Dominique Renaud
The Dominique Renaud brand was officially launched in 2026 with the presentation of the Pulse60, the first creation unveiled at the Time To Watches show in Geneva. Behind this new watchmaking signature is one of the most influential minds in contemporary watchmaking: Dominique Renaud, the inventor and designer behind some of the most remarkable complications of recent decades.
Revolutionary beginnings in fine watchmaking
The story of Dominique Renaud is inseparable from that of Renaud & Papi, the manufacture he co-founded in 1986 with Giulio Papi in Le Locle. At a time when fine mechanical watchmaking was experiencing a renaissance after the quartz crisis, their workshop quickly became a laboratory for innovation.
The manufacture developed and produced movements and complications for several major Swiss watchmakers. Tourbillons, minute repeaters, complex chronographs, and grand complications: within a few years, Renaud & Papibecame one of the industry’s most important development centers. This pioneering adventure ultimately led to the integration of the structure within Audemars Piguet, giving rise to Audemars Piguet Renaud & Papi (APRP), today a global benchmark in the design of complicated movements.
A spirit of constant invention
Throughout his career, Dominique Renaud established himself as a watchmaker-inventor with a unique perspective. His approach was not to make marginal improvements to existing solutions, but to question the very foundations of mechanical movements.
Inspired by nature and his observations of the real world, he developed an experimental approach: testing and comparing ideas, exploring avenues that ran counter to established standards. This intellectual freedom enabled him to devise innovative solutions for the regulating organ, the escapement, and energy management.
For Dominique Renaud, watchmaking remains above all a field of exploration.
The birth of Haute Horlogerie Dominique Renaud (HHDR)
After several years of research and development, Dominique Renaud launched a new independent structure: Haute Horlogerie Dominique Renaud (HHDR).
Based in Tolochenaz, in the heart of the Swiss watchmaking region, this entity aims to create and develop innovative watchmaking projects.
It continues in the pioneering spirit of its founder, promoting a collaborative approach that brings together engineers, watchmakers, and designers around new ideas.
The Dominique Renaud brand is the second expression of this structure, embodying its creator’s most personal vision of watchmaking.
Watchmaking as exploration
Dominique Renaud watches are distinguished by a clear philosophy: function determines form. Each creation is designed to visually express the mechanical innovations it contains.
The architecture of the movement, the layout of the displays, and the design of the case are thus conceived as a coherent whole. This approach gives rise to instantly recognizable watches, where the mechanics become a visible and intelligible spectacle.
The Pulse60: the first chapter in a new adventure
Unveiled in 2026, the Dominique Renaud Pulse60 inaugurates this new brand with a radical concept: exploring the extreme low frequency of 1 Hz, or 60 oscillations per minute.
With its large 20 mm balance wheel and redesigned regulating organ allowing an amplitude of over 360°, the Pulse60 perfectly illustrates Dominique Renaud’s ambition: to reinvent the fundamentals of mechanical movement in order to open up new perspectives in watchmaking.
This first creation marks the beginning of a new phase for the inventor, but also the emergence of a brand destined to play a unique role in the landscape of contemporary fine watchmaking.
