Feature Archives - Revolution Watch

Introducing the Speake Marin Openworked Sandblasted Collection

Rob Nudds — Fri, 20 Oct 2023 11:00:12 +0000

Introducing the Speake Marin Openworked Sandblasted Collection

News

Oct 20, 2023

The brand of Speake Marin has now existed for longer under the stewardship of Mrs. Christelle Rosnoblet, the current president and CEO than it did under its founder and namesake, British watchmaker Peter Speake (formerly Speake Marin). Although Speake did not leave his eponymous company until 2017, since 2012 it has been headed by Rosnoblet, who acquired the company around its tenth birthday.

Speake Marin CEO Christelle Rosnoblet

However, despite Speake’s absence, the brand continues to honor many of the aesthetic codes established in the early days of its existence. This particular release sees the famous Piccadilly case outfitted with a gloriously open-worked dial that, thanks to the clean lines of the brand’s most identifiable silhouette leaps off the wrist and firmly embraces its role as the star of the show.

A satisfying maturation

It is interesting how, after more than two decades of existence, the Speake Marin brand feels like it has finally come of age. The brand now exudes the character of an elder statesman, whose eccentricities may have been jarring in their youth but now seem inescapably endearing. The Piccadilly case may be the perfect example of this phenomenon. Since its launch in 2002, it has remained largely unchanged. It is, inarguably, very much of its time. In the intervening years, there were moments when it seemed out of step with current trends. But now, as we experience a sudden surge of interest in the fashions of the early 21^st century, the Piccadilly feels right at home.

Although the case retains the distinctive character of the original iteration, it was respectfully revamped by Eric Giroud in 2017 around the time of Peter Speake’s official departure from the brand. Giroud is himself a titan of modern watch design, working with multiple brands on many household-name projects throughout his career. His deft touch ensured the spirit of Speake’s Piccadilly case could continue into a new age of neo-vintage appreciation.

The old guard returns

We are in an era where once niche brands are finally earning their place in the sun, and once again Speake Marin is part of the zeitgeist. The Speake Marin Openworked Sandblasted collection is hitting the market at the perfect moment.

Two options exist in this current release. Customers can choose between a titanium or red gold case. Both cases feature the same movement with the same silvered sandblasted surface. Despite the identical innards, the watches look markedly different. The role played by the case materials should not be underestimated, with the red gold model evoking the past while the polished titanium nods to the future. Best of all (and quite possibly thanks to Rosnoblet’s direct direction), the Openworked Sandblasted models are available in two sizes, either 38 or 42 mm. Both options come in at just 10.5 mm thick (thanks to the off-set micro-rotor reducing the automatic movement’s necessary thickness) making them pleasingly unisex.

Regardless of your material or sizing preference, it is the movement and its open-worked dial side that truly steals the show. The fine blasted surfaces play with the light enticingly but it is the active elements of the caliber that draw the eye. The barrel engraving is particularly sublime.

Using raised characters like this is an ingenious way to get more depth out of laser-cutting tools. Despite popular misconception, laser beams do not cut at a 90-degree angle. Even the highest-aspect machines require a 10–12 degree “draft” which accounts for the laser beam being hottest in the center and cooling off at its edges. What this means in layman’s terms is that it is impossible to make a laser cut that is deeper than the line width is wide.

By inverting the cut so that the thinner lines of the letters remain proud and the material between them is cut away, a stronger, higher resolution effect can be achieved. It is far from a cost-effective method of decoration but the result is stunning and certainly a worthy focal point of a watch of such station.

Moved to action

The movement itself carries the designation SMA01, one of 11 movements the brand will have to its name by the end of 2023. The SMA01, as all Speake Marin watches, positions the going seconds display at 1:30, which adds complexity to the movement architecture (as the seconds work must pass through the setting work). Perhaps unsurprisingly, therefore, Speake Marin is the only watchmaker worldwide to position its sub-seconds dial thusly, adding a dash of uniqueness to the display.

The SMA01 has been developed by Le Cercle des Horlogers based in La Chaux-de-Fonds. It has a 52-hour power reserve and operates at 28,800 vibrations per hour. The four models that comprise the Openworked Sandblasted collection are available between CHF 22,200 and €38,700 depending on the case size and chosen material.

Tech Specs

SPEAKE MARIN OPENWORKED SANDBLASTED

Reference: Titanium 38 (413817440), Titanium 42 (414217440), Red Gold 38 (423817440), Red Gold 42 (424217440)

Movement: Calibre SMA01 automatic movement with fully integrated micro-rotor.

Functions: Hours, minutes, and seconds

Case: Either 38 or 42 mm wide × 10.5 mm thick

Dial: Open-worked movement

Strap: Grained leather strap

Price: Titanium 38 mm, CHF 22,200; Titanium 42 mm, CHF 22,600; Red Gold 38 mm, CHF 34,000; Red Gold 42 mm, CHF 38,700. All prices excluding taxes.

Availability: Available now

Speake-Marin

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Frederique Constant

By Revolution

Only Watch 2019: The Complete Catalog

Jul 1, 2019

FEATURED FROM ARTICLE

Unimatic

Unimatic x Revolution U1 Milsub "Blue"

$1,220.00

TECH SPECS

Movement	Self-winding caliber SW200-1b; 41-hour power reserve
Functions	Hours, minutes and seconds
Case	41.5mm; 316 steel with Cerulean blue stonewashed Cerakote coating, matte vintage navy aluminium bezel insert; water resistant to 300m
Dial	Matte vintage navy; hour markers outlined in Super-LumiNova
Strap	Vintage navy TPU-coated nylon; additional vintage navy nylon with fabric keepers
Limited Edition	Limited Edition of 200 pieces

The post Introducing the Speake Marin Openworked Sandblasted Collection appeared first on Revolution Watch.

