To say Patrick Pruniaux could have his pick of watches is an understatement. As co-founder and CEO of Sowind Group the parent company of Ulysse Nardin and Girard-Perregaux, Pruniaux has near-unfettered access to the deep historical archives of two of Swiss watchmaking’s most technically ambitious maisons. Between marine chronometers, high-complication experiments, and centuries of accumulated horological risk-taking, the options at his disposal are extraordinary.
But that wasn’t how he started his watch journey. “I received a watch when I was a kid from my dad. It was a cowboy watch. I was probably seven. It was a cowboy who was holding two pistols. This pistol was showing the time,” Pruniaux told Crown & Caliber while touring the Villa Menlo Park in Silicon Valley, where Ulysse Nardin opened a store last year.
Pruniaux suspects the watch could be at his parents house.
“Then probably when I was in my 20s, my grandfather offered me a pocket watch that came from his own grandfather, and apparently, it’s in a safe. I still have it, but I never wear it,” he added, expertly navigating his own watch history.
“I have a third watch and it’s an amazing story. It’s a true story. When I was 20 years old, my dad offered me a watch. I wanted to get a Tag Heuer, and my dad said, “too expensive, pick something else.” So, I picked another brand. I was wearing it for a couple of years. I served in the French Army in a paratrooper regiment. And during a jump, I lost the watch. It fell probably 6,000 feet, over a forest and boom.”
Statistically speaking, Pruniaux was right to assume the watch had likely met its demise.
“I received a call six months later from the drop zone director, he said ‘your watch, did it have a red strap?’ I said, ‘yes.’ He said, ‘someone found it.’ A German tourist. It was lost over the Southwest of France. And a German tourist was hiking in a forest during the summer, and found a watch. Being extremely honest, instead of keeping the watch, he thought, ‘where could that come from?’ Being very logical and rational. He said, ‘oh, maybe it’s one of the parachuters.’ He brought it back to one of the drop zones. Drop zone completely forgot about it until someone came back and said, ‘oh, there was someone who lost his watch here.’ They called me, and the watch still worked!”
While many maisons would like to claim 6,000-foot sky to land durability, Pruniaux said “it’s a brand that almost does not exist anymore; it’s a brand called Sector.”
Founded in Italy in 1973, Sector No Limits began as a purpose-built sports watch company before diving into global extreme sports culture throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The brand’s No Limits ethos was never theoretical; it was proven through real feats performed by athletes who operated at the edge of human capability, most notably Patrick de Gayardon. In August 1997, de Gayardon completed one of the most audacious aerial maneuvers ever recorded, leaping from an aircraft in a wingsuit and re-entering the same plane mid-flight minutes later.
Pruniaux continued, “I got it back. When I use the word talisman, that watch is a talisman. I don’t wear it but I’m so happy to know it’s there in the safe at the bank. It is the most precious watch I own in so many ways.”
