The Maison
Our convictions
Renaud Tixier was born from a singular ambition: to challenge the foundational tenets of the mechanical watch while pushing micromechanics to its outer limits. Above and beyond sheer ambition, the Maison is driven by a definitive mission: to prove that Haute Horlogerie is not measured solely by Grand Complications, but by the intellectual courage to dismantle established dogmas and invent new mechanical paradigms.
We believe unspoken fundamentals deserve fresh scrutiny and that a well-framed question is worth more than just another horological complication.
We believe knowledge is not made to be stored away, but to be passed on. Two watchmakers have chosen to do just that.
We believe finishing is not simply decoration: it is a standard of integrity. What remains hidden from view deserves the same care as that which is visible.
We believe that each part takes however long it requires. A mechanism must be able to be understood, disassembled and repaired in a hundred years.
The alliance
Maison Renaud Tixier emerged from an encounter between two generations of horological mastery: Dominique Renaud, a visionary pioneer with over four decades of inventive watchmaking; and Julien Tixier, a brilliant young artisan devoted to safeguarding traditional skills.
A few years earlier, Dominique Renaud and Julien Tixier met and began a conversation around their shared passion for watchmaking.
Their creative dialogue culminated in the Tempus Fugit: the world’s most compact secular perpetual calendar, developed in just 30 months and crafted entirely in Tixier’s Vallée de Joux workshop. Nominated at the 2022 GPHG, a mechanical marvel capable of masterfully navigating the nuances of the Gregorian calendar for nearly ten millennia without missing a beat.
In 2023, Dominique and Julien once again pushed their limits for the Only Watch charity biennial, setting themselves one of the most complex of all possible watchmaking challenges: simplifying the mechanisms of a Grand Complication. Reinventing the secular perpetual calendar module from the inside out, they delivered a movement that was both ultra-compact and modular, characterised by exquisite finishing and attention to detail.
The international watch community’s reaction to these two one-of-a-kind creations was immediate and unanimous. Officialising this symbiotic working relationship was the only logical step, naturally leading to the creation of the Renaud Tixier brand.
Niche watchmaking
Truly exclusive watchmaking is defined neither by the size of the Maisons nor by the number of timepieces produced, but instead by what guides them. While standard Manufactures create a mechanisms based on a technical brief, Renaud Tixier does so out of a conviction that none had previously dared to defend.
Whereas modern luxury watchmaking often stages complexity for its own sake, the ambition here is different: to chart new ground by challenging established theories, dogma and convention. These pursuits give rise to pioneering, purposeful timepieces, finished to the highest standards of artisanal craftsmanship and produced in strictly limited editions.
The central role of the human touch
At Renaud Tixier, mechanics does not stop with invention. It continues in the hand that shapes it, finishes it and gives it its final form.
United within the Maison, our development, production and decoration workshops bring together the expertise required for each creation. The watchmaker plies his trade at the workbench, the artistic crafts intervene according to individual projects and each finish becomes a part of the movement structure.
Bevelling, mirror polishing, rounded-off bridges, Côtes de Genève, sunburst brushing, circular graining, engraving, chasing, or Grand Feu enamelling: each technique serves the mechanism, rendering invisible precision perceptible.
Born from these exacting standards, our timepieces are issued in strictly limited numbers. They are conceived for connoisseurs who demand more than technical complexity and instead seek the artisan's signature touch, enduring expertise and singular vision.