Early Passion, Long Journey: The search for a 1994 Lange 1

Thomas Brechtel — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 08:12:33 +0000

Early Passion, Long Journey: The search for a 1994 Lange 1

The story of one collector’s search for his grail watch, a 1994 Lange 1 on a Wellendorf bracelet.

Vintage

By Thomas Brechtel

Sep 7, 2023

It was a long road for me to the most classic A. Lange & Söhne watch — more than 20 years, to be precise. And I am not talking about a Lange 1 in stainless steel, as some of you might think, but the Lange 1 in 18K yellow gold with a solid caseback and matching gold bracelet from Wellendorff. In my view, this is the most classic, beautiful and important watch of the modern era from the Glashütte watch brand.

Right from the start, the A. Lange & Söhne Lange 1 was one of the most exclusive watches par excellence. Then a newly resurrected brand in 1994, A. Lange & Söhne stood for the highest luxury. The watches were unmistakably very expensive, and the brand was — and still is — a brand for the few. Personally, the high price tag of Lange watches always frustrated me, because, as an enthusiast, you quickly had to get used to the idea that you couldn’t own the things you really liked and found beautiful.

Rebirth in Dresden, Germany

The story of A. Lange & Söhne’s comeback in watchmaking is well known. Nationalized during the Soviet occupation of East Germany, the family-run Lange company ceased to exist. Its revival after the Cold War was led by watch industry luminary Günter Blümlein and Walter Lange, great-grandson of the brand’s founder, Ferdinand Adolph Lange.

1991: On the left, Günter Blümlein, the man who singlehandedly revived IWC and Jaeger-LeCoultre, in the post Quartz Crisis period and, later, A. Lange & Söhne and Walter Lange

The date chosen for the rebirth of A. Lange & Söhne and the presentation of its first four watches was October 24, 1994. The historic event took place in Saxony’s capital city, Dresden, Germany, in the Royal Palace or “Residenzschloss,” near the Semper Opera House and the Dresden Zwinger. The presentation showcased the all-new Lange collection and, when the curtain was raised, the audience saw four attractive wristwatches all made in yellow gold: the very classic Saxonia, the small and beautiful Arkade, the amazing Tourbillon Pour le Mérite and the astonishing Lange 1.

Günter Blümlein at the 24 October 1994 press conference for the launch of A. Lange & Söhne

The watches were large, heavy and remarkably designed, and three out of the four models featured a never before seen complication — the A. Lange & Söhne outsize date or, in German language, “Das Lange Großdatum.” Overall, 123 watches were made initially for the 1994 launch, all in yellow gold cases, which happened to be the favorite material of Walter Lange. The Lange outsize date itself was hailed as a groundbreaking and sophisticated complication; it would soon be adapted and used by many other watch companies.

A. Lange & Söhne 1994 Lange 1 on a Wellendorf bracelet

With the rebirth of A. Lange & Söhne, the entire mechanical watch industry also received a completely new standard in terms of the finishing of movements produced in larger series. Each component of Lange’s movement, regardless of whether it is visible on the outside, is decorated with its own specific type of finishing — including Glashütte stripes, perlage, straight graining, circular graining and chamfering — achieving perfection right down to the last detail.

The underrated early Lange 1

Despite acclaim for the immaculate finishing of their movements, for many years after the rebirth of the brand, the watches of A. Lange & Söhne remained a niche product. This might be due to how expensive the watches were, and the fact that A. Lange & Söhne had to reestablish its credibility among a new generation of collectors and enthusiasts; the company’s hiatus during the Soviet era meant that many were not familiar with the brand. For almost two decades, the value of Lange watches on the secondary market were lower compared to the retail prices.

Take the early Lange 1 ref. 101.002. For a long time, this was a watch that gave collectors many reasons to ignore it. It was priced exceedingly high, and its case was made of yellow gold — a material that had fallen out of fashion. You also couldn’t see what many people would consider the most beautiful thing about an A. Lange & Söhne watch, namely its movement, because this Lange 1 has a closed, solid caseback like many watches of the first series. For these reasons, and the fact that the brand simply didn’t have too long a tradition in modern times, it was often a dilemma for collectors when deciding whether to purchase an early Lange 1.

Much has already been written about the distinctive — some say peculiar — design of the Lange 1. There is no need to repeat it at length here. The off-center dial design, the separated indications and the outsize date of the Lange 1 was — and still is — fascinatingly offbeat yet beautiful at the same time. A comparison with a classic and exclusive dress watch of the same era from Switzerland, the Patek Philippe Calatrava reference 3919, shows how aesthetically different the Lange 1 is. The Calatrava ref. 3919 is the epitome of minimalistic elegance with a refined slim case and a clean, legible dial, whereas the Lange 1’s striking asymmetrical dial with carefully proportioned time displays and brand-new outsize date is a study in Saxon precision watchmaking.

Most of my friends were unenthusiastic about the style of the Lange watches, but for me, it was the start of a long journey to acquire one of the earliest Lange 1 models.

