6. Michel Boyer

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C.6 Michel Boyer

Interior designer. Teacher at the 'Ecole National Superieure des Arts Decoratifs' (ENSAD). President of the 'Société des Artistes Décorateurs'.

1935	Born in Paris, May 24th.
1969	Creates a furniture line for 'Rouve' Paris, France.
1970	Interior decoration of the French Ambassy in Brasilia, Brasil, the Banque Rothschild and the Magasin Lanvin in Paris.
1974	Neuschwandler invites Boyer to design a range of watches for Lip.
1975	Works for Renault, Moët et Chandon, Hennessy and Parfums Dior.
1980	Interior designs for Pont á Mousson, Rhône Poulenc, France.
1985-1990	Designs for Banque Paribas, Citybank, Credit Lyonnais, Hotel Sequoia Lodge in Euro Disneyland and Sheraton Hotel, Amsterdam.

Boyer created 18 plastic and two metal cased watches in the most beautiful colours, together with two other watches for Lip. These watches are difficult to find because they were cheaply produced and made for sales in large department stores. Lip's marketing was not focused on large scale sales and sales marketing defaulted many times, despite a very well organised publicity campaign by Neuschwandler. Until the nineteen seventies Lip only employed approximately 2,300 sales agents within France. The dealers were used to selling classically designed Lip watches and were appalled by what they called "this plastic garbage". It is hard to believe these ultimately modern watches were being manufactured 10 years prior to the extremely successful Swatch watches, whose design resemble the watches by Boyer in so many ways.

This series of plastic watches was called 'Les Candides'. All were fitted with a Lip T13 movement. The kind of plastic used in the watches is described as "hostaform" in the Lip catalogues.

Ref.no. 43307.

Ref.no. 43279.

Ref.no. 43306.

Ref.no. 43308.

A series of four astonishing watches with white cases, decorated with printed flowers on the strap for each season of the year.

5	'Spring'. (Ref.no. 43278)
6	'Summer'. (Ref.no. 43316)
7	'Autumn'. (Ref.no. 43277)
8	'Winter'. (Ref.no. 43309)

A range of four watches with interesting typographically Arabic numbered dials. Often the colours of the dials and the straps vary.

9	A white case, an orange dial and a white strap. (Ref.no. 43410)
10	A white case, a blue dial and blue strap. (Ref.no. 43411)
11	A blue case, white dial and a white strap. (Ref.no. 43413)
12	A red case, white dial and a red strap. (Ref.no. 43412)

A range of four watches with geometrically decorated dials.

13	Ref.no. 43414.
14	A red case, a red and white dial and a white strap. (Ref.no. 43415)
15	A white case, a white and black dial and a white strap. (Ref.no. 43416)
16	Ref.no. 43417.

Two less interesting watches with Arabic numbers on the dial in two colours.

17	With a red case. (Ref.no. 43408)
18	With a black case. (Ref.no. 43409)
19	A watch with a white dial, big red numbers and checked with black lines also exists; a combination of ref.no. 43412 and ref.no. 43308. Supposedly, this must have been an error made in the factory during the production process.

Two very rare unpolished chromium plated watches with a dark leather strap. The only ones Boyer ever designed with a metal case.

20	Ref.no. 43790.
21	Ref.no. 43762.

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