and then watch components, and what became of them after having gone through the expert hands of seasoned professionals. Alcée has a passion for the good stuff, the fine materials, the right equipment and tools, which she first had a passion for before turning her attention to horology. So came the idea of offering monthly DIY kits where each would introduce the recipient to a new art form, new materials, and new techniques they could experience with their own hands. Developing monthly kits also would have made it possible to continue her new activity should she and her family move again due to her husband’s work. But one fateful day she received a DIY kit to make leather goods but she was let down by the poor quality of the materials and hated the final result. It wasn’t something she could proudly display in her home.
Through this unfortunate experience she realized that she couldn’t easily guarantee good materials and a superlative experience by renewing her offering each month.
Alcée understood that she had to work on a DIY project which could offer something really good (of quality) and which people would be proud to make. As fate would have it, one month before the first COVID lockdowns, someone from the incubator she had joined (to work on her monthly DIY kits idea) straight-up told Alcée that she should go into luxury because she had the right experience for it. Having worked for the Richemont group, and more specifically, for Tag Heuer managing a team of experienced watchmakers, she decided that the first métier d’art (craft) she wanted to develop and highlight was that of watchmaking because it’s beautiful, complicated, challenging, and that if she was successful in it, she could have proven to herself that her initial concept was sound. So she got to work. She spent weeks and some contacting collectors, professionals, watchmakers, professors, and entrepreneurs to share her idea. She contacted about 300 people and 50 of them got back to her.
Creating Maison Alcée, a Movement, and a Unique Product
In her earliest conversations with various members of the watch community at large, she was able to fine-tune her idea, get crucial feedback and be put through challenging philosophical questions regarding her idea and how to go about it. She was also directed to explore specific avenues which could eventually lead her to put in place the first building blocks of Maison Alcée. After many long weeks of doing so and taking advantage of the fact that people suddenly had much more time to engage in horological conversations online (since everybody was stuck at home,) she went to Paris to meet with various experts in the field to get more feedback and leads. By then her idea was clear: to create a kit for people to make their own clocks with the same movement as their wristworn watch which required the development and manufacturing of a bespoke caliber. Many laughed at her silly idea as one has to have many years of watchmaking experience under his or her belt to be able to develop a movement.
Being who she is, Alcée liked the challenge and pressed on to find a solution. By random luck one day she Googled something like “How to create a watch movement” and came across an online platform for microtechnique and prototyping in Morteau, the heart of French watchmaking, where someone kindly directed her to Thierry Ducret, a renowned French watchmaker and professor of horology (at the university of Morteau.) Through this platform and first connection she also met Jean-Marie Desgranges, also a professor at the same university, and soon her, these two men, as well as her husband Benoît and a Swiss designer by the name of Antoine Tschumi, would meet for lunch to discuss Alcée’s concept of creating a movement one could assemble alone without any experience in the domain. And of course, and more importantly, how they would go about putting all of this together.
The Philosophy of Alcée and Her Maison
One thing was clear from the get-go: whatever they would end up making, it will be of the highest quality possible. But how they would achieve this wasn’t actually clear at first. When the team started working on this project, they wondered how they could make it happen for $1,000 and quickly realized that this wouldn’t be possible. So they raised the stakes to $2,000, still not possible. Then to $3,000 and it turned out that their ideal product—and as a byproduct, their ultimate user experience—couldn’t be achieved for these meager sums of money. So they radically accepted the fact that they had to forget about the price at which they would sell the darn thing and instead focus on what the end product would be. Alcée knew that no expense should be spared to reach her goal to offer a quality product and a luxurious experience. (Stick around for a thought-provoking definition of what “luxury” is for Alcée.)
So the approach of targeting a price and adapting the product to it wasn’t possible because it would have meant cutting one or several corners which wasn’t acceptable to her. They would have had, for example, to get certain parts of the caliber made in far-flung places for cheaper or discard the idea of having their ideal two weeks of power reserve. (That’s a mainspring that measures one meter long!) Or to have key parts of the caliber finished by a machine instead of a human hand, and to get some of the components and segments of the clock (outside of the caliber) made outside of their workshop. So for each part of the movement the team, as a whole, was working on, they would target the best quality possible as it made sense for a DIY table-top clock anyone could assemble themselves. And this attention-to-detail and high standards of manufacturing had to also be invested in the myriad of elements that would make up the user experience.
When one opens the three-level wooden box the kit comes in, one is met with an incredible spectacle of parts, cogs, wheels, and instruments each custom-made for Maison Alcée. The screwdrivers, for example, are made of a soft metal so that the user doesn’t scratch a bridge, and if said screwdriver fails, Alcée thought of adding spare parts to fix it and even includes another tool to do this operation. And special tools were created to assemble the various parts of the movement so that they are as intuitive as possible, and the literature that comes with the kit—which Alcée, Benoît, and their colleagues spent a whole summer writing—not only explains what each part of the caliber is and what it does, but it tells in the greatest of details how to put things together. (Maison Alcée went as far as creating video tutorials for each step.) Just as offering a quality product was important, it was equally crucial to offer a unique user experience.
