Credits: Article and images by Alexey Kutkovoy @ Quill & Pad. See the original article here - https://quillandpad.com/2024/03/26/felipe-pikullik-one-of-the-new-generation-of-independents-specializing-in-superlative-hand-finishing-and-hand-made-watches/
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I also really liked the beautiful deep engraving of the lettering and the English-style floral design of the scrolls, and Pikullik makes it clear why this is a fitting choice for him. I get the impression that engraved watches make up a large part of his sales (I estimate around 80%). Nevertheless, I do have some criticism. I’m ambivalent about the combination of the engraved balance bridge and the plain Etachron regulator: why not the swan neck version? So I asked him (see below).
Before handing over to Felipe Pikullik, I would like to make one more point that seems important to me. Felipe used to work for A. Lange & Söhne, and it is interesting to find some signs of Saxon style in his watches, including that flat cylindrical caseband with brushing (not longitudinal, as with A. Lange & Söhne, but transverse), lugs with an accentuated shoulder merging into the caseband, and those the “alpha” hands.
However, this in no way implies that his watches resemble modern Langes. Pikullik is an independent German watchmaker who is influenced by the soil on which he grew up in. Good winemakers emphasize terroir and I won’t deny its influence.
Felipe Pikullik Interview
AK: Who and what were your main influences and inspirations?
FP: I was and still am inspired by many brands and watchmakers from the past. Let’s take the ‘Alpha’ hands from A. Lange & Söhne that you referred to previously. You can find those hands on many watches, such as Parmigiani Fleurier, Jaeger-LeCoultre, etc. The use of this shape is simply the application of the classic style. In my designs, I try to draw on the past but adapt it to today’s use. So I have the classic hands and some other features, but also my own designs, combined with traditional skills in finishing the parts and skeletonizing.
The desire to study traditional skills inspired me to work at A. Lange & Söhne because I thought that everything there is handmade and master craftsmen make the watch from scratch. But when I came to A. Lange & Söhne I found out that in reality not everything is made by hand. Like most big brands they use CNC machines and similar computerized machines.
It’s okay because they don’t make a secret of it, but back then I was passionate about learning watchmaking and I couldn’t figure out what was handmade and what wasn’t, I could only ask the jewelers for their opinion. I talked to them about who was the best brand, who was the best watchmaker in the world. They all told me it was A. Lange & Söhne, and for a while I thought that Lange’s were the best watches in the world.
But now they are a legend, an icon, and they stand for what they do. I like Lange watches, but they are not completely handmade. So I decided to go my own way because I had learned to be a watchmaker and wanted to learn how to make a gear and why gears are the way they are, the maths and physics behind it all and how people could do it by hand 300 years earlier.
That was what was going through my mind: What is really handmade? What is the oldest technology? And what is the best technology? Besides, I didn’t just want to know what it was like in the past, I wanted to practice handmade watchmaking now.
So I searched for my way. After A. Lange & Söhne, I went to Kudoke and then to Rolf Lang. He’s also from A. Lange & Söhne. And he was my great master. Rolf Lang can really do everything by hand and I learned a lot from him. He gave me all the opportunities of I needed and wanted to know. And I try to put everything he taught me into practice and learn every day, even today, ten years later.
As a watchmaker, I try to teach my employees. There are 13 of us here, I start with them and then I want to offer the world, including customers, something unique. And yes, my watches are not 100% handmade yet, but that is the goal and we are going step by step.
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Credits: Article and images by Alexey Kutkovoy @ Quill & Pad. See the original article here - https://quillandpad.com/2024/03/26/felipe-pikullik-one-of-the-new-generation-of-independents-specializing-in-superlative-hand-finishing-and-hand-made-watches/