The future of independent watchmaking is bright. While AHCI started in Switzerland, independent watchmaking today is thoroughly global. We’ve seen exceptional talent spring out of places far from the traditional watchmaking capitals of Geneva, Vallée du Joux, and Glashütte. One of the young watchmakers that has particularly captured our attention is in the heart of Berlin – Felipe Pikullik.

Since launching his own watchmaking venture in 2017, Felipe and his team have only continued to build momentum. From the watchmaker’s skeletonizations to superlative finishing to aventurine starry dials (and much more to come in future projects), Felipe’s output in six years is formidable. Especially in an industry renowned for its long research and development curves, we know that Felipe isn’t joking when he says that he doesn’t sleep as much as he should.

After about a year of conversations, brainstorming and thinking about potential projects, it’s our pleasure to announce our newest brand partner, Felipe Pikullik. EsperLuxe is Felipe’s first authorized retailer in North America. We have a special collaboration with Felipe on the horizon with more information coming in Q2 this year.

Why we partnered with Felipe Pikullik

We briefly mentioned some aspects that make Felipe Pikullik an exceptional watchmaker with a bright future – youth, determination, quality of his timepieces at this early stage and all, trending in the right direction. These are the obvious reasons, the ones that nearly everyone can see when scrolling through Felipe’s Instagram. What’s less obvious is that he’s a watchmaker with big aspirations, a focus on what matters most, and creates watches at a feverish pace.

He’s focused on building a skilled team

When speaking with Felipe, it’s clear that he cares a lot about educating watchmakers. That focus on education is one reason that we struggle to see him as a “young” watchmaker. It may be our bias, but we associate the “give back” mantra with a significantly different age group than the late-twenties. But it makes a lot of sense when you consider his own frustrations with watchmaking education. As he mentioned, most watchmaking schools simply don’t give you the tools to create your own watch from scratch, or even create custom components to modify ebauche movements.

Felipe channels his focus on education through his team. Every watchmaker that enters his workshop becomes a skilled generalist. Everyone goes through the circuit of finishing, creating parts of raw materials, assembling, and regulating. Ultimately, a small team of watchmakers will propel Felipe Pikullik to the next level – creating more timepieces, developing more complications, and creating more components in-house. We see a future where the team provides all the support needed for Felipe to continue his creative, watchmaking pursuits. That leads us to the second reason why we see a bright future for Felipe.

He always makes the most out of what he has

It’s not easy to see on the surface with social media, but Felipe has done more with less since the very beginning. He mentioned that he was always attracted to skeletonizations, partially because of their aesthetic, partially because you can skeletonize movements by hand. It doesn’t require precision lathes or CNC equipment. You can do all the work with fine metal saws, cutting the skeletonized sections out movements and creating something to one’s own vision entirely by hand.

For someone trying to make a splash in watchmaking without tens of thousands of euros to invest in equipment, Felipe threads the needle by finding timepieces that collectors recognize and respect while working within his humble means. It’s not easy to deliver amazing timepieces with what you have – most think about what would amaze if they had better equipment and more assistance in the workshop. We’re excited for Felipe’s future because more success recently has enabled him to make investments in tools and resources that will only help him create better timepieces. As we said to ourselves a few years ago, if he’s creating timepieces like the XX with minimal resources, what would he do if he had everything he dreamed of?

He’s a fast-paced, creative watchmaker

The watchmaking industry isn’t renowned for speed. Even the world’s biggest luxury brands, with manufacturing capabilities for 10,000+ watches per year, rarely unveil more than one or two major releases. For independent watchmakers as small as Felipe Pikilluk, it’s common to see a new timepiece every second, third, or even fourth year. Some can take even longer to develop and create a timepiece. In 6 years of watchmaking, Felipe has released six timepieces, usually in runs of around 20 watches. Each of these timepieces – the first Prius collection, the Mondphase 1, the FPSK Skeleton, the Sternenhimmel, the ZBM1, the latest HTH – all showcase great watchmaking at great prices (all >US$20,000). Simply put, he’s moving at an aggressive pace.

Speaking with him, it’s clear that he has endless ideas. That’s reflected by relative massive output in a short six years of operating as an independent watchmaker. He’s limited by only time and manufacturing capabilities, both in terms of equipment and team. As we see it, that’s a much easier challenge to navigate. Many get stuck on what to create, struggle with overall vision for their creations. We’re excited to see where Felipe goes next and that’s why we’re here for the ride.

These three things in combination – a focus on team, the willingness to create the most out of every situation, and the insatiable drive to create new timepieces – are a recipe for success. Thrilled to play our humble part in the development of Felipe Pikullik, stay tuned for something special between Felipe and Esperluxe in the near future.