A material most often associated with the technology sector is now vital in haut de gamme watchmaking.
Silicon is an element most often associated with high technology. But increasingly the substance, discovered in 1823 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius, has made its way into haute horlogerie as well. This unexpected introduction came with plenty of controversy, and having an opinion on the matter is a kind of litmus test for deciding whether someone is a serious watch person or not.
To those who don’t collect fine timepieces or edit watch magazines, though, the question of whether a silicon component belongs in a high-end timepiece plumbs the depths of the obscure.
When Philippe Stern announced that virtually all of Patek Philippe’s new product launches would be “upgraded” with silicon escapements, the material gained the instant imprimatur of high-end watchmaking’s de facto ruling family. Soon other high-end marques came on board with silicon components. Now, all the big groups use silicon in at least a few of their watches.
On the one hand, the purist collectors argue that a watch loaded with silicon lacks the true craftsmanship of one with traditional components. The purists make a fair point: At their best, maisons that still use traditional Nivarox hairsprings go through a remarkable degree of attention and effort to shape and fine-tune these tiny components in the name of accuracy and precision. Crafting and working with traditional hairsprings takes a ton of know-how. So much know-how, in fact, that sourcing hairsprings has become an industry-wide bottleneck.
A mass-produced silicon hairspring, on the other hand, requires very little adjustment. And if one falters, another is merely “dropped” into place. This means that in addition to its antimagnetic and tribological benefits (silicon components don’t need to be oiled), silicon springs are the watchmaking equivalent of the interchangeable part. And while there are no electrons flowing through the silicon components that may be ticking in your watch, there is the sense that modern technology is sidling up—perhaps uncomfortably close—to a centuries-old craft.
This is not to say that Nivarox—a company specialized in making springs and its namesake proprietary alloy—is not a highly industrialized material in its own right. That only a handful of companies around the world have been able to industrialize the production of traditional hairsprings is evidence of this.
Silicon components made their entrance into fine watchmaking in 2001 with Ulysse Nardin’s aptly named Freak, a game-changer timepiece that flipped conventional watchmaking on its head. Not only did the Freak look different and tell the time differently, it upended the notion that the materials used in haute horlogerie came from a fixed list. The Freak exploited the new material in order to create a luxury experience with its feet firmly planted in both craft and technology. Switzerland’s conservative and insular watchmaking industry hadn’t seen anything like it since the Quartz Crisis.
From a performance perspective, the antimagnetic and tribological benefits of silicon are manifest. Silicon components promise to extend the service intervals of the watches that we buy and wear. This adds convenience to the ownership experience for watch collectors across the market, from the high-end to the mid-range and—more recently, even the affordable.
At the 2016 Baselworld show, the Swatch Group debuted silicon-equipped mechanical timepieces in its Mido and Tissot ranges, the entry-level of the Group’s mechanical watch offerings.
Silicon, which started as a “freakish” and ultra-high-end experimental material, appears it can add staying power to its long list of qualities. – Jon Bues