How She Got Maison Alcée Off the Ground
Whenever I have the privilege of talking to anyone who has created any kind of business, and especially when it has to do with creating a watch brand, I want to know if they financed the whole operation because without money, even the best ideas of the world would, in actuality, just be dreams. In their relationship, Alcée’s husband Benoît took on the role of the financial wizard so that they could benefit from maximum independence when putting the building blocks of Maison Alcée together. That meant not having to deal with investors who would want to dictate how Alcée should go about developing and marketing her product. That was a bold and genuinely stress-inducing decision to make but one which proved to be essential. Moreover, the three key members of the team which helped develop and design the caliber (and find the right manufacturing partners) worked on Maison Alcée during their off time which meant long-term investments and planning was necessary.
Although they all worked from passion and from the sheer willingness to pass on their knowledge onto others—but not the kind of “others” they could have initially imagined, that is watchmakers and instead full-fledged newbies—Alcée was obligated to compensate them for their time and expertise. She also had to invest into creating the brand and acquiring materials, building up the brand from zero into something that would become outstanding, which meant taking huge financial risks in the form of bank loans. To put this into context, it took the team three years to develop the caliber and for Maison Alcée to have a sellable product, but one which had to be sold at a price commensurate to its high-standards of design, materials, and finishing. In other words, not a $1,000 table-top clock one assembles alone in one hour from a YouTube video, but a $7,600-$8,900 product made up of 233 components and 17 unique tools which takes weeks to assemble.
As we knew, Alcée had a clear goal and she reached it.
Bonus Track: Defining Luxury
The domain of horology often comes with the pre-conceived idea that it is the world of opulent luxury because most people who know nothing about watches think that our universe only revolves around brands such as Rolex, Patek Philippe, and Vacheron Constantin. But even us watch enthusiasts and collectors often make the differentiation between what is luxurious and what isn’t, and I’ve heard many definitions of what it is. (I talk about it often in my reviews.) So I was curious to hear what Alcée—who has worked for Hermès and the Richemont Group—had to say on this topic and I quite like what she shared. To her, luxury is the opposite of what is trendy because it is a luxury (pun intended) to not have to reinvent ourselves every so often. (Perhaps each month, right?) And it is a luxury to be able to take our time to find and work with good materials, to learn each step of the craft, and to not have to meet artificial deadlines by which we need to finish what we’re making.
For Alcée, it is a luxury for us to be able to take our time to make something good using the right materials, the right gestures, where each step feels right by us. Which is why the user experience has always been paramount to Alcée because she herself had bad experiences putting together DYI kits which came with poor materials and designs. As she related multiple times during the interview, her customers wouldn’t take so much pleasure putting her clocks together if she and her team hadn’t conceived each step so meticulously and chosen the finest of materials. So it is a form of luxury to sit down alone or with a loved one to peruse through the book of instructions, learn about and analyze each one of the 233 components, and to learn to use each one of the 17 tools of the kit. Putting together a Maison Alcée Clock takes on average 10 hours of highly concentrated work, not a half Sunday working from a quickly put together kit.
Conclusion
Maison Alcée is an alien in the watchmaking industry. You probably thought that table-top clocks were things of the past our grandparents used to have on their kitchen table or in a study. Because today we either wear compact and ultra reliable wrist-worn mechanical timekeeping devices or the smart and digital kind, which means we’re used to keeping track of time by looking down at our wrist and not glancing at a large object sitting across the room on the coffee table. The only clocks we may encounter are quartz-powered alarm ones that, for one reason or another, we insist on using today. So no one asked for the type of machines Alcée conceptualized and took three years to bring to market, though Maison Alcée is doing well and her creations are so well thought out and executed that Maison Alcée won the Audacity Price at the 2023 GPHG Awards. That is no small feat.
But as I hope it came across in this article, what Alcée created, more than amazing clocks—because they are indeed so—is an entirely new way to look at horology in the second quarter of the 21st century. While brands, old and young, from Japan and Switzerland, ruthlessly compete to be the first at coming up with a new dial color, a cutting-edge case material, or bizarre case shape, alone and quietly and over many months, Alcée created something that is resolutely old-school in its physical form, bold and unique in its conception and design, and of the highest quality when looking at each of the 233 components and 17 tools that make up a Maison Alcée kit. In other words, Alcée had a luxurious experience bringing her project to life as she wanted it to be, not following anyone’s demands and requests and expectations, but inside her creative bubble which some of us can now also experience.
Please check out Maison Alcée’s website and Instagram account to learn more about the brand.
Thanks for reading.