Engine turning doesn’t sound as sexy as the evocative French word guilloché, even if it is disturbingly similar to guillotine. The term stems from the French word guillocher, which means engraving surfaces with repetitive patterns. From the start, guilloché found its way into watchmaking as a pocket watch case adornment as early as the 17th century. As far as we know, the earliest example was a timepiece with an engine-turned case signed by Pierre Duhamel in Geneva in 1680 and today there are many, many styles of guilloché to explore.
What we now know as guilloché is also visible in jewellery, the famed Imperial eggs by Fabergè, trays and other decorative items. Different patterns and movement decorations, like perlage with overlapping circles, are not cut into the metal and are more akin to small-area polishing. All guilloché is stamped or hand-turned on a rose engine, or a straight-line engine that creates geometrics like Clous de Paris (hobnail), sunburst and basketweave. Most guilloché patterns are seen on the dial side of watches. But some occasionally appear on bridgework, and you’ll find many variants on both collectable pens and vintage lighters.
Straight-Line
This style of guilloché does what it says on the tin, offering a linear, sometimes pinstripe look of formality to a dial. In 2024 the small-scale production version of the Daniel Roth Tourbillon in rose gold gives a perfect example of the genre. The dial surface is in solid rose gold as the case, decorated with parallel vertical lines. Straight line, or en ligne, guilloché is beautiful on its own, but here comes across as a sartorial contrast to the abundance of curves, framed in the unusual case by a distinct fluted pattern above the moustache-shaped tourbillon scene at six o’clock.
Basket Weave
As you will have figured out by now, the terms for different guilloché patterns might have original French names that evoke memories of a bygone age, but are all literal descriptions of their appearance, like basket weave. This is another type of straight-line guilloché with minuscule criss-cross patterns that brands like Voutilainen and Breguet use to great effect. As with any type of guilloché, it can be used to decorate an entire dial or, in the case of Breguet’s Classique 7137 Moon Power Reserve, it can be combined with other patterns to emphasise a sub-dial or power reserve with its light-catching properties.
Wave
As a more complex and organic pattern, the wave style of guilloché can be large or small in scale and perhaps finds its most literal interpretation once again in Breguet’s dial work. The sharp-pointed undulating shapes are well known from the brand’s Marine collection, contrasting to the modern case design. They work to bring life to a traditional dial encircled by a circular brushed chapter ring and add to the aquatic theme of the series.
Moiré
The rose engine-cut moiré pattern is small in scale and creates a decoration which might look like a sunburst finish from a distance. It produces a vibrant background and is used to great effect by Chinese watchmaker Atelier Wen, often in a non-watch context. Many watch collectors are pen lovers, and you’ll frequently find guilloché decoration on fountain pens. The Italian brand Grifos specialise in solid 925 silver pens, often boasting a matching moiré-decorated cap and body.
Sunburst
These days, this term is mostly used for brushed, lacquered dials that have a distinctly colour-shifting reflective quality, but it is also a type of straight-line guilloché. As a particularly vibrant example, Laurent Ferrier produced a limited version of their Classic 40mm in platinum with a vividly cut 18K white gold dial. In this example, the hand-decorated dial alternates broad and thin rays emanating from the centre, making for a strong monochrome play between light and shadow.
Écailles De Poisson
Image credit: tickingaway
Yet another fanciful French term, this time signifying a symmetrical overlapping pattern of shapes that resemble fish scales. A striking example is found in the work that dial master Kari Voutilainen has done, like the Grönefeld 1941 Remontoire. Only four examples were made, offering a glamorous textbook example of the genre on an outer ring. Its inner dial has a depth-inducing scaled-down version of the same fluid pattern, adding to the patterned splendour.
Clous De Paris
We opt for the French-language version here, Clous de Paris, as hobnail sounds a bit pedestrian. It comes either stamped or cut from a straight-line lathe and is instantly recognisable from the dial of the G-P Laureato, with its acutely pointed pyramid pattern. This style of guilloché is also unusually found on some movements, which includes the bridgework of the new Biver Automatique, a watch we were impressed with this year.
Tapisserie
The most recognisable of all guilloché are the raised flat-topped squares in the geometrical Tapisserie pattern. It is a more modern take on straight-line guilloché and is not always recognised as such because of it. But combined with an octagonal bezel, the grail-tastic Audemars Piguet Royal Oak is instantly recognisable, just like its beefier brother, the Offshore.
Flinqué
The Flinqué technique often combines spectacularly hypnotic patterns with lacquering over its engraved or stamped pattern. A stunning example is found in the Czapek Genève model ‘Quai des Bergues’. A centred concentric pattern follows the shape of the seconds and date registers at 4:30 and 7:30 on the dial, creating an intense depth to what is already an accomplished dial. To accomplish this, diamond-like shapes are cut in curving overlapping shapes on a rose engine lathe.
Barleycorn
Like many guilloché styles, the shapes that create this pattern do not need explanation. The grain-like shapes are usually small in scale and stamped, or engine-turned in a vertically oriented and arrow-like pattern. It brings with it an understated sophistication and can be found on more daily-wear pieces like the Longines Master Collection, among many others. Here it creates a more dynamic surface, which looks silver-lacquered until serving up its intricacies at close quarters.
