Anyone who knows a little about the time, dedication and passion it takes to become a watchmaker, would understand why Raúl Pagès, winner of the first-ever Louis Vuitton Watch Prize for Independent Creatives, was reduced to tears as he approached the stage to receive the coveted prize from Jean Arnault himself, Director of Watches at Louis Vuitton.

Speaking about the Prize, Jean Arnault said, “This initiative is not to find the next watchmaker, to then recruit him or her into the LVMH group, but to help them flourish afterwards in the industry as a whole. I want it to be around the mentorship programme we put forward.”

It was a well-deserved win for an unsung, but brilliant, underdog artisan watchmaker, whose initial intended career was the arts. A serendipitous conversation with a close friend made Pagès change his mind and go down the mechanical watchmaking route. Initially, he worked with Parmigiani Fleurier in its restoration department. “I loved restoration work,” he told me, “the ability to restore a watch or clock back to its original condition.” It was restoring old marine chronometers, from…