My love affair with the early Lange 1

I was a student in 1994 when A. Lange & Söhne returned to the watchmaking world. Collectors and friends had expected the rebirth of traditional pocket watches or chronometers from A. Lange & Söhne, but the brand came back with wristwatches only. And what’s more, each Lange wristwatch easily cost four to five times more than a Rolex.

Back in the day, it was totally impossible — even in my wildest dreams — to blow out 27,000 Deutsche marks on a watch. That was the price of the Lange 1 at launch; it was also the money for three to four average student cars or the earnings of a student in two years. I resigned myself to the fact that I was not able to purchase one yet, and resolved to save up. At the same time, I started to collect images of this watch generation from magazines and auction catalogs, and tried to build up an archive of known owners and rare appearances of the early Langes. I followed every public move of the sale of an early Lange 1, passed by every tempting offer of any different execution of a Lange 1 (rose gold, luminous, boutique edition, moonphase, etc.) As fate would have it, I came across two closed caseback executions at German watch dealers. One of the Lange 1 watches I noticed was fitted with a Wellendorff bracelet — it was fully integrated to the case and had a Milanese-style design.

As I said earlier, as an enthusiast in a world of highly priced watches from the top brands, you just had to get used to the idea that you couldn’t own the things you found really beautiful. Basically, back then, there was only one “barrier” between me and the early Lange 1: the purchase price. Although the Lange 1 is not a rare watch — indeed, Lange 1 watches have appeared at many dealers and selling platforms and were very reasonably priced over a long period of time — I’d always wanted something very special: a watch from the first series. This was either a stainless steel Lange 1 (otherwise known as “mission impossible”) or a very early yellow gold Lange 1 with a closed caseback, full papers, all documents, the old inner and outer box, and an all-original, full length Wellendorff bracelet — now, wouldn’t that be nice!

The solid precious metal bracelets for A. Lange & Söhne were made by the famous German jeweler and family-owned company Wellendorff, located in Pforzheim, Germany. They came as an 18K yellow gold “beads of rice” design bracelet with four- and three-row elements in a regular pattern, a small folding clasp, and a hidden lock with a deep engraving of the single word “Lange“ and signed with the small Wellendorff logo.

Why Wellendorff? It is important to know that after Walter Lange’s separation from A. Lange Pforzheim, he joined the Wellendorff company in Pforzheim as a representative in the jewelry industry. This might be the reason A. Lange & Söhne decided to equip its early watches with solid bracelets made by Wellendorff in gold or platinum. Today, A. Lange & Söhne no longer provides watches with solid Wellendorff bracelets, as the demand for them has been negligible.

Delving Into the dial

In my opinion, the beauty and peculiarity of the early Lange 1 watches best define the character of the collection. After extensive research, I eventually decided to zoom in on the reference 101.002 as my grail watch. This model has a silver colored dial with blued steel hands, and it can be identified, firstly, by its use of the smaller, sans-serif typeface. The sans- serif “Made in Germany” on the dial looks very unobtrusive and quite simple for a dial created by such a luxurious brand. The use of the sans-serif font in this reference is unusual since A. Lange & Söhne is so well known for its beautiful serif typefaces. Secondly, a different spacing of the letters of “I / SA” (which stand for “In Sachsen“ or “In Saxony”) can be observed. Compared to later executions of the Lange 1, there is more space between the letters and the “ / ”. Thirdly, the German umlaut (Ü and Ö) dots sit higher on top of the letters U and O. Fourthly, the two outsize date windows are made with silver frames around the two digits (they are not made of gold).

I was particularly smitten by the full silver dial of the Lange 1 reference 101.002, which was in contrast to the champagne colored dials of other early Lange 1 models. The ref. 101.002’s dial indicators, markings, numerals and typefaces are all printed in black without any golden inlays, as compared to the ref. 101.001 and subsequent references of the Lange 1. Another aesthetic detail that I found very striking was that the reference 101.002 (and also 101.022) came equipped with blued steel hands (not gold), which made the dial very similar to the extremely rare Lange 1 ref. 101.027X with a blue-on-silver dial that served as an inspiration for the Lange 1’s 20th anniversary watches — not limited edition watches but rarely officially displayed in catalogs.

The case and movement

The case size of the original Lange 1 was 38.5mm, which was large compared to the usual 34mm or 36mm cases back in the day. The Lange 1 has always been a huge and heavy watch. Is this too German? Maybe. The early Lange 1 reference 101.002 has a closed, solid 18K yellow gold caseback. This ironically means that you cannot see the beautiful A. Lange & Söhne movement. I will come back to this later.

Not commonly known is the fact that the case of this Lange 1 model was not made in Germany as one might think, but in Geneva, Switzerland, with the inscription on the inner part of the case lid: “Case Produced in Geneva, Switzerland, for Lange, Glashütte.” The inner caseback is marked with the 18K gold Helvetia head and the two letters “CO.” This indicates that the case was produced by the casemaker Centror S.A. in Meyrin, Geneva. It is additionally marked with “18K 750,” the “Glashütte A. Lange & Söhne” company stamp and the two individual numbers to identify the watch: R 10x (this is the individual number for the movement), and 110.07x (this is the individual number for the case). The outer lid of the caseback is engraved with “A. Lange & Söhne” and “Glashütte in Sachsen“ and the individual number of the watch starting with “110.0xx.”

