With a solid design background, Fiona Krüger caught the watchmaking bug and arrived on the high-end scene with a bang in 2013. QP sat down to talk collaborations, overconfidence and confounding expectations
By Josh Sims

?It?s so nice to go somewhere when you can make a joke and people get it,? says Fiona Krüger of her recent visit to the UK. ?It?s nice to have a bit of banter. The French have this overtly direct way of speaking. Really I would have moved back to Scotland years ago, but the weather there is so bad. But Scotland is still very much part of who I am.?
And not just there ? Mexico and South Africa have also featured in the independent watchmaker?s itinerant 31 years of life to date. No wonder she feels something of an outsider, and all the more so in the characteristically conservative, high-end watch business: after all, she?s a woman, isn?t Swiss and is on the younger side. ?A lot of suppliers weren?t sure how to respond when
I first approached them to make my watches,? she notes. ?I was in my 20s. They looked at me as if there must be a hidden camera somewhere, as if it was all some kind of joke.?

But Krüger?s rapid rise has been no laughing matter. The fine artist turned product designer turned watch designer only launched her first designs in 2013. She made her first official appearance at Baselworld, the watch world?s annual trade Mecca, last year. But steadily she has built both a business ? 12 pieces for her first collection, all the profits from t...