<table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr align="center" valign="middle"> <td><font color="#000000" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="galerie.htm" target="corps">Galerie</a></font></td> <td><font color="#000000" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="esprit.htm" target="corps">Esprit</a></font></td> <td><font color="#000000" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="complications.htm" target="corps">Complications</a></font></td> <td><font color="#000000" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="bolido.htm" target="corps">Bolido</a></font></td> <td><font color="#000000" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="pave.htm" target="corps">Pavé</a></font></td> <td><font color="#000000" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="rondo.htm" target="corps">Rondo</a></font></td> <td><font color="#000000" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="klassik.htm" target="corps">Klassik</a></font></td> <td><font color="#000000" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="petites-montres.htm" target="corps">Petites montres</a></font></td> <td><font color="#000000" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="karavan.htm" target="corps">Karavan</a></font></td> <td><font color="#000000" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="alligator.htm" target="corps">Alligator</a></font></td> <td><font color="#000000" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="oiseaux.htm" target="corps">Oiseaux chanteur</a></font></td> <td><font color="#000000" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="horloges.htm">Horloges</a></font></td> <td><font color="#000000" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="couteau.htm">Couteau</a></font></td> <td><font color="#000000" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="distribution.htm" target="corps">Distribution</a></font></td> <td><font color="#000000" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="collector.php" target="corps">Collector</a></font></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="15" align="center" valign="middle"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="15"><p align="justify"><font color="#000000" size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Like all creative artists, ALAIN SILBERSTEIN dreamt of a location where he could present the full range of his watches and clocks as well as those timepieces which he sometimes creates just for fun.</font></p> <p align="justify"><font color="#000000" size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Somewhere he could meet those with a passion for his watchmaking skills and creations.</font></p> <p><font color="#000000" size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Born in Paris, he wanted to rediscover the unique atmosphere of the area in which he began his art studies: St. Germain-des-Prés. A "village" within the city where students, artists, intellectuals and visitors from all over the world pass their time in bookstores, art galleries, artists' studios, and of course... on café terraces!</font></p> <p><font color="#000000" size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">200 Boulevard Saint-Germain (between Rue des Saints-Pères and Rue Saint-Guillaume) is ALAIN SILBERSTEIN's address in Paris.</font></p> <p><font color="#000000" size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Alain Silberstein's personal history has been rather unusual: this Parisian interior architect and designer by profession became a watch-architect in Besançon at the end of the 80's by creating his own watch company. Luck gave a helping hand to his passion for watches.</font></p> <p><font color="#000000" size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">At a time when the disappearance of mechanical watchmaking seemed almost inevitable, he joined the very restricted club of Swiss manufacturers who were behind the rebirth of the mechanical watch.</font></p> <p><font color="#000000" size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">In his workshop on the banks of the Doubs river, Alain Silberstein creates and produces each year with the help of his 20 assistants, including 6 watchmakers, nearly 3,000 watches in different collections.</font></p> <p><font color="#000000" size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Exceptional timepieces like the tourbillon, perpetual calendar, sports chronograph watches, jewelry watches with diamonds and art watches with cloisonned dials, have again become part of the capital of French watchmaking.</font></p> <p><font color="#000000" size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Alain Silberstein creates watches for everyday wear that are resolutely contemporary and genuine works of art. The movements are visible through the transparent back so that the exceptional finish of the piece can be admired.</font></p> <p><font color="#000000" size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">In ten years, Alain Silberstein has been able to demonstrate that research, innovation and quality can enable a French brandname to take its place beside the famous Swiss watchmaking names.</font><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Comparing a watch to an automobile gives an easier understanding of the passion that can exist for both these works of art. </font></p> <p><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Both watch and automobile are composed of an engine and a body that we ask to be both practical and reliable. Working together, they can also make us dream. </font></p> <p><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">A watch movement, like an automobile engine, is the ideal domain for innovations that are so appreciated by enthusiasts and collectors.</font></p> <p><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Real innovation in a watch is not to be found in technical feats which are the servants of an idea or function, but in the capacity of a timepiece to offer a man or woman the possibility of investing in a virtually sacred function: the measurement of his or her OWN time.</font></p> <p><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> A watch is unlike any other object in our environment. A watch measures the most personal and emotional of parameters: our participation in the eternity of time.</font></p> <p><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">It is the key witness to our life and we often offer a watch to our children when they reach adulthood so that they can begin to measure their own time time which is no longer ours to measure.</font></p> <p><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">These ideas are essential to understand the creative process behind my watches: timepieces which embody the research required in order to create that which is most true to us all: an emotion.</font></p> <p><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">This search for emotion in the measuring of time transcends cultures and generations. It is a functional art through which each of us can discover, or perhaps rediscover, his or her childhood and innocence.</font></p> <p><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">"So much passion for such a trivial object" some may say. It is also said about a painting or a sculpture that has not been understood. That's the way it is with works of art.</font></p></td> </tr> </table>