And yes, let’s now talk about the movement because, sorry, but nobody will buy a Lange without first asking about the best part of the watch. The movement in question here is the caliber L901.0, a manual wind with twin barrels (hence the word “Doppelfederhaus” on the dial). It has the characteristic Glashütte three-quarter plate in German silver. This caliber was later succeeded by the caliber L121.1 in 2015.

That moment in time

Even though I always knew what I wanted to own someday, the search took me a long time. After some years, I finally succeeded in finding the rare Lange 1 reference 101.002 with a solid caseback. The watch I was eyeing was by far the cheapest offer I had seen, because the dealer’s opinion about it seemed clear: “Nobody will buy such an unusual Lange 1 without even seeing the beautiful Glashütte movement. See the other executions. But for this early one, I can make you a special discount.”

Obviously, I had found the right watch, and the right place and dealer. He did not recognize the potential of the early Lange 1. So, I finally bought my grail yellow gold Lange 1. This watch was manufactured in 1994, and it was sold in January 1995. The document bears the name of the reseller — the jeweler Hellmut Wempe of Hamburg, Germany. It has a very low case and movement number, and it was sold to me on the original black leather strap with a gold A. Lange & Söhne pin buckle and the Lange retaining bar. The watch is officially registered in the A. Lange & Söhne archive in Glashütte, Saxony. Finally, the first part of my journey was complete.

Now came the search for the perfect bracelet to go with my watch. The bracelet for the early Lange 1 reference 101.002 shown here was bought later after a long period of time searching for an original Wellendorff bracelet on an early Lange 1 watch.

A 20-year quest ends in success

Finding an excellent condition early Lange 1 at the right price is not easy. But finding a Wellendorff bracelet is even more challenging, like winning a lottery. They are much rarer than early A. Lange & Söhne watches, and most of them were made in either white gold or platinum. Only a few preowned watches are sometimes equipped with the yellow gold bracelets. I remember that I saw one on a Calendar watch, and one with a smaller 19mm lug width for the Saxonia, but for years I could not find a single 20mm bracelet that would fit the case of a Lange 1. I got to know some people who had some watches on this bracelet, but no one was ready to separate the bracelet from the watch. What about auction houses? Wellendorff bracelets are extremely expensive when sold separately at auctions or dealers — more expensive than a watch alone!

Years went by. After a seemingly fruitless hunt to find a gold Wellendorff bracelet, I clicked on a dealer’s page by chance on a random day to look for “new offers” and, out of the blue, there it was: a superb Wellendorff bracelet, 20mm, obviously separated from a Lange 1. The dealer’s opinion was very similar to the argument I had heard a long time ago when I bought my solid caseback Lange 1. This time, it was exactly these words that delighted me: “Nobody will buy such kitsch in heavy gold. It is much easier for me to sell any Lange 1 on a classic leather strap. I never thought to find a buyer for these 150 grams of gold so easily. Have fun with it. It might be rare.”

I never agreed faster on a deal to buy a watch bracelet. Finally, the solid caseback Lange 1 and the original Wellendorff bracelet were united! The acquisition of this timepiece has been a long and arduous journey for me, although one could also tell the story much more briefly, as I once experienced at a Lange event. I had a brief conversation with the CEO of A. Lange & Söhne, Wilhelm Schmid, who stood next to me on the sidelines at an event. “You have a very nice watch. Great,” he said.

I replied, “Oh, thank you very much!”

To which he asked, “Open back or closed back?” “Closed back,” I answered.

He said, “Then this must be one of the very first ones we made. Never give it away!”

Early Lange 1 Model Numbers

The reference 101.001, released in 1994, was the very first execution of the Lange 1. This was the yellow gold and champagne colored dial early Lange 1. The ref. 101.001 indicated a solid caseback, while the ref. 101.021, which came a year later, marked an open caseback.

The reference 101.002, also released in 1994, featured blued steel hands, painted numerals, and a silver date frame on a silver colored dial. The open caseback version of this model was dubbed the ref. 101.022. Incidentally, for the Lange 1’s 25th anniversary in 2019, A. Lange & Söhne released the ref. 191.066, which also had blued steel hands, a silver colored dial and a silver date frame, with the addition of a blue script for the time and date indications.

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FROM THE SHOP

Bell & Ross

Bell & Ross x Alessandro Palazzi x Revolution & The Rake Bellytanker Chronograph "Vesper"

$5,250.00

TECH SPECS

Movement	Self-winding caliber BR.CAL-301; 42-hour power reserve
Functions	Hours, minutes, small seconds, chronograph and date
Case	41mm; CuAI7Si2 bronze; water resistant to 100m
Dial	Sunray brushed with applied, gold-plated indices
Strap	Black calfskin; satin polished bronze folding clasp
Limited Edition	Limited edition of 50 pieces

The post Early Passion, Long Journey: The search for a 1994 Lange 1 appeared first on Revolution Watch.

Rolex acquires Bucherer: What does this mean for everyone in the watch industry?

Oliver R Müller — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 16:18:31 +0000

Rolex acquires Bucherer: What does this mean for everyone in the watch industry?

Revolution’s watch industry analyst Oliver R. Müller tells you everything to know about this earth-shattering announcement.

Business

By Oliver R Müller

Aug 30, 2023

By now everyone in the luxury watch industry is talking about one thing, and one thing only: Rolex acquiring Bucherer for an undisclosed sum on 25^th August 2023. The announcement was released at 6:00pm CET with a press release that says it all: Rolex acquires Bucherer. It was a move intended to preserve the long-standing partnership between the two companies following the decision made by owner of the retailer Jörg G. Bucherer who has no direct descendents to take over the business. Rolex also states that it will allow Bucherer to operate independently and that the integration will be effective as soon as competition authorities have approved the takeover transaction.

