Swiss Horology Is Learning the Value of Collaboration

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PinkDiamond
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Swiss Horology Is Learning the Value of Collaboration

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Here's a good one from the NY Times on some of the watch companies collaborating, which isn't something they were doing before, and the end results they produce. There are some fabulous watches in this one so enjoy. :)

Swiss Horology Is Learning the Value of Collaboration

It’s a world of secrets, but sharing them has resulted in some interesting timepieces.

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Workers at Girard-Perregaux, the 230-year-old watchmaker in Switzerland.Credit...Clara Tuma for The New York Times

By Victoria Gomelsky
Jan. 14, 2021


"In the fashion industry, a collaboration between two brands to create a limited edition — sneakers, sunglasses, clothing, jewelry, what have you — is the equivalent of Marketing 101. In the secretive and proprietary Swiss watch trade, however, it verges on revolutionary, but perhaps not for long.

Over the past year, at least half a dozen noteworthy watch collaborations have come to market, including a hybrid timepiece developed by the boutique brands MB&F and H. Moser & Cie, a Schwarz Etienne watch featuring the name of the independent watchmaker Kari Voutilainen on its dial, and a contemporary reimagining of a Girard-Perregaux sport watch by the English customization specialist George Bamford.

That the Swiss have begun to give outsiders creative license with their products reflects a newfound willingness to slay some of watchmaking’s sacred cows — even when it comes to timepieces considered industry classics.

“As the tent grows in the watch world, people’s desire for novelty and creativity has become a voracious hunger,” said Asher Rapkin, co-founder of Collective Horology, a California-based group that develops timepieces in collaboration with watch brands. “Watchmakers have to take risks without challenging their core brands, and they do this by creating relationships with people that matter and limited editions that are actually limited.”

Although the most notable collaborative timepieces to emerge over the past year were not products of the pandemic — the lead time to make a watch all but guarantees that the market won’t see 2020 creations until late 2021 at the earliest — the new releases feel just right for the times.

“Everybody realizes we need to fight together as an industry,” said Edouard Meylan, chief executive of H. Moser & Cie. “The crisis amplified it.”

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Another collaboration is the Endeavour Cylindrical Tourbillon H. Moser x MB&F, which has a three-dimensional movement from MB&F. “We are competitors, but there’s a lot of trust and respect,” Edouard Meylan, chief executive of H. Moser & Cie, said of MB&F.

In June, Mr. Meylan and Maximilian Büsser, founder and creative director of MB&F, le the way on unconventional teamwork when they formally introduced one of the year’s most talked about collaborations: two watches featuring elements signature to each watchmaker.

They are the Endeavour Cylindrical Tourbillon H. Moser x MB&F and the Legacy Machine 101 MB&F x H. Moser. The elements, for example, include H. Moser’s trademark fumé, or gradient, dial and double hairspring and MB&F’s large balance wheel suspended in a three-dimensional layout.

Mr. Meylan had wanted to create a two-way watch for some time — perhaps by swapping movements with another maker — but “all the brands refused it,” he said. “I think they were afraid we would steal something.”

He and Mr. Büsser had discussed the possibility of partnering before. In 2018, they sealed the deal at a cafe in the Geneva airport, Mr. Büsser said.

“We are competitors, but there’s a lot of trust and respect,” Mr. Meylan said. “Combining our philosophies, I learned from his creativity and wildness, and he learned something from our pragmatism.”

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Girard-Perregaux has teamed with the Bamford Watch Department of London to create the Girard-Perregaux Laureato Ghost, a $13,900 watch in white ceramic.

For the 230-year-old watchmaker Girard-Perregaux, enlisting Bamford Watch Department, a London-based company known for customizing Rolexes, to design the 45th anniversary edition of its Laureato sport model was a risk worth taking.

“The Laureato was best known for its classic look, steel on steel, so we thought we should leave our comfort zone,” said Clémence Dubois, Girard-Perregaux’s chief product and marketing officer.

In November, the partners introduced the Girard-Perregaux Laureato Ghost, a $13,900 watch in white ceramic, available in a limited edition of 45 pieces.

