How Can Watchmakers Court Chinese Customers?
LONDON — With China reopening to the world, watchmakers are gearing up to stimulate the market, which has been sluggish during the pandemic, with one-of-a-kind styles that pay homage to the nation’s culture.
Louis Vuitton, for example, unveiled on March 9 the Tambour Opera Automata, a jacquemart automaton design two years in the making that was inspired by Bian Lian, a face-changing artform found in China’s Sichuan opera.
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The artform sees performers change silk masks in a split second to depict different expressions from an array of up to 20, generally hiding the gesture behind the flick of a fan or another movement.
“We wanted the Tambour Opera Automata to reflect the striking aesthetics and expressive movements of Bian Lian,” stated La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton’s Michel Navas, who cocreated the watch’s movement with fellow master watchmaker Enrico Barbasini, drawing a parallel between the legerdemain required for the mask changes and traditional watchmaking skills.
The dial stems from the combined efforts of master engraver Dick Steenman and lauded enameller Anita Porchet, to portray a Bian Lian mask that shifts from joy to sadness set on a black monogrammed background. On the back, the mask is also reproduced in a black polish that can take 50 hours to achieve even for the most skilled hands.
The precious metal engraving alone took Steenman more than two weeks to complete, while Porchet worked white, red and black cloisonné enamel separated with white gold threads to depict the character’s expressive features.
Another China-inspired style that’s having a major media moment is the Cartier Privé Tank Chinoise in platinum, which Paul Mescal wore to his big Oscar night.
The “Aftersun” actor, who was nominated in the best actor in a leading role category this year, paired the watch with an ivory tuxedo jacket and a pair of flared trousers from Gucci.
The edition of the watch he wore was released in 2022 to celebrate the Chinoise’s centenary and pays homage to Cartier’s reverence for East Asian decorative arts.
In the same release, Cartier also introduced three more in-your-face Tank Chinoise styles with open dials and skeletonized movements. The dial opening borrows from the design of traditional Chinese windows, and the central part resembles the Chinese character Zhong, which means middle, and makes up the first half of Zhongguo, which means China in Chinese.
Chinese New Year marks another key occasion for watchmakers to issue special editions meant to appeal to the all-important consumers of the Chinese diaspora across the world. For 2023, the Year of the Rabbit in the Lunar Zodiac, the animal was everywhere, from figurative depictions to interpretations of its fur, with red and gold galore.
Among the more subtle examples was the Piaget Altiplano limited edition, where enameler Porchet depicted a pair of rabbits facing forward in soft gray tones.
Blancpain’s 50-piece limited-edition Year of the Rabbit iteration comes with a traditional Chinese calendar, which the brand touted as a rare feature as only a few watchmakers are capable of mastering its construction.
“It’s certainly an opportunity to sell watches and to create bonds with one of the biggest markets in the world,” a challenging one at that, confirmed watch industry veteran Oliver Müller, founder of consulting firm LuxeConsult.
But getting the attention of consumers and collectors is becoming increasingly hard.
Chinese consumers are beginning to “resent the fact that brands, watches or otherwise, rebound on [the occasion], feeling it is not a sincere way of trying to create bonds with Chinese collectors,” Müller claimed, noting that the most successful models were those where Chinese culture was interpreted with subtlety and sensitivity.
There could also be other ways to appeal to consumers of Chinese culture or descent beyond the release of themed timepieces.
Take the approach of Jaeger-LeCoultre. The Swiss watchmaker launched a new star-powered campaign featuring its global brand ambassador, award-winning actor Jackson Yee, sporting the Master Ultra-Thin Tourbillon Moon timepiece — with no mention of a rabbit.
“This watch has special meaning because the moon governs our Chinese New Year but also because its timeless elegance is like an anchor in a world that seems to be spinning faster all the time,” Yee said in a statement.
Sebastian Wang, a watch collector and chief editor of Woohootime, a Shanghai-based rare luxury watch trading platform, said understanding and respecting the essence of Chinese culture is a prerequisite for any successful launch in the country.
“Brands should understand and respect Chinese culture, including traditional values and aesthetics. Respect for consumers, meanwhile, should require knowing what consumers really want, which is not the Chinese iconography imagined by foreign designers but the presentation of Chinese elements from a global point of view. Only offering good design can help watchmakers to establish the image of respecting Chinese culture,” he said.
He also advised brands to avoid clichés no longer connected with modern Chinese society and be mindful of China’s identity as a multicultural mosaic of regions and cultural backgrounds. “[They] need to respect these backgrounds and avoid considering a particular culture as a universal representation [of China] in brand promotion and marketing.”
From his observation, there are very few standouts from the China-themed watches. He counted Vacheron Constantin’s Métiers d’Art Legend of the Chinese Zodiac collection, which began in 2012, as a relatively successful case.
Samuel Xu, a watch expert and founder of the timepiece WeChat channel Big Shot Weekly, argued that as long as the brand’s effort felt sincere, the market would respond positively.
“It would be ideal if brands are able to interpret their most popular models with a touch of homage to China,” he said. “Such products are often offered when a brand opens a key flagship store in China. For example, Patek Philippe launched limited-edition watches and clocks at the opening of its China flagships in Beijing and Shanghai, as well as the fifth and 10th anniversaries of these stores. All of these China-themed timepieces are extremely rare and super popular.”
Technical innovation based on Chinese cultural roots is also a way to impress the locals, according to Xu.
“Styles like Blancpain’s Traditional Chinese Calendar and Parmigiani’s Tonda PF Xiali Calendar are all based on the Chinese lunar calendar, which has little appeal for people from other countries, but there is no doubt that these complex models represent a very high level of respect for China,” Xu added.
Localized adaptations that make Chinese customers feel considered are key to brands’ success in China as well, Xu added.
He applauded Blancpain and Glashütte Original’s “fair and square” watch launches for their Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe Chronographe Flyback, and Original Seventies Chronograph Panorama Date, respectively, on the WeChat mini-program.
“Because these two watches are very popular and in high demand, if they were launched across all channels, they would probably be snatched up by VIPs first. With WeChat stores, it’s either raffles or being sold in a first-come, first-served way, and the prices are reasonable without any premium as a result. This allows those watch lovers who really like these popular watches but are not VIPs to have a fair chance to get the watches. I think this is also a nice way to express sincerity,” he added.
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