Atelier Wen shares an exclusive look inside one the of world’s biggest movement manufacturers

Jamie Weiss

The watch industry is often a very secretive and opaque one. Watchmakers and brands love to talk up their savoir-faire and emphasise how hard it is to make a mechanical watch but are often a little more reluctant to open the doors to their manufactures and actually show people how they do it. That’s why Atelier Wen’s mini-documentary series, Inside The Atelier, is a breath of fresh air.

The series follows Atelier Wen co-founders Robin Tallendier and Wilfried Buiron as they visit their suppliers and craftspeople in Mainland China as part of their mission to elevate the perception of Chinese watchmaking. The first episode of the series saw the pair visit the workshop of Cheng Yucai, the guilloché master responsible for the Franco-Chinese brand’s signature dials. The recently-released second episode sees the pair travel to Dandong to visit their movement supplier, Peacock.

Peacock (officially Liaoning Peacock Watch Company) ranks as one of the biggest movement manufacturers in the world. Indeed, the city of Dandong is famous as a hotbed of watchmaking – it’s sometimes called “the Geneva of the East”. Specifically, Atelier Wen uses Dandong’s SL1588 calibre for their Perception, an original high-beat calibre that represents Peacock’s crème de la crème.

For those who haven’t had the chance to visit a watch factory, this video is a real treat, exhibiting a wide variety of manufacturing processes including CNC machining, date wheel pad printing and regulating. Robin and Wilfried even have a go assembling a Dandong/Peacock movement – a classic trick watchmakers love inflicting on journalists and industry figures who visit watch factories to demonstrate just how hard watchmaking really is (I speak from experience).

“It is incredibly rare to get unrestricted access and, beyond this, unrestricted filming authorisation, in manufacturing sites in China; this is actually the first time ever they allowed a camera crew inside,” Robin relates. “Peacock today produces about 1.5 million mechanical movements per year, placing it amongst the 5 largest producers in the world, yet, to most watch collectors, it is an absolute black box… Most collectors also hold the view that Chinese movement-making facilities are old, under-equipped and “dusty”, but this could not have been further from what we witnessed.” Watch the video above to see what they mean.