In 1991, 33 year old watchmaker Franck Muller went into business with the Geneva casing and gem expert Vartan Sirmakes, a 51 year old Armenian. The company, Technowatch SA, settled in Genthod, near Geneva, in a neo-Gothic mansion that had been built by the famous architect Edmond Fatio at the beginning of the 20th Century.

This partnership was both productive and prosperous, with the watches of Franck Muller setting records and gaining attention throughout the field. In 1992, Muller claimed the title of the “most complicated wristwatch in the world”, and set this again in 1998.