Workmasters
Workmaster
Marcus Mohr
Company founder Victor Mayer (1857 – 1946) was both an artist and art lover. For Mayer, skilled craftsmanship was the decisive standard for quality, and he had an infallible aptitude for finding the zeitgeist. After training as a steel engraver, in 1877 he enrolled as one of the first students at the newly founded Grand Ducal School of Arts and Crafts. Three years in Vienna gave him further inspiration and he financed his stay in the city by working as a steel engraver and model maker, learning new, sophisticated techniques including the art of guilloché and enamelling.
Born in Pforzheim, Germany, Dr Marcus Oliver Mohr is the fourth generation to now run the 130-year-old family business, Victor Mayer.
Typical of a scion from a family business, he was involved in the operation of the company during his schooling and compulsory military service. In addition, he acquired practical knowledge as a goldsmith and setter, taking jewellery classes at Pforzheim University of Applied Art.
Entering the company officially in 1995 as Sales Manager, Mohr was promoted to General Manager in 2000. In 2003, he took over the majority shares of the company from his father Dr Herbert Mohr-Mayer and has since run the company as President.
Mohr has a passion for applied art, history and philosophy and is dedicated to the preservation and transmission of the age-old craft techniques in traditional European jewellery making today. Working closely with his small team of craftsmen in Pforzheim, near Stuttgart, Mohr has been working with Fabergé since the brand was re-launched in 2007.
With a focus on the Heritage Collection, which predominantly uses the traditional technique of guilloché and enamelling, Mohr explores new and innovative ways to bring historical craftsmanship into the 21st century - though the core processes within both art forms have remained largely unchanged for 130 years.
Workmaster
Jean Marc Wiederrecht
Born in Geneva, Jean Marc Wiederrecht attended the Geneva Watchmaking School achieving his watch repairer’s Federal CFC diploma (Certificat Fédéral de Capacité) before joining the Roger Châtelain SA company in Geneva as watchmaker and business partner in 1972.
In 1978 Wiederrecht set up as an independent watchmaker with his wife, using the family home as a workshop and began to undertake work for several Geneva watch brands.
In 1996 he established a company called Agenhor SA (Atelier Genevois d’Horlogerie — Geneva watchmaking workshops). Agenhor is an independent watchmaking company based in Geneva and is specialised in the conception of complex watch mechanisms. Over the years, the business has gained international recognition, respecting the watch craftsmen spirit. The workshop merges contemporary technology and traditional know-how of the profession.
Great names of the watchmaking world entrust their developments and the production of their horological complications to Agenhor. Fabergé, who under the direction of Aurélie Picaud, enlisted the movement maestro to assist with the creation of the Compliquée Peacock timepiece which later went on to win the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève – Ladies’ High-Mech Watch Prize in 2015. The hours here display on a mother of pearl revolving outer ring and minutes display with the progressive opening of a peacock tail – championing a unique and completely new way to read the time.
The GPHG is widely regarded as the ‘Oscars’ of the global watch industry and is intended to salute excellence in worldwide horological design and craftsmanship.
Later in 2016 Fabergé went on to win the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève again, this time it was for the Travel Time Watch Prize with the Visionnaire DTZ which possesses a magnified second time zone readable in the centre of the dial – something never to have been achieved before and unique to this timepiece.
Wiederrecht also worked on the creation of the Visionnaire Chronograph, which measures time with three centred hands with the civil time indicated on the periphery of the central dial and the Lady Levity which possesses central dial decoration with the display on the periphery with a crescent moon hand for the hours and sun hand for the minutes. This design where the hands seem to float had not been seen before.
“If you intend to come into this watch industry, the least you can do is to consider the movement. It’s necessary; what is inside matters. Even if you don’t know about watches, you will be fascinated by the movement.”
