2026 is a big year for the brand, and you started it with a splash at Watches and Wonders, robots and all. Let’s talk about the Super Freak and the new Freak X, and how you see them evolving the Ulysse Nardin story.

The Freak has never been a simple watch. It represents a way of thinking and embodies a revolution in modern horology. It challenged almost every convention of traditional watchmaking and introduced silicon into mechanical watchmaking long before the rest of the industry embraced it.

Ulysse Nardin’s Super Freak unveiled earlier this year at Watches and Wonders

Our ambition for the 25th anniversary of the collection was to raise the bar in terms of technology, innovation, finishing and product value. The Super Freak is a watch with exceptional horological content, and its technologies have been pushed further than ever. We presented a watch with two tourbillons, featuring two regulating organs in silicon and DIAMonSIL. We have developed the industry’s smallest differential and gimbal system, as well as the industry’s most efficient automatic winding system. We are proud to have launched the most complicated time-only watch ever created.

Ulysse Nardin Freak X — more compact, thinner and more robust but still as smart

The same spirit guided the development of the new Freak X. It is not just a facelift of an existing model; we created a more compact case design, a smarter movement construction with higher water resistance, integrated advanced technology with a DIAMonSIL escapement, and refined the movement finishing, including the addition of a rose gold micro-rotor. In addition, for the first time at Ulysse Nardin, we’ve introduced an interchangeable strap offering that allows customers to customize their watch independently.

On a more personal level, are you a Super Freak or a Freak X?

As a collector, I admire pieces such as the Super Freak. It represents a pure expression of high horology. For everyday wear, I naturally find myself wearing the Freak X most often. It offers a unique and unconventional architecture, as well as mechanical emotion in a format that fits seamlessly into everyday life.

Meet the Super Freak, Ulysse Nardin’s most complicated time-only watch, and possibly the world’s as well

The Freak is an embodiment of Ulysse Nardin in many ways. How do you make a 25-year-old disruptive watch feel young again without diluting it?

By staying true to the mindset that created it in the first place. The original Freak challenged almost every convention of traditional watchmaking. As we celebrate both the Freak’s 25th anniversary and the 180-year legacy of Ulysse Nardin, our responsibility isn’t to replicate it as it was, but to evolve it and inspire progress.

The original Freak from 2001 with a seven-day carrousel movement featuring a dual direct escapement and no crown for winding or setting time

That spirit drives our approach to the Freak, as well as to our other collections. Every new generation has to earn its place by bringing something genuinely new to watchmaking through new technologies and innovations, while remaining unmistakably a Freak.

You have often talked about Ulysse Nardin as an ideas lab. Why is this particularly important today to the brand?

Since 1846, we have advanced watchmaking through pioneering technologies, mechanics, materials and craftsmanship, because we think differently and we believe that progress happens when we explore beyond what is possible. Ulysse Nardin has been a cradle of innovation and a driving force behind many of the watch industry’s greatest revolutions. We are the most awarded watch brand, with more than 4,300 awards to our name. In the 1980s, when the watch industry was going through a crisis, we decided to go against the tide and kept investing in innovation.

We introduced groundbreaking creations such as the first chiming watch with jacquemart automatons [the San Marco Minute Repeater], the first astronomical wristwatch [the Astrolabium Galileo Galilei], and the first perpetual calendar that could be set both forwards and backwards via the crown [the Perpetual Ludwig]. In 2001, we launched the revolutionary Freak, which disrupted the conventions of the industry and pioneered the use of silicon in mechanical watchmaking.

Ulysse Nardin The Freak, 2001

Innovation, or the “ideas lab,” is simply who we are and what defines us. Ulysse Nardin is about advancing watchmaking through pioneering technologies, design, craftsmanship and material innovation.

When people think about Ulysse Nardin, they often think materials and silicon. Is this perception still accurate?

Absolutely, and I’m proud that people associate Ulysse Nardin with innovation, as silicon fundamentally changed modern mechanical watchmaking. We pioneered the use of silicon, bringing a major technological breakthrough to an industry that was rooted in traditional watchmaking, improving precision, reliability and durability at a time when few believed it had a place in mechanical watchmaking.

In 2001, Freak is the first watch to use silicon components, with a natural escapement, and it defined a genre of high-end watchmaking we now refer to as the “hyperwatch”

Ulysse Nardin’s Silicon Dual Direct Escapement Wheels

How does Ulysse Nardin stay radical without becoming niche?

Ulysse Nardin is different. It’s a brand that may not appeal to everyone, but one whose core value is to remain true to its radical DNA through innovation, technology, design and the creation of emotional products.

Our customers are free spirits: open-minded, pioneering individuals who build the future and value independence and want to express their individuality. They are looking for emotional products that reflect who they are, products that are distinctive, rooted in a strong heritage, and driven by a high level of innovation and craftsmanship.

Is Ulysse Nardin’s future more about being a high-tech manufacture, a sustainability innovator, or an independent creative lab — or is the point that it has to be all three?

I don’t see these as separate ambitions. Our purpose is to advance watchmaking. By definition, this means continuously pushing the boundaries of technology, innovating in materials, and preserving the creative independence that allows us to challenge conventions.

The Ulysse Nardin Anchor Escapement consisting of a circular silicon frame with two buckled blades attached to the anchor. It was unveiled by the brand in BaselWorld in 2014

The blue silicon balance spring and double-oscillator assembly from the Ulysse Nardin Freak S Nomad

What’s the most exciting thing on the horizon for you as far as Ulysse Nardin is concerned?

We’ve been working for several years on a very strong product plan with a long-term vision, and I’m extremely proud of what we have accomplished and of the results we’ve already delivered, with creations such as the Diver AIR, the UR-Freak, the Super Freak and the new Freak X.

I’m very excited about the years ahead and the new developments planned for Ulysse Nardin’s other iconic collections, including the Marine, Diver and our Métiers d’Art creations.