His father was a train driver for French National Railways. In his oldest memories, he remembers his father bringing home old machines and mechanical parts that fascinated him. In a way, early exposure to powerful locomotives, steam engines and control instruments might be the origin of Vianney‘s attraction to mechanics and engineering. At the time when he was a student at the Paris watchmaking school, he had to travel by train for five hours every day, and started to consume Science Fiction books and stories. Those stories changed him forever. Jules Verne novels stimulated his mind. Vianney kept obsessing about all the material and equipment the adventurers used.
PART ONE
CREATIVE UNIVERSE
PART TWO
CREATIVE UNIVERSE
Later he was exposed to TV series and particularly Star Trek. For Vianney, it remains the quintessential sci-fi series. The original Star Trek series and the following had a strong impact on him. The Deep Space Tourbillon watch is a hommage to the 1993 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine series that sent him into parallel universes for several months. Being fascinated by space exploration and aeronautical research, he still reads everyday about the subject. Vianney is a collector, fascinated by scientific instruments and ancient mechanical devices. To him, they represent a part of human history that needs to be curated. Moreover, those objects are a source of inspiration: they hold an incredible variety of systems, displays, and ingenuity. Tower clocks fascinated him since he was a child and as of today, make the most of his collection.
PART THREE
CREATIVE UNIVERSE
At age eleven, he bought his first piece in the town of Limay near Paris. Among the huge tower clocks one can find scientific instruments, tools, calculators, ancient bulbs, engines powered by forgotten energy sources. Those objects, as well as the people who made them, inspire Vianney. His most recent collection takes him back to his first passion : books. He rediscovered graphic novels and started to collect and amass illustrations. Original comic books panels, novel cover art, sketches… Vianney has little talent for drawing so these hand drawn art pieces make a big impression on him. As much as he likes to share his own universe, Vianney loves to contemplate others’. Set in motion by the same creative process, he expresses himself through his watches.
