Technicum

The Technicum was born in 1991, at a time when Swiss mechanical watchmaking was laboriously emerging from the long quartz crisis and when asserting one's technical credibility was, for a manufacture of Paul Picot's modest size, anything but a given. The line was presented as the most complex chronograph the brand had made up to that point: an execution that combined in a single watch the rattrapante function (or "double chronograph", able to measure two intermediate times simultaneously), a power-reserve indicator and a double date function, all paired with a COSC chronometer certification — a combination that, according to the trade sources consulted, remains to this day a rarity for a brand at Paul Picot's positioning level.

Technically the Technicum is based on ETA/Valjoux-derived calibers, in line with the "partial manufacture" approach that characterizes Paul Picot's entire production: the brand's challenge has never been to build an entirely proprietary caliber from scratch, but to develop exclusive complication modules to pair with solid, reliable bases, so as to offer rare functions at a more accessible price than the great vertically integrated manufactures.

The line has remained over time one of the most identifiable names in Paul Picot's historical catalogue and is among the few 1990s collections still present, in updated form, in the brand's more recent communication: a sign of its importance as a technical showcase, more than as a simple catalogue product.