What does this all mean? The world’s biggest watch company has just taken over one of the world’s largest watch retailers. Bucherer, together with Tourneau, accounts for more than 100 points of sales worldwide, and it is also the biggest retail brand in the US. Bucherer has also been a trusted Rolex retailer since 1924 — literally during the time of Hans Wilsdorf, making Jörg Bucherer the last person today to have known and worked with the Rolex founder. Jörg Bucherer will also remain as Honorary President of the Bucherer group. More importantly, this announcement impacts not only the companies involved, but the industry at large. Shortly after this news broke, share prices for Watches of Switzerland fell 30%, then up 10% to close at -20%, showing that what Rolex does always has an impact on everybody else.

To shed some light and more clarity on this subject, Revolution’s resident watch industry analyst Oliver R. Müller takes us through the ins and outs of this deal of the decade.

Rolex is capturing additional power by integrating its most important retail partner

Rolex has announced that it is buying Bucherer — the brand’s most important retail partner worldwide with 100 doors, of which half are selling Rolex and/or Tudor. To qualify this as a strong signal is a euphemism, because it’s basically a radical change of a century-old strategy to keep the retail activities separated from the brand’s core business. In fact, until this recent move Rolex and Patek Philippe could be seen as “anomalies” compared with all other major brands moving toward TDC (direct to consumer strategy cutting out all middlemen), and strongly reducing the number of authorized retailers overall.

The last 30 years have seen a complete change of power going from the distributors (wholesalers) and retailers to the brands. The first major change started around the 1990s with the brands taking over their wholesale and creating subsidiaries all over the world. This allowed the brands to capture margin, develop their presence and better monitor the inventories over the different markets. The second move involved a vertical integration of the retail activities, and some brands had already started in the 2000s to open monobrand activities to get access to the end clients.

Is Rolex’s acquisition of Bucherer a defensive move or a well-thought-through long-term strategy?

To close a deal when buying or merging two companies, you need the perfect timing, and in this case, the Bucherer deal definitely ticks the box. The company had to solve the succession problem of the owner — representing the third generation — being 87 years old and with no children, to ensure the long-term perspective of a very successful business. Mr. Bucherer himself had communicated many times on that matter, saying that the business would be owned by a trust after his death. Even though the company is well managed, Rolex probably sensed that at some point it could do it more efficiently, or that the trust could sell the business and reinvest the proceeds of the sale. It is easily understandable that Rolex didn’t want to bear the risk seeing its number one retailer — generating roughly 8% of the brand’s sales — being bought by a competing company. At the same time, one could question the upside for, say, Richemont to buy a retailer whose business is ~60% based on selling Rolex watches, which represents a cluster risk. Nevertheless, Bucherer represents a fantastic network of points of sales; for instance, in the US — Rolex’s most important market — it acquired the number one retail network with Tourneau.

Jörg G. Bucherer took over as the company’s head in 1977.

Buying a CHF 2B* sales company — even for a cash-laden company such as Rolex — is not a defensive move. Rolex had decided a long time ago to move into retail to control the last mile of the value chain, which is in fact the most important. Retail data is the most important driver to manage your business, because it’s the marker of your real success at any time. You don’t have any clear visibility on which products sell and where you need to shift inventories or propose some sales measures. Unlike what some people are saying, Rolex’s business is not in an automatic mode where the salesclerks are just telling potential customers that there is nothing to sell. Rolex’s product offering is composed of 450 SKU’s and around 50 of them are the hotcakes; some of the others are cross sellers when the client has to acquire another watch rather than the one he/she is really coveting. Rolex’s ambition is to gear up and have mostly sell-through references. And what better way of pushing this strategy than by monitoring your own retail?

The second act of a change in Rolex’s long-term strategy

The move into retailing with the acquisition of Bucherer can be seen as logical following Rolex’s announcement of getting involved with CPO (certified pre-owned) through its retail partner Bucherer. Both measures are a strong signal that the brand is willing to bring some order into a market where loyal long-term clients have had a hard time trying to acquire a watch from Rolex. In recent years, the hype around the brand has brought a lot of clients more motivated by the return on investment in a Daytona or GMT-Master II than the pleasure of wearing them. Some argue that this doesn’t change the outcome for Rolex as in both cases the watches are sold, but it does affect the brand’s equity by frustrating “real” clients who are unable to get their hands on their coveted timepieces. Besides that, the brand is getting bombarded by emails, calls and even sometimes letters from lawyers trying to attack the company on the grounds of unfair product allocations. All these speculative behaviors and product scarcity create frustration and shed bad light on Rolex; and ultimately, they are detrimental to its brand equity.

Rolex will continue to act more proactively against gray-market activities by better controlling the secondary market through its CPO and by better monitoring the primary market through wise product allocations to the different markets and retailers.

Rolex now has their own Certified Pre-Owned Program

Is Rolex’s retail integration detrimental for their remaining authorized distributors?

