Famed Watch Casemaker Jean-Pierre Hagmann Dies

By Rob Bates | March 12, 2025

Jean-Pierre Hagmann, the revered creator of cases for just about every major watch brand—including (and especially) Patek Philippe—has died, according to Hodinkee and other news sources.

Hagmann was born in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1940. According to a biography compiled by the International Museum of Horology, he started in the industry in 1956, as an apprentice to Geneva jeweler Ponti Gennari. From there, he held a variety of jobs—some in the jewelry and watch trade, and at least one that involved his other passion, tinkering with motorbikes and race cars.

By the 1970s, he’d established himself as an expert and in-demand designer of watch cases. Yet the man who once called himself “very autodidactic” always stressed that he never went to school for his craft.

“Over a long period of time, you learn,” he told watch blog A Collected Man in 2019. “You build your intuition. I was lucky enough to work for a long time with some high-end watchmakers and to learn the classical rules. It’s important to first learn the way things are done so that you can then start to question them.”

Hagmann set up his own workshop in 1984 and was soon creating cases for noted watchmakers like Blancpain, Breitling, Vacheron Constantin, and Audemars Piguet, as well as top independents like Franck Muller and Roger Dubuis. But he won the widest acclaim for his work on Patek Philippe’s minute repeaters.

“His expertise at coaxing and simplifying the tiny bell-like sound from these chiming watches can be likened to the skill of a master violin maker,” wrote the Financial Times.

Hagmann said in a 2024 Watches TV interview that his goal was always “better quality and more elegance. Always, always. And the easiest way possible.”

He stamped most of his cases with his initials, JPH. Watches bearing that hallmark are now widely sought-after by collectors—which surprised him.

“I would never have expected it,” he told A Collected Man. “But I have some collector friends whose aim is to own all the watches I’ve made. It helps my confidence, but it doesn’t give me any more money.”

Hagmann intended to retire in 2017, after selling his company to Vacheron Constantin. But in 2019, timepiece prodigy Rexhep Rexhepi coaxed the soon-to-be octogenarian out of retirement to work for his watch brand Akrivia.

Asked what lured him back to the bench, Hagmann told Wristcheck, “I don’t know how to do nothing. I’ve always forced myself to invent, build, and imagine things constantly evolving.”

Last year, Hagmann was awarded a special jury prize at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, the “Oscars of watchmaking.”

“His curriculum vitae reads like a directory of the great names of 20th-century watchmaking,” jury president Nick Foulkes said when introducing Hagmann at the awards ceremony. “The casemaker’s casemaker, he has participated in the creation of some of the most important watches in modern times.”

On social media, watch aficionados remembered Hagmann as a humble man who nevertheless produced a remarkable body of work.

“In the watch industry there is not a single company not have asked him to produce cases,” wrote Patek Philippe museum director Peter Friess on LinkedIn. “He was the man for special cases no one else could make. We will miss him. The many fruitful discussions I have had with him in the years past are unforgettable.”

Swiss watchmaker Andersen Genève also paid tribute on Facebook: “The watch world has lost one of its most talented and loyal servants. Jean-Pierre Hagmann was arguably the most famous maker of watch cases of the late 20th century. Guided by his principle of ‘simple is better but quality is important,’ Mr. Hagmann is one of the few component makers in Swiss watchmaking who has become a marquee name in his own right.

“He will be missed by family and friends as [well] as by those who admired his work.”

Top: Jean-Pierre Hagmann accepting his special jury prize at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève in November 2024 (photo courtesy of the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève)