Tristan Ledard, watchmaker

I grew up in Méru, north of Paris. I came across watchmaking at sixteen, through an advertisement, and after that I didn't want to do anything else.

After training in electrical engineering, I was able to go back to school for a CAP in watchmaking, then went straight on to the Brevet des Métiers d'Art, two more years at the same school, in Paris. During those years I did my internships with watchmakers and clockmakers, where I learned crafts that schools have half forgotten, as well as astronomical complications.

For my Brevet project I built Astro, a clock inside a terrestrial globe that shows the equation of time on a straight ruler. I entered it in the Young Talent Competition of the AHCI and François-Paul Journe at Baselworld, and on 17 March 2016 it won: François-Paul Journe handed me the prize. A few weeks later I opened TL-Watchmaking.

Since then I've repaired watches for private customers, taught in the workshop and then online, patented a bracelet clasp and designed my own watch, the Model 1. I now live in the Netherlands, where I teach, service watches and developed WIM, my software for independent watchmaking workshops. All of that alongside my job as head of the workshop at an independent haute horlogerie brand.

1. Age 16The advertisement that made me choose watchmaking
2. Lycée Diderot, ParisWatchmaking CAP, then the Brevet des Métiers d'Art
3. 17.03.2016Young Talent prize of the AHCI and François-Paul Journe at Baselworld, for Astro
4. 04.2016TL-Watchmaking opens
5. FR 3 156 288Patent for a length-adjusting bracelet clasp
6. NowIn the Netherlands: head of a workshop, courses, repairs, WIM