The next moves to be expected are probably that Rolex will continue to further reduce its POS worldwide, which currently numbers around 1,800. The brand had already initiated the movement by closing some doors in the US and elsewhere, but it can be expected that it will accelerate that process. Logically, it will extend the number of doors within the Bucherer/Tourneau network in the USA, which will collaterally make some existing AD’s redundant. Furthermore, the brand will likely increase the inventory available in its own stores and this would mean that there won’t be enough watches available for the other AD’s. Bigger stores with better product availability and tighter product allocations for the “hotcakes” will naturally help to increase the sales of the brand-owned POS. This will be a further argument to close some doors when they’ll be compared with Rolex’s own boutiques.

Of course, Rolex won’t be willing to, or capable of, shifting its retail 100% to a brand-owned business model. Rather, its approach will also be to rely on strong retail partners. Two of these are retail networks comparable with Bucherer in terms of business size and number of doors: The Hour Glass, a family-owned retail network in Southeast Asia; and Watches of Switzerland (WoS), a listed company. It remains to be seen how this new configuration of the Rolex retail network impacts the business of WoS, but the stockmarket already gave the answer on the day after Rolex’s announcement on 24^th August, with a temporarily drop of 30% of its share price to finish 20% below its previous value. The market valuation lost £300M (~CHF 330M) in one day!

The Hour Glass is one of the world's largest retailers after Watches of Switzerland, Bucherer and Seddiqi & Sons

The investors estimated that WoS bears a cluster risk with a single brand generating almost 60% of its overall sales, and this is not because the management hasn’t tried to diversify the sales mix. But replacing Rolex or adding growth to the other brands to make them significant top-line contributors is easier said than done. Their business with Cartier and Omega has been substantially increased to try to reduce WoS’s dependency on Rolex, but this requires time, and in this case, the company is also competing with strong mono-brand boutiques of both brands.

Key drivers of Rolex’s new retail strategy

Even though it’s not Rolex’s main motivation, capturing the margin given to its retail partners (on average 35%, and ranging from 32% to 40% depending on volume, role and historical relationships and calculated from the suggested minimum retail price) nevertheless represents the staggering amount of CHF 4.65B! Rolex’s yearly sales are estimated** at CHF 9.3B ex-works, which translates into almost CHF 14B sales at retail value and a market share of 29% of the luxury watch market (31% adding Tudor’s increasing sales of CHF 570M in 2022). There is no other luxury brand with a comparable market dominance in its product segment. Rolex’s performance is even more impressive taking into account that it’s a mono-product brand as compared to a brand like Gucci, which is a multi-category luxury brand that achieved €10.4B (CHF 9.9B); and the two figures are not comparable as Gucci partially sells through its own retail.

Rolex is achieving a major step forward toward an improved brand distribution that generates not only an increased bottom line, but also helps to increase the brand’s equity by better controlling its sales and market presence.

And the answer to the cardinal question that everyone has been asking since last Thursday’s announcement? If we take WoS’s market valuation as a comparison before Friday’s correction, and on the assumption that Rolex paid a premium because there was only one owner at Bucherer, we estimate that the transaction was valued at ~CHF 3B taking into account prime real estate. Buying the world’s number one watch and jewelry retailer comes at a price.

*LuxeConsult’s estimate as neither Bucherer nor Rolex publish any figures on their sales.

**The estimates are taken from the Morgan Stanley x LuxeConsult annual report on the Swiss watch market.

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FEATURED FROM THE SHOP

Laurent Ferrier

Laurent Ferrier × Revolution Classic Micro-Rotor “Amazonia”

$57,500.00

TECH SPECS

Movement	Self-winding caliber FBN 229.01 with natural escapement; 72-hour power reserve
Functions	Hours, minutes and small seconds
Case	40mm; stainless steel; water resistant to 30m
Dial	Verdant green, with sector track; applied, white rhodium treated gold Arabic numerals and hour markers
Strap	Brown calf leather with Alcantara lining, stainless steel pin buckle; additional Milanese bracelet in stainless steel
Limited Edition	Limited edition of 15 pieces

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TAG Heuer is muscling up with two of its strongest watch icons, Carrera and Monaco

Oliver R Müller — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 11:38:21 +0000

TAG Heuer is muscling up with two of its strongest watch icons, Carrera and Monaco

With strategic changes in the offing, the avant-garde watch company must seize every opportunity.

Business

By Oliver R Müller

Aug 24, 2023

Rumor is that changes will take place at the helm of TAG Heuer with CEO Frédéric Arnault moving to another role within the LVMH Group and Julien Tornare — currently the CEO of sister brand Zenith — replacing him in due course. Which makes this a good opportunity to analyze a brand which has repositioned itself in recent years vis-à-vis its main rivals such as Tudor, Breitling and Omega. Morgan Stanley and LuxeConsult estimated that the brand lost half of its luxury watch market share from 2017 to 2022 from 4% to 2%. In comparison, during this same time, Breitling tripled its own market share from 1% to 3% by increasing its sales by a factor of 2.7x and capturing margin by integrating their own retail.

Nevertheless, the brand has recently regained momentum by getting back on its home turf and reinterpreting its two main icons, the Monaco and the Carrera. And it has done a stringent work of cleaning its collections by eliminating some existing SKUs and being careful when launching new collections.

TAG Heuer: a brand with two faces

TAG Heuer has an incredible brand DNA which is bicephalous with Heuer for the tradition and TAG for the innovation. But at the same time this represents a daunting task to balance the product offering from icons to disruptive timepieces. Heuer also has a strong legacy of sportscar chronometry and has established strong historical bonds thanks to Jack Heuer — a marketing genius ahead of his time — in the 1970’s. Signing Steve McQueen and placing the “Monaco” Heuer watch on the film set of “Le Mans” was probably the foundation for this watch to become an icon. Launched just the year before in 1969, the Monaco was the first square cased automatic wristwatch chronograph ever made. A groundbreaking design with a circle inside the square, the Monaco contained all the ingredients to become a design icon.

