About

Who writes

My name is Guillaume Prieur. I spent fifteen years at Kraft Foods, then Mondelez, in sales and trade marketing: key accounts, promotions, e-commerce, negotiations with the big retail chains.

In 2019, as I approached 40, I struck out on my own and founded Inguz Watches, a dive watch brand. The project never reached the market or brought the success I had hoped for, but it taught me a great deal about how watchmaking works behind the scenes and introduced me to its people, some of whom, many in fact, have become friends. From 2021 to 2025, I worked at the Atelier Parisien d’Horlogerie, first in business development with the watch groups, then as director of operations for its after-sales service platform: planning, procurement, quality control, relations with the maisons, boutiques and retailers.

Since July 2026, I have been publishing Échappement. Here I analyse the industry and try to shed new light on it by decoding the news. What interests me is how brands, suppliers and retailers make their decisions, and what that changes for the rest of the trade.

What Échappement is after

Watchmaking talks a great deal about itself and happily draws us into its magical world. Échappement starts from the facts, sets them out objectively, then always asks the same question: what does this tell us about the industry?

A new release, an acquisition or an appointment interests me for the same reason. Each one sheds light on how this industry works, makes decisions and changes. I write about it with a clear eye, neither complacent nor hostile.

I write for watch lovers who already know a great deal and want to understand what advertising does not necessarily show. I want to give them food for thought: a chance to step back, and material for conversations between enthusiasts.

I start from press releases, of course, but I try to put them in perspective by cross-checking them against other primary sources: group and brand publications, statistics from the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, statements by executives, archives.

How this site is made

Échappement is run by one person and relies in part on artificial intelligence. I would rather say so here, in full, than leave you to guess.

Why

Échappement is not my day job. It embodies my passion for watchmaking, which drives me to take it apart in order to understand it, and my love of sharing: passing on what I see, what I find, what I can guess at.

Following the news of an entire industry alone, working through the groups’ reports and checking every figure would take a newsroom. AI gives me the extra hands. It leaves me time for what matters: choosing the subject, the point of view, the judgement. It searches faster than I do; it does not think for me.

What the AI does

I use Claude, Anthropic’s assistant, as a small newsroom. It follows watch industry news and flags what deserves attention. It gathers documentation, traces information back to primary sources, and checks dates, names and figures. It proposes a first draft, which I rework. It translates articles into English once the French text has been approved.

What I do

I choose the subjects and decide the angles. I read every article in full, correct it, add to it, rewrite it where needed, and drop some, many in fact. Nothing goes online without my approval. Articles about a watch I have handled myself are based on my own notes: the AI puts them into shape and never invents an impression. I stand by every line published, which is why every article carries my name.

Review

Every article passes through several safety nets before publication. A verification checklist forbids writing any fact, date, figure or quotation without a real source, and requires every biographical detail to be confirmed by two independent sources. Two further reviews, also carried out by AI, then go through the article with a prosecutor’s eye to root out errors and approximations. Finally, I read the complete text before approving publication. The English version is checked separately, to make sure that no figure, date, quotation or nuance has been lost along the way.

Images

Images come from the brands, from image libraries, from public archives such as Wikimedia Commons, or from my own photographs and illustrations; their source is given whenever it is known. The site’s logo and the Sketch Briefs are generated by AI, the latter from a script reviewed and approved panel by panel. Their characters are fictional: these are editorial cartoons, not documentary images.

Mistakes

Despite these safeguards, an error can slip through. If you spot one, write to me at [email protected] and I will correct it.