About

ochs und junior was founded in 2006 by Ludwig Oechslin, Beat Weinmann and Kurt König, the latter the owner at the time of Embassy Lucerne, one of the leading retailers in Europe. Today, ochs und junior is owned by the Oechslin family and based in La Chaux-de-Fonds, the centre of Swiss watchmaking. The workshop is located in a typical, early 20th century villa built as the annex of a former factory where the owners and managers used to live.

ochs und junior manufactures exclusively watches developed by Ludwig Oechslin, the legendary thinker behind some of the most awarded watches of the past 30 years. In sharp contrast to the watch industry in general, which is primarily focused on complications, Oechslin untertakes an intense construction and design process to create simpler solutions than have been previously achieved in wristwatches: the design follows the construction, or, as Louis Sullivan famously said, “form follows function.” Oechslin radically reduces the number of mechanical parts because simpler mechanics are more reliable and easier to
manufacture and service. ochs und junior timepieces represent the culmination of his career, which includes the restoration of the Vatican’s Farnese Clock, construction of the famous Türler Clock, Directorship of the Musée International d’Horlogerie, and longtime collaborations with many of Switzerland’s greatest watch brands.

ochs und junior watches are available at our La Chaux-de-Fonds location. To purchase your ochs und junior, you can visit us at our atelier located at Rue Numa-Droz 143 in La Chaux-de-Fonds or through the ochs und junior website.

Big enough or small enough

In a world geared towards quantitative growth, we have opted for an alternative path – one that we are confident is right for ochs und junior. We ensure that we can offer development, production, communication, distribution and – very important – service from a single source. Either big enough or small enough!
Convinced that this principle also applies to the watch industry, we have opted for ‘small enough’. As a result we finance our operations and innovations solely through the sales of our watches.

Collections

ochs und junior watches are available in the following collections: astronomy, calendar and time.

With a view to the stars, the astronomical collection with day/night and moon phase aligns everyday life according to the natural cycles of the sun and moon. Day/night is reminiscent of the astrolabe with its display of the sun’s highest altitude, sunrise and sunset, and makes both the position of the sun and the moon visible. A 24-hour rotating sun and moon captures the course of the day in a delightful way. The lunar-orientated moon phase, on the other hand, focuses on the waxing and waning moon.

The calendar collection emerges from Dr. Oechslin’s 34-year journey through reflection and reassessment of the visual hierarchy of date and time. Text and numbers have given way to a date ring with perforations that brings time and date into alignment. This collection comprises three models: perpetual calendar, annual calendar and date. While conventional annual calendar watches contain delicate levers and springs, ochs and junior watches work with a few drives and gears. Avoiding the use of levers and springs as much as possible is an advantage because the calendars can be moved forward and backward.

Exactly up to the year 2100, the perpetual calendar also takes leap years into account and displays the correct date until 2100. Incredibly, only nine additional movement parts allow the precise display of leap years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds. All the watches in the calendar collection are the result of research and implementation with a focus on extreme minimalism, which concentrates the watch on the essential, essential elements.

The time collection allows a seamless transition between two time zones. two time zones and date imaginatively expands the hour hand by opening a window with a second time zone. The embedding of the perforated ring used in the perpetual calendar series brings additional functionality to the date display without diminishing the aesthetic value of the watch. two time zones boldly combines minimalist linear views with numbers with a unified representation of two time zones, creating an incredibly seductive effect.

Swiss made

ochs und junior watches are free of any designation of origin. The phrase ‘Made in Switzerland’ is intended to inspire confidence, but in practice it tends to raise more questions than it answers. Of far greater importance to us are the people we work with. We insist on absolute transparency. As most of our partners are based not far from Lucerne and La Chaux-de-Fonds, the ‘Swiss Made’ aspect is a given. Some of our components come from further afield: the leather, for instance, is from southern Germany, and the dials are printed just north of the Swiss border, too.

The reason for that is that we really like those particular suppliers, their ideas and their commitment. The advantage of keeping things as local and/or as personal as possible is that we know the people and we’re assured of the right quality – which in turn gives us the greatest sense of satisfaction. And that’s what it’s all about!

ochs und junior?

Ludwig Oechslin’s son Giorgio was having a laugh when, at lunch one day, he suggested a reinterpretation of the family name (a word of explanation for non-German speakers: Ochs means ox, and Oechslin is a diminutive form of Ochs, i.e. little ox): playing on the image of the old “Ochs” and his cool junior, Giorgio turned it into ochs und junior (or ox and junior). And since his father is known for his unconventionality, he didn’t take much persuading to run with that name.

ochs und junior: intelligent watches for people who don’t always take life too seriously. And rather than place the brand name on the dial like everyone else, we brand the logo (literally!) on the back of the leather strap. Legitimately so, in our case. The ox – that wagon-pulling, abstinent farmyard animal that often ends up as ox tail soup – is a tongue-in-cheek way of indicating that this watchmaking venture of ours, though dear to our heart, should still be seen with a dash of humor.