Should you put a French movement in a French-brand watch or not? It’s an eternal question, and the answer is more complex than it seems. Generally speaking, no, because French watchmakers don’t produce enough sales volume to make the exercise interesting enough for such a caliber to be offered at a cost price affordable enough for the average brand. Opting for a tried-and-tested, low-cost Swiss-made movement therefore makes sense, even if a large part of the watch is nonetheless French, as is the workforce.
But we can also answer yes to this question on principle, in order to offer the most French watches possible. In this respect, Morteau alongtemps is the Gallic village of the French movement, along with Pequignet. Since then, the manufacture has been joined by Swiss Lajoux-Perret movements, assembled and adjusted in France, as well as by the return of France Ébauches, resurrected by Soprod, owned by watchmaking giant Festina. A credible and reliable alternative at wiser prices welcomed by French brands, from Akrone to Pierre Lannier and now Hegid.

The brand founded in Paris in 2016 has now adopted a new watchmaking engine: a French-made automatic mechanical caliber, the fruit of a collaboration with France Ébauches, in the Doubs region of France. Called Hegid Calibre Specimen FE-01, this new movement made in Maîche has been developed on the basis of Soprod’s proven calibres. Its Incabloc double-cone system and through-balance bridge guarantee the solidity and stability of the regulating organ, for performances claimed to be in line with the standards of Switzerland’s great neighbors (-4s/+6s), with a frequency of 4 Hz (28800 vibrations/hour) and a 44-hour power reserve.

With this caliber, Hegid further concentrates its production in the French Arc Jurassien. All capsules in the Hegid collections will henceforth be equipped with this Specimen FE-01 caliber. Indeed, the Parisian brand’s unique evolutionary concept is based on its EVOL concept, a complication for mechanical watchmaking that enables the style of a watch to be transformed in a matter of seconds. Each Hegid watch combines a bracelet, a case middle that gives the watch its shape (sporty, dressy…) and a capsule, the heart of the watch containing its mechanical movement.