Ladoire spirit

Since 2007, the Geneva-based House of Ladoire, under its “Helvet Mechanic” label, has been playing with contradictions and associating extremes within atypical creations featuring cutting-edge complications and sophisticated aesthetics.

Stemming from an unbridled imagination and a decidedly offbeat mind-set – symbolised by the signature spider’s web engraved on the GMT wheel and ratchet of the RGT – creations by Ladoire Genève suggest a new relationship with time reflecting a resolutely avant-garde approach to Fine Watchmaking.

Lionel Ladoire

Talented jeweller and rock drummer, Lionel Ladoire is above all a man who is both passionate and free, and who has excelled in each of these different “lives” with ardour and tenacity.

In complete contrast to classical watchmaking, Lionel Ladoire is a conceptual watchmaker who loves nothing better than overstepping the mark and being part of the wave of young watchmakers of the 21st century.

Born into a family of four generations of jewellers, authentic passion drove Lionel Ladoire to become involved in this industry. A graduate of the SEPR in Lyon in 1989, where he came top of his class, he immediately joined “Les ateliers Lyonnais” (Lyon workshops), making ornaments for the great jewellery of the place Vendôme. After time spent across the Atlantic – mainly in New York – he opened his own workshop in Lyon where he worked in close collaboration with a number of French Fine Jewellery companies.

Having been surrounded by micromechanics since he was tiny, and after 20 years of working in the jewellery industry, the young talent gravitated quite naturally towards watchmaking which he remodelled to suit himself, adhering to highly avant-garde, exclusive industrial and design criteria.