Remember Jorg Hysek ? He started out as an independent designer of some of the best known watches of all time : the Marine for Breguet, the Kirium for TAG Heuer, Shanta for Ebel, the AD 2000 for Dunhill and many more.
Then, he started his own brand and designed some incredible watches, including the V-King, the V-King Tourbillon, the X-Ray and the XX-Ray among others.
In February 2006, Jorg Hysk the designer officially severed ties with Jorg Hysek the brand and promptly began HD3, a design house that will create design-forward, complicated and extremely limited watches.
Hysek and I go back a long way. I met him at Baselworld many years ago, as he was manning the Jorg Hysek booth, wearing comfortable, casual clothing and shoes. I've always appreciated Hysek's sense of style. Now, with HD3, Hysek is not only the primary designer, he is also the head of sales, so the shoes are back on his feet, at least during shows (and motorcycle rides). “At HD3, we are working in small quantities , without a lot of sales points – there are between four and six sales points in North America – and for the first time in my career, I have to be a sales person, so I have to the first time in my career, I have to be a salesperson, so I have to wear shows” , he says with a smile. “When I sell out all the watches, I can take the shoes back off”.
HD3 is an outgrowth of Hysek's design house, Team Styling. “This year, we are launching the HD3 brand”, Hysek explains. “Every year, we will have new product. When the watches are sold out, because they are so limited, we will come out with new products. It is a very creative brand – we don't just have one case and keep making the same watch over and over again. We are working on new concept watches right now”.
“We can do anything”. Hysek continues with characteristic confidence. “We will not be a big company where we need the money guys. Customers pay in advance, and the cost of development is absorbed by us. We are running lean with only five in the office. We only go into production when we have an order”.
HD3, which stands for High Definition Trilogy, is a collaboration of three designers – Hysek, Valerie Ursenbacher and Fabrice Gonet. The three have worked together for fifteen years on various projects, and they make a great team. Hysek is really pleased to be back in an environment that fuels his creative spirit. According to Hysek, designing a watch is very difficult, and working in the right place is vital. “When we start designing, the biggest problem is to come up with something that does not exist, “ Hysek explain. “You have to try to be free. Some days lots of ideas come out, and other days, nothing comes out. From the sketch, you have to say this is no good, this is good, and you modify to the final product. As an example, the HD3 Idalgo was in development for one and a half year. There is a lot of evolution during the design process”.
Hysek, Ursenbacher and Gonet trade ideas back and forth, helping each other and fueling the creative process. They also have their own personal projects , and this Is a key element of HD3 – each designer is working on a trilogy of watches. For the first product cycle, Hysek did the Idalgo; Ursenbacher the Capture; and Gonet, the Raptor.
This is a design house, pure and simple. No manufacturing of parts of assembly of watches goes on here.
Instead, the company uses a network of suppliers to transform their ideas into reality. In the interest of complete transparency, something that is rare in the watch industry today, Jorg Hysek led me on a motorcycle ride through the Swiss countryside to visit the workshops of some of HD3's suppliers.
I met up with Jorg Hysek and his buyer, Jorge Lopez, at a gas station on the lake road out of Geneva, near Versoix.
Hysek had rented the BMW 1200 GS; Lopez had his Honda Supersport 1000, Casey Bayandor of Europa Star magazine joined in on a rented Yamaha Fazer 1000, and I was riding my trusty Suzuki V-Strom DK 1000. The first stop on the tour was BNB Concept, the designers and manufacturers of Jorg Hysek's Idalgo and Vulcania movements. Situated in Crans-près-Celigny just outside of Geneva, BNB was formed in 2004 by three friends – two watchmakers, one engineer – with deep roots in the watchmaking industry. All came from larger groups and brands, and all were itching to do things differently and to make a difference. BNB Concept watch to be a one-stop shop for high-end movements. “Our slogan is “From the sketch to the realization of the finished product”, says Mathias Buttet, one of the three founders. “We want to do the entire movement, A to Z. If a client comes to us and wants us to only do a small part, we are not interested. We like to solve problems and find new ways to do things.
Hysek works with BNB because he likes the partners'adventuresome attitude and enjoys the exchange of ideas. “I love to work with people who are creative and innovative”. Hysek says. “These guys like to work on new concepts. They have very different ideas, but the bottom line is that the movements have to work, and they do. BNB is also on e of the most responsive companies in the watch industry. Once we started the project with them, it was done within one year. With most companies, it would have taken two years at least.”.
Next up was HD3's case manufacturer, H. Finger SA. Like BNB, this is an independent maker that works for many different watch companies. Because HD3's quantities are so small – for example, 33 pieces in each metal for the Idalgo – many companies would not entertain the idea of working with HD3. Hysek was sometimes in the position of having to sell the supplier on working for the new brand. Not so with this casemaker. “I know I needed small, high-quality companies that would be willing to work with us because we were doing something different, “ Hysek explains. “ I met with the owner of Finger, and because they have a history of doing special cases, they were happy to work wit us”.
The HD3 watches are a challenge to design, manufacture and assemble – 60 different parts make up the Idalgo case, and more the 200 parts go into the Raptor's case. “I had no idea it would be so many pieces, I just designed the look,” Hysek explains. “The case designer is so important – he takes my vision and makes it a reality. Having a designer with special case experience is so vital, because this business takes both good ideas and the experience to be able to carry them out”.
Soon we were on the road again, heading back to Geneva to meet with the watchmaker who assembles HD3's watches. Cedric Johner has his own eponymous brand but is happy to contract with Hysek because the work is so interesting. In an upper-floor office filled with watchmaker's benches that share space with an old BMW motorcycle, Johner brings Hysek's watches to life. On the day we were in Johner's workshop, the second Raptor watch was being completed. Hysek and Johner looked at it almost as if it were a newborn baby, and the excitement in their faces was clear. “I can't do theses pieces with industrial companies,” Hysek says. “ I need to work with small workshops to get the attention to detail and the high quality that the pieces demand. Twenty or 25 years ago, this was the way watches were made, using small ateliers run by the owners. Now, the big groups have taken over, and they don't have the same passion for the work. This is our chance to be better than they can be”.
Watches aren't the only products that HD3/Team Styling will be designing. Hysek has always been a prolific designer, having worked on cell phones, writing instruments, sunglasses and even guns (for Beretta) in the past. “We will design for other products, and I plan to host design conferences in other countries, “ Hysek details. “I may design for other watch companies, but only at a certain level, not in competition with HD3”.
Jorg Hysek is a happy man, finally. The past few years took a bit of a toll on this fun-loving and creative personality. “I need pleasure when I work”, he says. “ I am too old to do something that I take no pleasure in . Money is one thing, but pleasure is 90 percent of the philosophy of my life. I am very happy to be working at HD3, doing the designs and the things I want to do.” And when pleasure in work equates to more amazing timepieces, that is the best of all worlds.
InSync Watches, December 2006 - By Keith W. Strandberg