“As with any collaboration, there’s a loss of control and uncertainty about the ultimate result,” Ms. Dubois said. “However, we were confident that George’s playful approach would mesh with ours. For the process to work, it must be a love story.”

Mauro Egermini, chief executive of Schwarz Etienne, a Swiss watch brand based in La Chaux-de-Fonds, can attest to that. In August, the company introduced its first collaboration: the Schwarz Etienne Roma Synergy by Kari Voutilainen, whose workshop in the Swiss Val-de-Travers relied on a manually operated rose engine lathe from 1907 to create the exceptional guilloché work on the dial.

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The Schwarz Etienne Roma Synergy by Kari Voutilainen, with his guilloché work on the dial.

The idea for the model, which bears both parties’ names on the dial, came up spontaneously, during a congenial group dinner during the 2018 Salon QP fair in London.

“We were sitting next to each other, talking all night and drinking a bit of wine,” Mr. Egermini recalled. “At the end of the dinner, I told him, ‘Kari, I have a dream. You are not obliged to answer me now, but I would like to have part of your DNA on our watches.’”

Collaboration may seem like a contemporary phenomenon, but a roll call of today’s leading brands makes clear that it played a crucial role in the origins of the trade. Audemars Piguet, for example, is the product of the 1875 union of the watchmakers Jules Louis Audemars and Edward Auguste Piguet, while Patek Philippe, founded in 1839, truly came into its own in 1845 when the Polish watchmaker Antoine Norbert de Patek joined forces with the French technical genius Jean Adrien Philippe.

The advent of branding in the 20th century, however, demanded a monolithic approach to marketing; outsiders who contributed to a timepiece rarely received credit. It took two independent thinkers — Mr. Büsser, then the managing director of Harry Winston Timepieces, and the up-and-coming watchmaker François-Paul Journe — to seed the industry’s renewed interest in collaboration.

The wristwatch they created together, the 2001 cult timepiece Opus 1, not only ignited the career of the little-known watchmaker — today his F.P. Journe, brand is coveted by collectors worldwide — but also established Harry Winston, famed for its diamonds, as a legitimate force in high watchmaking.

“To my knowledge, it was the first time a watch brand not only acknowledges the watchmaker, but actually puts him in the limelight,” Mr. Büsser said on a recent video call.

The Opus series, which culminated with the debut of the Opus 14 in 2015 (retail price: 428,000 Swiss francs, or the equivalent of $486,500), earned rave reviews for its imaginative collaborations, but the real tipping point came about five years ago, when watch enthusiasts migrated to Instagram and helped push the concept of collaboration back into currency.

“Because of the internet and social media, you have a lot of communities grouping around specific values in watchmaking, and they’re clamoring for things more specific to their liking,” said William Rohr, founder of Massena LAB, a two-year-old company that collaborates with independent brands such as Habring and Unimatic to create affordable limited-edition timepieces with vintage styling.

With a minimum order of at least 50 pieces, Swiss economies of scale kick in, making such projects attractive to even well-established watchmakers.

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The H. Moser & Cie. Pioneer Centre Seconds Rotating Bezel C.02 for Collective, a travel watch developed for Collective Horology.

That is where Collective comes into the picture. Mr. Rapkin and his childhood friend Gabe Reilly, both executives in Silicon Valley, founded the horology group in 2018 with the premise that members would join to get opportunities to buy limited-edition timepieces crafted with their interests in mind. In October, they introduced their third co-creation, a travel watch by H. Moser that they describe as “the missing link” between the brand’s Streamliner and Pioneer models.

The Collective’s 75 members now have three limited-edition timepieces designed expressly for them, but the brands that have partnered with the group may have gained something even more worthwhile: advocates.

“Every brand is talking to us because they want to get closer to the consumer,” Mr. Reilly said.

Well, not quite every brand. The industry’s ... '

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/14/fash ... rland.html
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Re: Swiss Horology Is Learning the Value of Collaboration

Post by SwordfishMining »

I think watch design is mastery of variations on a theme. Pity they always weighed on my wrist & I dont wear them.
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Opals & more at my ESTY store https://swordfishmining.etsy.com"
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