The Legend of Franck Muller - Westime

PART THREE
THE REVOLUTIONARY
MASTER BANKER
As his brand continued to
grow, one of Franck’s greatest
challenges was to use his
watchmaking ability to suit the
needs of the contemporary consumer. The
greatest reality for the modern businessman
relates to constant travel. The majority of us
spend our days on a perennial transglobal
trek from one head office to the next.
The miasmic haze of being lost amid
differing time zones can at times become
overwhelming, and in this context, it is the
watch that becomes a veritable Prometheus,
bringing light to darkness, and order to
chaos. It was precisely with the objective
of illuminating the world of the constant
traveler that Franck created one of his most
legendary timepieces, the Master Banker.
Amazingly, this watch was actually
created in tandem with an actual banker
friend. Franck recalls, “One of my close
friends is Paul Tange, the son of Kenzo
Tange, the father of contemporary Japanese
architecture and one of the key proponents of
structuralism. At Institut Le Rosey, the oldest
private boarding school in Switzerland, he
befriended an Iranian boy who became a
huge banker in London. I got to know them
both as they spent a lot of time in Geneva.
One day, we got together for lunch and this
banker mentioned that he was curious about
Watchland, so I brought him on a tour. As
we walked through the grounds, he told me,
‘Franck, I want to buy a watch from you, but
the watch I want has not yet been invented.’
This intrigued me immediately. He first
explained his idea in 1995, but it wasn’t
until 1998 that I introduced the watch.
Why? Because the way I work is to put
ideas in my head and then work on solving
their problems in a natural way. It’s how
I’ve always worked. I love to talk to people
of all the different nationalities to learn
about their cultures and their perceptions of
time, and in this way, I am always receiving
inspiration. Of course, afterwards, you
must figure out technically how to resolve
the problems. What he told me was this.
‘The world has changed forever. I spend
almost no time in my actual office. One day
I am in London, the next day in New York,
the next day in Tokyo. What is important to
me is speed, how quickly I can reach a new
destination, how quickly I can react to the
opening of the stock market there. When
I wake up and I look at my watch, I want to
immediately know when the market opens.
Because in the time it takes me to figure
out the time, I could have made or lost a
fortune. So what I really need is a watch that
is actually three watches, to simultaneously
tell the time of three different cities where
I am doing business. But I want to have
all three time indications controlled by
a single movement, and I want complete
hour and minute indicators for each time
zone… I may need to speak to my wife, who
may be in Los Angeles; at the same time, I
need to make a business call to Paris; yet
I must also keep track of my meetings
where I am. In addition, this watch must be
incredibly simple to use.’”
Understanding that this was a vital
opportunity to bridge the gap between
traditional watchmaking and the needs of a
rapidly modernizing culture, Franck leapt
at the challenge. He recalls, “I said to him,
‘Look, what you are asking for is extremely
complicated, because it is as if you are placing
three clutches in a single movement. It is as
if you are putting three clutches into a single
car motor. I can make just one watch like this
for you, but it will cost a fortune. If I can make
several watches with this invention, it will be
very affordable because I can amortize the
cost of research and development over an
entire series.’ He agreed.