TAG Heuer Monaco from 1971, worn by actor Steve McQueen in the movie Le Mans

The extraordinary asset of having a product icon is the potential of rejuvenating it with new colors, lay-outs and functions as TAG Heuer has done with the launch of new models linked to the movie “Gran Turismo”. With its vintage looks and very unique case design, the Monaco is just the perfect timepiece to link up with the Gen Z in search of referential timepieces, both vintage and new.

The new TAG Heuer Monaco Racing Blue

The Carrera is the other iconic watch

TAG Heuer might not have as many iconic watches as some of the other leading brands, but nevertheless it has another classic icon with the Carrera, born in 1963… just like the Rolex Daytona and both watches once shared the same base caliber, the Valjoux 72. The Carrera was in fact the continuation of the brand’s chronograph heritage of the 1940 and 1950’s. And the watch is also related to car racing, just as the sister product Monaco, and the Rolex Daytona… and the Omega Speedmaster which had been launched earlier in 1957 with a tachymetric bezel to measure the speed of a car.

The design of the Heuer Carrera has evolved over more than 60 years

But the brand must stay coherent in its strategy of establishing hero products. One thing which TAG Heuer must handle with more discipline is sticking to certain basic rules. One product family equals one product territory but that’s a rule the recent launch of the Carrera Skipper doesn’t fully comply with. A remake of a 1968 model, the Heuer Carrera Skipper ref. 7754 which was affectionately named Skipperera, it stands out in a family of strong auto-inspired timepieces.

TAG Heuer Carrera Skipper

A long story with the racing car world

Heuer’s links with the racing cars go way back, and was followed by a collaboration with the Ferrari team. Their drivers — Niki Lauda and Clay Regazzoni — became brand ambassadors. The timepiece marking Heuer’s entrance to the world of car racing was the Carrera Automatic in 18k gold which is today one of the most sought-after collectors’ pieces. At the same time the team managing the time keeping at the races developed a new device called the Centigraph which was a very innovative electronic timing system.

Yet, the diversification of Heuer into electronical timing systems was an unfortunate mishap as Jack Heuer recalls in his autobiography The Time of My Life. The quartz crisis of the late 1970’s till the beginning of the 1980’s forced Heuer to pull-out from the sports chronometry business which they sold for a bargain price to… Longines. All these paved the way to the common thread of collaborations which relate to sports cars with for instance Porsche.

Choosing Porsche as a partner is a very smart move, because more than just selling cars, the German brand is the epitome of a company managing to create the magical bond between the brand and its clients. The German carmaker is in my humble opinion also the epitome of manufacturing precision or I should say perfection. The potential of this collaboration has yet to be fully exploited as the special editions linked to Porsche still have much room to grow.

TAG Heuer and Porsche: a partnership made in brand building heaven

The interesting comparison between Porsche and TAG Heuer is also the fact that the German carmaker manufactures the most iconic sports car overall, the 911 (sorry for all the Ferraristi reading this, although I must confess that I’m also a huge fan of Ferrari). The 911 is the best example of an ever-evolving base design where nothing changes, but everything evolves and each new version is more accomplished than the one it replaces. And here’s another lesson to be taken from Porsche — for all watch brands and not only TAG Heuer — don’t be afraid to go your own path of innovation.

The die-hard fans of the brand almost quit their love when for instance the brand moved away from air cooled engines for the 911 or launched the four-wheel drive. However, the brand is stronger than ever today and is announcing its major shift to EV by 2030 (80% of its product offering). Which brings us to the smartwatches made by TAG Heuer…

Why smartwatches at TAG Heuer?

I made that lengthy comparison with Porsche because any watch brand today with a similar market positioning as TAG Heuer should investigate, or at least should have investigated around 2010-12 if smartwatches could be a new product category to conquer. The likeliness of smartwatches to stay for the long term is very questionable due to their limited lifetime and hence lack of sustainability. But one thing for sure is that in 2022, 15.8 million traditional Swiss made watches were exported, while more than 90 million smartwatches have been sold during the same period. Of that number, Apple sold more than 40 million.

At TAG Heuer, the former CEO and head of the watch division, industry legend Mr. Jean-Claude Biver, decided that the brand should venture into this new market to avoid missing out on a new Eldorado. Biver decided to partner with two major players from Silicon Valley, Intel and Google, to make sure that the technology would be provided by market leaders and always up to date, as it is common knowledge that technology product life cycles are short in the world of high tech.

The strategy was on combining high value materials with hybrid technology, meaning that they would look like conventional watches with analog time displays with hands, thus justifying the substantial price premium compared with their Asian and American competitors. The first series was quickly sold out due to the cleverness of Biver’s launch campaign during BaselWorld.

But then the wave of success soon stopped, as the potential market for people using smartwatches targets a price level which is closer to something below CHF 500 retail, which is a segment that harmed massively the entry level brands of Swiss watchmaking such as Swatch and Tissot. Even though TAG Heuer is regarded as an avant-garde brand, such a product category is very opex (operating expenses such as salaries or licenses) intense, with huge teams of IT specialists updating permanently the system and looking out for the next bug or breach.

