Coudray combined various horological concepts. For most, creating in the watch world is like driving looking into the rearview mirror. The complicated part is explaining it to someone else, because very few people have an innovative outlook. Büsser said, “but for him it really is simple. “He will always tell you how simple and easy it is, which is unnerving,” Mr. In addition to developing the Gyrotourbillon, he met and married his wife, Evelyne they adopted their two children, Maxime and Estelle moved into the windmill home, and purchased a converted 1954 French army ambulance, a Renault Goélette. Coudray spent 19 years at the Swiss manufacturer, discovering his passions and completing his own projects in and out of the workplace. But, under the guidance of the celebrated manager Günter Blümlein, Mr. “I was satisfied for about two-and-a-half months and then I got very bored doing standard assembly work and basic watchmaking,” Mr. After graduation, he restored antique watches at Musée international d’horlogerie in La Chaux-de-Fonds and in the town of Versailles before landing a position at Jaeger-LeCoultre. He attended a small watchmaking school, Ecole d’horlogerie de Besançon, in eastern France before transferring to Technicum La Chaux-de-Fonds in Switzerland. “Plus, with watchmaking, when it’s cold outside you are inside, and it gets very cold.” “I’d rather be among the top performing students than an average one,” he said.
After winning first place locally and at a regional level, as well as seventh place in France, he warmed to horology. A self-proclaimed below-average student, “I liked mechanical engineering but didn’t want to get my hands too dirty,” he said.Ī decisive moment came at age 17 when he participated in a national contest for arts and design called Prix de la Formation aux Métiers d’Art (now called Prix Avenir Métiers d’Art). The craft didn’t appeal to him as a young boy or a teenager. Coudray says he came upon the trade “of pure chance,” even though his father Jean-Pierre and his grandfather, Pierre, had built and repaired watches. Then, in 2019, he created the vertically oriented Spherion triple-axis tourbillon for MB&F’s Legacy Machine Thunderdome and a double Spherion duo of triple-axis tourbillons for Purnell’s Escape II. He pioneered the multiaxis tourbillon, designing Jaeger-LeCoultre’s spherical dual-axis Master Gyrotourbillon in 2004. Coudray has worked behind the scenes for, and partnered with, some of the most well-respected and exclusive watch brands, including Jaeger-LeCoultre, MB&F and Purnell. “Eric is what we call a constructor,” said Alexandre Ghotbi, head of watches for continental Europe and the Middle East at Phillips, “he can develop and create a movement and then build it.”įor more than three decades, Mr. To call him simply a watchmaker would be too narrow a term: A watchmaker assembles the parts of a watch. When Eric Coudray chuckles, his arms cross over his midsection and his whole body undulates joyfully the movement is unexpected, considering the perpetual, deep stillness that his job requires.
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