Industry News – Massive Shakeups at Richemont, Abolishes CEO Role, IWC’s Kern Head of Watchmaking and Montblanc’s Lambert Head of Operations
Telling you that the watchmaking industry is now facing some troubles won’t be the biggest piece of news you’ll have today. It is now known, the Swiss industry is in tough period, sales are decreasing, profits are going lower and stocks are massively increasing at retailers. This situation seemed to be quite a secret for a year or so, but now, large groups – mainly those listed and that must report to shareholders – are making things clearer and the situation becomes public. As a proof, yesterday Richmont Group, the second largest actor in the field of luxury watchmaking (owner of Cartier, IWC, Jaeger, Montblanc and more) announced declining results, abolished CEO Role and unveiled a major sweeping management overhaul – as IWC’s Kern will become Head of Watchmaking and Montblanc’s Lambert Head of Operations.
Today’s wind down is a little bittersweet. Sweet because it’s an absolutely gorgeous day here in Melbourne, bitter because we have more than a light case of FOMO. Right now, despite the weather, we’d much rather be hanging out in rainy London with all the cool kids at Salon QP. But there’s no point getting all gloomy about it, instead we’re going to celebrate with the British edition of the Wind Down. What happened It’s the time of year when we start looking back over the year in watches, picking the winners and the worthy contenders. For most people, this taking stock is purely personal, for sites like ours that means the inevitable onslaught of ‘best-of’ lists, but for the industry it means awards! The hum around watchmaking’s night of nights, the GPHG is getting more intense as the ceremony is only a week or so off, but today we’d like to talk about a different sort of ceremony – Eve’s Watch. It’s the first ever women’s watch awards, and it went down recently in London (causing our first FOMO bout). What stood out to me was the quality of the shortlisted watches, and we heartily congratulate the Chanel Boy.Friend as the winning watch (you…
Cutting through the noise and sheer volume of watches released at Baselworld is no mean feat. Overwhelming attention is focused on a handful of models from a few brands, and often it takes weeks and months from some of the hidden gems to reveal themselves. Nevertheless, every year the chatter in the halls seems to amplify around a few key models. And this year the buzz was strongest around Rolex’s new Daytona (of course), Patek’s World Time, TAG Heuer’s Monza and Seiko’s Presage Chronograph. The first three are pretty safe bets, but the Seiko? No one saw that awesomeness coming. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of Seiko’s work, and they’ve got a great reputation. But most of it concerns itself with the Grand Seiko. No one had any notion the well priced, vintage styled Presage Chronograph was coming. But we should have, because it’s the perfect watch for right now; it’s precisely the sort of watch we should be seeing more of. “I think our timing was very good. Many consumers these days are looking at what we call the prestige segment – fine quality that’s more affordable than luxury. And in this the price-to-quality ratio of Presage matches their hopes.” Seiko President and…