EXCLUSIVE: Zenith and Fusalp Team Up for Watch and Clothing Capsule
ALPINE ACHIEVEMENT: French skiwear specialist Fusalp and Swiss watchmaker Zenith were born nearly a century apart and came up with their most striking innovation two years apart.
Today, they’re now perfectly in synch with a collaboration spanning ski gear and watches that launches Wednesday.
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Ahead of its 70th anniversary, the French skiwear specialist was keen to come up with a product they’d never done in the past, said Fusalp chief executive officer Alexandre Fauvet.
“Fusalp is about movement, speed, mountains and time, mastering time, so we thought ‘let’s make a watch,’” he explained.
Plus, being headquartered in the French Alps gave them plenty of awareness on “some guys on the other side of the border” in watchmaking, he joked, quick to add that in that field, Switzerland was the “right side of the border.”
The one who felt like a natural match was Le Locle, Switzerland-based watchmaker Zenith, whose world-first automatic chronograph was invented in 1968, only two years after Fusalp had made a striking debut with their innovative ski suits when France’s national ski team netted seven gold medals at the 1966 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships in Chile.
This synchronicity in achievements also resonated with the watchmaker, explained Julien Tornare, chief executive officer of LVMH-owned Zenith.
In his opinion, the best way to “talk about heritage but also talk about a comeback” was to find a partner of a similar size and whose design ethos matched.
“Fusalp came on the table because it’s a brand with a very long heritage, similar to Zenith. [Both] made a big change in their field years and years ago, [were] quiet for a while, and [are] coming back very strongly,” the watchmaking executive said.
With their shared view that “design is aesthetics but born from functionality,” as Fauvet put it, Zenith put its Defy Classic Skeleton model in the hands of Fusalp’s design team, handing them a no-holds-barred carte blanche that resulted in an open dial design that blends the watchmaker’s five-pointed star with a snowflake — also used as a logo for the capsule.
The watch is available in black ceramic, in a limited run of 300 pieces, while a white version is limited to 100.
On both, a rose gold lower layer surrounded by the French flag’s blue, red and white colors is also part of the design, while the watch’s rubber strap has been imagined with a rectangular, raised motif nodding to the texture of fabric.
For the Fusalp side, two female and one male silhouette were developed for the collaboration, making ample use of its cold weather expertise. Cue thermally efficient fabrics that allowed for sleeker silhouettes that wouldn’t look out of place in a more urban setting, but also smart details, like a “storm cuff” double-layered sleeve that can unzip to look at one’s watch while keeping the arm snug in a knit underlayer.
Beyond a celebration of Fusalp’s seven decades of existence, they segued with the French brand’s intention of being increasingly versatile, Fauvet explained, as part of an upscaling drive to match its technical expertise and materials that will also include new categories like footwear, making its debut this winter.
Not only does versatility “reduce a lot the impact that we have on the planet,” but it is “important to have this vision across the year also because we today we have 52 stores, and obviously [they] are open all year long,” he continued, noting that 80 percent of the company’s business comes from its own stores and e-commerce.
The collection will make its debut on Wednesday in Zenith’s retail network, at 14 Fusalp boutiques in major cities and upscale ski resorts, and across both brand’ e-commerce channels.
Prices for the Fusalp x Zenith line will range from 390 to 1,490 euros for clothing, while watches will be priced at 9,900 and 10,900 Swiss francs for the black and white timepieces, respectively.
