The Four Cs of Watches and Wonders: Coherence, Color, Complication – and China
GENEVA, Switzerland — Talk about a bumper edition.
Despite a volatile macroeconomic and geopolitical context, a sense of cautious optimism permeated the aisles of the most recent edition of Watches and Wonders, which ran from March 27 to April 2.
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This was buoyed by a strong influx of visitors — 43,000 people from around the world, including China, over seven days — and scenes of joyful reunions coloring even the queues at the entrance of the Palexpo convention center.
Industry headwinds include a combination of anticipated slowdown in U.S. spending, mounting concerns about a financial crisis and political instability, including the widespread protests in France.
“There is a tension on the market and the conjuncture isn’t favorable to luxury purchases,” concurred Hublot chief executive officer Ricardo Guadalupe. “Luxury is a matter of psychology and what’s happening with the banks isn’t positive.”
Executives like Chanel’s president of watches and jewelry Frédéric Grangié were not underestimating a macroeconomic context that he deemed “very serious.”
But the watchmaking industry is something of an old hand at weathering crises, reminded Matthieu Humair, CEO of Watches and Wonders Geneva Foundation, which organizes the fair, having weathered the quartz crisis, the arrival of smartwatches and COVID-19 thanks to the creativity and innovation of the brands and an overall dynamic industry.
This sentiment was shared by Cartier CEO Cyrille Vigneron, who felt the luxury watch industry would ultimately navigate these choppy waters successfully as it “has been used to hiccups, with periods of euphoria and periods of shrinkage.”
“Swiss watchmaking has good potential for growth but [don’t] expect a linear curve…and be a little less afraid of these big ups and downs,” he continued, noting that the past taught the industry to be less exposed.
As such, the full reopening of Asia would see the region be the dominant driver for growth, taking over from the U.S. and Europe, which are now mired in increased uncertainties.
For Van Cleef & Arpels’ Nicolas Bos, the last three years and the absence of travel put a spotlight on “domestic clientele” in each territory.
“Our teams have been really strengthening the relationship with [those clients] in the U.S., Europe and Asia, so now we need to get prepared to maintain that because it’s really at the heart of what we’ve been doing for more than a century” while preparing for the return of travelers, he said.
Another lesson heard loud and clear was that “if you focus on your own DNA, you can go [through] as many transformations as you like,” according to the Cartier executive.
Though the watch market was seen as one of novelty that needed new case designs every year, Vigneron said “many things turn out to be déjà-vu.”
Among the Cartier signatures brushed up for Watches and Wonders were the oval Baignoire design, the Santos Dumont with Roman numerals cut from jade or jasper, four executions of the Tank Louis Cartier as well as the Cartier Privé Tank Normale.
Going back to basics, or rather “focusing on what makes Cartier distinctive” since he took the helm seven years ago has certainly paid off for the historic French jeweler.
According to Morgan Stanley’s most recent annual report on the watchmaking industry coauthored by industry veteran Oliver Müller, founder of consulting firm LuxeConsult, the Richemont-owned jeweler cemented its position as the second-biggest watch brand by sales.
Cartier’s prudent approach was echoed in an overarching focus on identity, iconic designs and innovative flourishes rather than outright novelties among the 48 brands taking part in the fair.
Watches throughout the fair leaned toward smaller sizes — also a great watch to bridge the men’s and women’s categories; classic models — ideal jumping points for variations; colors — green, purple and blue dominated as ways to refresh designs; and novelties in materials.
Chopard announced its Lucent Steel would have 80 percent recycled materials going forward and be used in all steel timepieces. Rolex offered its Yacht-Master 42 in its featherlight RLX titanium; Oris used 3D printing for the case of its Propilot Altimeter; Hermès made its H08 watch from a mix of carbon fiber and graphene, and Tag Heuer continued to delve into the lab-grown diamond field with a pink-diamond version of its Carrera Plasma.
At Van Cleef & Arpels, the original vision of watchmaking came from a jeweler’s perspective, with secret watches in bracelets and pendant necklaces. It was not alone in playing with the latter category, which also included Piaget’s Sautoir; the Chanel Mademoiselle Privé Lion; and Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Reverso Secret necklaces.
Others doubled down on owning their innovations, be they recent or now-established techniques. Take Vacheron Constantin’s reveal of its Patrimony Retrograde Day-Date, a pared-back design with a salmon-colored dial featuring two retrograde indications.
“We always had a bit of a retrograde [complication] in our offer but we never established it as a signature across lines,” said its CEO Louis Ferla, adding that the watchmaker now wanted to be seen as “the most legitimate maison” for it.
Quipping that he’d considered participating in the fair without a single novelty, he explained that it “felt important to go back to our core business and animate our key pillars,” saying that the seven-reference launch hit all segments, including the sports, men’s, ladies and classic ones.
Developing a balanced portfolio is key to building a more agile and resilient business model, continued Ferla.
