Jer?me de Witt understands luxury. As a descendant of the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, being surrounded by it all his life has given him an uncompromising thirst for the best.
That is the philosophy the 'accidental' watchmaker tries to inject into his exclusive novelties of quiet opulence. 'When you are surrounded by beauty all your life, you can accept nothing less,' de Witt says.
It explains why DeWitt Timepieces has made fast strides in the horological field. In just a decade, it can boast three complicated in-house calibres and has the Geneva Watchmaking Grand Prix in the Innovation category (for the Academia Tourbillon Differentiel in 2005) and four patents.
It's an amazing achievement for someone who, unlike the Swiss industry's other notable watchmakers, was never formally trained and who fell into the business when another watchmaker he was financing ran off and left him with a mountain of debts and only two other workers.
De Witt knew from the outset what was inside his watches would be his most important attribute. 'The approach was simple,' he says. 'It's like buying a Mercedes-Benz and one has an engine tuned by [the high-performance car division of Mercedes Benz) AMG and one does not. You will choose the AMG because you know it will be much better. When I started DeWitt, I knew I only wanted the best in quality.'
The first thing he did was to assemble the best watchmakers and provide them with sufficient resources. He also kept a keen eye on new movements out on the market.
'I bought them, opened them and tuned them and put my own quality on it,' he says. 'Then I wanted finesse.'