In 2020 Alcée Montfort conceived an audacious idea: a luxury clock that buyers could assemble themselves.
“Our goal was to share the beauty of watchmaking,” Ms. Montfort said in a recent video interview. “A table clock is a watch with bigger dimensions,” she said, noting that the mechanical movement at the heart of both is the same. The best way to create the passion is to allow anyone to assemble their own timepiece, said Ms. Montfort.
She and her husband, Benoît Montfort, founded the brand Maison Alcée in 2021 in the northeastern French city of Reims, where they and their four employees now test components and tools provided by 30 suppliers and then assemble the kits.
Each kit’s wooden presentation box includes 233 components — all made by hand, mostly in the Jura, a Franco-Swiss watchmaking region about five hours south of Reims — and 17 clock-making tools, most crafted expressly for beginners. There also is a 150-page history and instruction book and a series of QR codes that access video explanations. Each customer also is given access to a private WhatsApp group for questions and to allow the team to monitor progress.
The clock, which Ms. Monfort said takes about 10 hours to assemble, was named the Persée — Persée is the French version of Perseus, the Greek hero whose sons included Alcée, or Alcaeus. It is a sleek skeletonized timepiece deliberately reminiscent of an hourglass, that is 100 millimeters tall (slightly more than six inches), chimes the hour and has a two-week power reserve.
Though success is guaranteed, building the clock is not an easy experience, said Ms. Montfort, 33, a former manager of the movement assembly workshop at TAG Heuer. But when it begins to run, “you are like a child,” she said. “You are really proud of yourself.”
Benjamin d’Alayer, a watch enthusiast from Luxembourg whose wife bought him the Persée as a 40th birthday present, expressed a similar sentiment: “Even if you’re not passionate about watchmaking, if you assemble the Persée, you catch the virus.”
To design the clock, the Montforts assembled a team that included Jean-Marie Desgrange and Thierry Ducret, who in 2007 was designated horology’s meilleur ouvrier de France, or best craftsman of France, a prestigious title awarded by the Ministry of Labor. Both men teach at the elite Lycée Edgar Faure watchmaking school in Morteau, France.
Ms. Montfort said that Mr. Desgrange and Mr. Ducret’s knowledge of the problems that first-year watchmaking students face enabled them to develop a movement that any novice could assemble.
Since its introduction in late 2022, three iterations of the Persée design have been issued, each in limited editions of 500 and starting at $8,100. In October, a higher-end version made its debut: The $13,300 Persée Or, a 25-piece limited edition featuring components with decorative finishes such as guilloché engraving; anglage, or beveling; and mirror polishing.
The kits are sold through the company’s online store and at both the Hour Glass Paragon in Singapore and the MB&F M.A.D. Gallery in Geneva.
Maximilian Büsser, the founder of the independent MB&F brand, said he was taken by the idea of a luxury do-it-yourself clock and has had a low-key advisory role in the company since having a video call with the Montforts in early 2022.
“It’s the epitome of loving watchmaking,” Mr. Büsser said of the Persée. “It puts a spotlight on how complex this work is, because most people who buy high-end watches have no real idea.”
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