The watchmaking industry cultivates its founding myths. Every self-respecting watchmaker claims to be the son of Abraham-Louis Breguet, the master watchmaker of the 18th century. Thomas Baillod is not one of those evangelists. He likes to stick to the terrain, his boots planted straight on the Jura ridges. Yet his story is genuinely linked to the master. What Breguet and Thomas Baillod have in common is that they were both born in the watchmaking heartland of the canton of Neuchâtel. They also share a mechanical speciality: the tourbillon. Breguet invented it. Baillod democratised it.

Here's a brief explanation. What is a tourbillon? It is the heart of a watch, consisting of a balance wheel to which is attached a spiral spring that winds and unwinds, causing the balance wheel to oscillate, all centred on an axis and fixed in a cage. The special feature of the tourbillon is that the carriage rotates on itself (in other watch hearts, they are fixed).