While a long heritage can be a boon in this context, it can also be a trap, according to Julien Tornare, CEO of 158-year-old brand Zenith, now owned by LVMH Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy. Among its novelties was a new iteration of its Pilot line, including one embarking an El Primero chronograph with a flyback function and a patented instantaneous 0.007 second big date jump.
“I believe [one] should be proud of a long existence but translate it in a contemporary approach. If you expect to have a chance to capture the attention of Generation X, Y or Z, you can’t relaunch their grandfather’s watch,” he continued.
But even for younger brands, designs that put them on the map are those that need to be refined. “Going back to your roots is important, especially when you’re in your 40s [like Hublot],” noted Guadalupe, as the watchmaker continued to develop lines such as its Classic Fusion, Square Bang Unico and push further its manufacture movements with MP-13, a bi-axis retrograde tourbillon.
New as they may be right now, all these models could end up on the pre-owned market, which continued to be a major talking point, not least because it constitutes a gateway toward new clients, particularly the all-important Gen Z cohort, for whom sustainability and responsible consumption practices are key.
Meanwhile, others are taking steps to protect the consumer. Richemont unveiled Enquirus, which it describes as a “neutral, global digital platform designed to help reduce watch and jewelry-related crime.”
The Enquirus platform is open to all luxury brands and was designed in close collaboration with a wide range of partners, including watch and jewelry manufacturers, law enforcement agencies, insurance companies, the pre-owned market and clients, according to Richemont.
It’s already being used by Watchfinder & Co. in its authentication process, said the pre-owned luxury watch retailer’s CEO Arjen van de Vall. But another way of ensuring transparency and consumer safety was rolled out quietly mid-March on the site, with a badge stating “Cartier Official Pre-owned Partner” or “OPO.”
“What it means is that [Cartier] certifies us as they know the quality of our service center…of our products…of the experience with us is at the level where they want pre-owned to be,” he said.
“They really see it as a long-term play,” continued van de Vall, noting that it was a learning process and that the new program sat alongside existing certified pre-owned standards like the one offered by Rolex. Watches that qualify must be under 15 years old, and once serviced by Watchfinder & Co., will receive a new Cartier box and a two-year official warranty from the French brand.
Other houses remained circumspect, like Patek Philippe, whose president Thierry Stern told Bloomberg during the fair there were no plans to follow Rolex in authenticating watches for resale through authorized dealers.
“Since our objects are made to last, we’ve always seen this phenomenon of vintage items coming up for auction,” said Guillaume de Seynes, executive vice president, manufacturing division and equity investments of Hermès. “We always considered that objects live their life once sold and that [while] transmission is marvelous, it’s not our trade to intervene in this cycle. We are here to create, to surprise, to amaze, so there’s no plan to go in that business.”
Chanel’s Grangié cautioned against wanting to cash in on the speculative part of the pre-owned market as a brand, but noted that the French luxury house was keeping abreast of developments.
And in the days that followed the fair, Audemars Piguet, which does not take part in Watches and Wonders, said it would guarantee to replace, refund or repair watches purchased in 2022 or 2023 for two years should they be stolen or damaged, according to Bloomberg.
All in all, watchmakers, retailers and organizers expressed satisfaction at this edition that clocked some 43,000 visitors of 125 nationalities.
Among them were 5,400 retailers, thousands of journalists, as well as Julia Roberts for Chopard, longtime Rolex ambassador Roger Federer, Eileen Gu for IWC Schaffhausen and Tag Heuer ambassador Cai Xukun, who revealed it was his first ever visit to Geneva.
As for the rumor that David Beckham had slipped into the Tudor booth incognito to see the year’s novelties? That was just the icing on the cake.
“We’re very happy to see how crowded it is,” said Humair, noting that by the third day of the fair, attendance had capped last year’s 22,000 visitors.
Even the two final days, dedicated to the public, saw its 12,000 tickets priced at 70 Swiss francs apiece sell out, with an average visitor age of 35 that belied the image of mechanical watchmaking as a holdover of previous generations.
Highly anticipated since the lifting of the last pandemic-related travel restrictions on Jan. 8, visitors from China exceeded the 15 percent ballpark he had given, although exact figures were still being tallied.
The fair’s online footprint was no less massive. According to the organizers, there were some 1.8 million posts mentioning the fair, for an estimated reach of 600 million.
Here too, China added a sizable contribution of 100,000 visitors a day thanks to the fair’s partnership initiated in 2020 with Alibaba’s online marketplace Tmall, according to Tmall Luxury Pavilion head Janet Wang.
All this amounted to making Watches and Wonders “a summit where the maisons reveal their novelties, their savoir-faire to the entire industry and speak with one voice,” Humair continued.
It certainly was “one of those rare occasions where you see competition [come] together,” said Chanel’s Grangié, to whom “Geneva is really becoming the heart and the hub of watchmaking.”
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