A HOMAGE TO THE WATCHMAKING VALLEYS
Inextricably linked to the Joux valley’s watchmaking past, the immense weight of history inherent in the name Borgeaud lies shimmering just beneath the surface. Like a leitmotiv it connects two legendary cradles of Swiss watchmaking, the valleys of Joux and Val de Travers, the original home of fine complications, symbols of watchmaking Excellence…
HERITAGE
Having spent his childhood in the Val de Travers (canton of Neuchâtel), in an atmosphere steeped in the sights, sounds, smells and legends of the watchmaking workshops, Marc Aeschbacher, born in Fleurier, developed a passion for watch-making at a very early age. At the very start of the Borgeaud adventure, he was able to count on the inestimable support of Chitra Subramaniam, now retired.
SOLIS SACERDOTIBUS
Solely for the initiated, Borgeaud time-piece, thanks to an entirely new watch-making complication, is in honour of the personal windows of time that are ours every day. Your next few weeks will never be the same again, three millennia of celestial observation are there to prove it…
THE BORGEAUD CODE : PHILOSOPHER’S TIME & THE SEPTAGRAPH
Yet, beyond the chronometric approach to time with its micro-technical fascinations and the challenges posed and met by its team of developers, the Septagraph Perpétuel is the distilled essence of subliminal values. A series of unsaid truths that may be likened to the initiatory search for a human Grail, a search that begins with the desire to wrest oneself from the ever-spiralling coil of time to tackle the over-cultural symbolism of the numbers seven and eight.
Borgeaud is a watchmaking brand whose very essence invites the world’s watch-making connoisseurs to walk a rarely explored path, an initiatory path. The path of restored time, philosopher’s time.
The Septagraph Perpétuel, a never-before-seen complication, was about to see the light of day…
THE TIME RESERVE INDICATOR
What if the true function of a timepiece were to offer you time? The very thought is as hedonistic as it is epicurean. Imagine, one and a half hours every day of pure personal time, your very own time bubble in which to hide away from the throb and bustle of the outside world. In these ever-hastening times, it conjures up the irresistible notion of an initiatory time, according to the Borgeaud code.
THREE MILLENNIA OF ASTRONOMIC OBSERVATIONS...
The Septagraph Perpétuel by Borgeaud, thanks to its entirely new watchmaking complication, is in honour of the daily divisions of time that are man’s by rights and that can now be restored. Eight divisions in the day are to be found within the 12 hours between sunrise and sunset, that is between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.
That’s a total of eight 90-minute ‘windows’ during which, according to three thousand years of observing the planets’ cycles, time is thought to stand still, offering we mortals buffeted by the senseless whirlwind of time a chance to pause and reflect in the eye of the temporal cyclone. If we respect the invisible, natural rhythms of the planets and embrace this salutary break, we can then relax, refocus and make an appointment with our inner selves.
This eighth portion of a day occurs at different times every day of the week. And as a week has only seven days, whose names either relate to the sun (Sunday), or to one of the six planets aside from Earth, the period of time occurring between 6 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. does not count. Despite the best efforts of early-risers looking to get ahead of time, this first period of dawn is usually still shrouded in darkness.
The seven daily windows of time that appear every day of the week are always non-sequential. Thus the chronology of time is disrupted.
THE SYMBOLISM OF SEVEN AND EIGHT
So, there are seven planets in our solar system, other than Earth? Could it be that the ancients pre-empted the fact that one day in August 2006, at the 26th IAU conference (International Astronomic Union), Pluto would be divested of its title of planet and we would be forced to revise all earthly textbooks on the subject?
The New Horizon probe, scheduled to touch down on Plutonian soil in July 2015, is highly likely to confirm Pluto’s relegation to its origins as an asteroidal remnant of the Kuiper Belt.
It is no accident that China decided to officially declare its Olympic Games open on 8th August 2008 at eight minutes and eight seconds past eight o’clock. The numbers 8 and 7 are, in all known cultures, steeped in powerful symbolism, representative either of sacred rest or of infinity.
THE ETHICS OF COMPLICATIONS
Pleasurable versus practical… Is the poetry of micro-mechanics a mere vanity? As with most watchmaking complications invented thus far, the practical mind and the observation of natural phenomena, accompanied by the ingeniousness and exceptional skills inherent in the art of miniaturisation, have inspired the most complicated watchmaking mechanisms. To this day, their functioning continues to be a source of pure fascination.
While the phases of the moon indicate the most favourable period for ploughing, the minute repeater or grand strike mechanisms whisper the time in the middle of the night and the tourbillon endeavours to redress the inaccuracies of a timepiece, the Septagraph Perpétuel and its time reserve indicator poetically recall three thousand years of celestial observation of the planets’ invisible, natural cycles…