And even though TAG Heuer chose to outsource most of the technology — unlike the very strange choice of Swatch Group to maintain its own OS for Tissot’s smartwatch — the smartwatch venture in general has a marginal impact on the topline (sales), but a major negative impact on the bottom line (the operating margin or EBIT).

Frédéric Arnault has been involved in TAG Heuer product development and marketing since 2017

Refocusing on the brand’s natural territory

The product offering has been refocused on the brand’s “natural ground” or territory by eliminating very expensive ventures into the world of high-end watchmaking. The V4 or the Mikrograph have been certainly extraordinary communication vectors, but also major cost centers with investments going into the eight figures with no tangible positive long-term outcome.

The Carrera Chronograph Tourbillion has been repositioned on a more sustainable price level — thus becoming profitable — unlike when it was first launched, where it was assumed that once you have written off the R&D for the first series, the cost of goods sold is only the manufacturing cost.

A new CEO for new impulses

Meanwhile, Julien Tornare — current CEO of sister brand Zenith — is set to take over the helm of TAG Heuer and based on his track record, we can probably expect a hand-over with minor changes. His 6 years as CEO of Zenith have allowed the brand to stabilize and strengthen its product offering. His predecessors had all tried to kick start the brand, meant to bear a tremendous, unexploited potential, although Zenith has yet to establish itself as a brand that a vast majority of watch aficionados dream of.

The question for Tornare, thus, will be to decide if smartwatches deserve to remain in the collection and if so, how should he navigate the challenges of this ever-changing segment.

What we will probably see at TAG Heuer is an accelerated transition back to the icons such as Carrera and Monaco which are the brand’s “bread and butter” business. To regain lost ground from its main competitors, it will need to show consistency around a clear product offering. The recent product initiatives were very well received and are showing a clear path back to growth. And even in areas where TAG Heuer can’t compete in terms of horological legacy, it still has potential to revive its strong roots in sports chronometry, especially in the field of racing cars.

Julian Tornare is set to take over the helm at TAG Heuer this fall

On the journey to success

Are the recent changes in the product strategy sufficient for the brand to regain the momentum it had definitely lost in recent years? The recent product launches suggest that owners of the brand and its management have understood that stability is a key value to survive in a very competitive market with strong competitors. Pushing icons like Monaco and Carrera, clarifying the product offering and connecting with Gen Z through more contemporary messages are certainly some of the ingredients needed. Re-evaluating its strategy for smartwatches will probably be the next important step to regain the positive momentum the brand had until mid 2010.

And being owned by the luxury industry’s no. 1 – LVMH – which is starting to flex its muscles in the field of watchmaking will certainly help to restart a virtuous circle. As a whole, the group did lose some ground in terms of consolidated watch market share (LVMH watch division plus Bulgari watch division) of 7,9% in 2017 to 6,3% in 2022. But the chairman of LVMH Mr. Bernard Arnault is always known to play on the podium rather than stay in fourth place — just ahead of mono-brand company Patek Philippe with 5% market share. So all things considered, TAG Heuer is definitely an exciting brand to watch in the years ahead.

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FEATURED FROM THE SHOP

Laurent Ferrier

Laurent Ferrier × Revolution Classic Micro-Rotor “Amazonia”

$57,500.00

TECH SPECS

Movement	Self-winding caliber FBN 229.01 with natural escapement; 72-hour power reserve
Functions	Hours, minutes and small seconds
Case	40mm; stainless steel; water resistant to 30m
Dial	Verdant green, with sector track; applied, white rhodium treated gold Arabic numerals and hour markers
Strap	Brown calf leather with Alcantara lining, stainless steel pin buckle; additional Milanese bracelet in stainless steel
Limited Edition	Limited edition of 15 pieces

The post TAG Heuer is muscling up with two of its strongest watch icons, Carrera and Monaco appeared first on Revolution Watch.

As Rolex ascends the luxury pyramid, Tudor reprises its role as protector and creative lab of the group

Oliver R Müller — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 12:00:13 +0000

As Rolex ascends the luxury pyramid, Tudor reprises its role as protector and creative lab of the group

Castling The King: Rolex is not just about sports watches.

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By Oliver R Müller

Jul 5, 2023

Rolex’s tendency to keep its distance from the rest of the watch industry is sometimes perceived as arrogance by other brands, but it’s certainly part of the brand’s DNA. The brand is an institution and when its leadership is needed to foster an industry-wide project, such as Watches and Wonders in Geneva, Rolex takes a stance.

By far the number one in the Swiss watch industry with estimated sales* of CHF 9.3B in 2022, which translates to CHF 13.95B in retail value, Rolex is the reference for any other watch brand. Despite being the untouched — and maybe untouchable — market leader, Rolex is investing a lot of money and energy to ensure its supremacy by establishing standards of quality and precision. Product excellence was one of the founding values of the Rolex brand by its founder Hans Wilsdorf who was targeting the front stage of technical innovation and precision in the Swiss watch industry.

Two brands with two distinct missions to fulfil

Most of today’s buyers are too young to remember, but Rolex was not a luxury brand from its inception. I, on the other hand, am actually old enough to remember that when I was 5, my parents decided to move to Bienne — the small Swiss town where Rolex is still manufacturing its movements, and where its big rival, Omega, has its headquarters. We moved into an apartment where we could see a huge factory with a sign that says “Rolex”. Guess what? My parents didn’t know what Rolex was. At the beginning of the 1970s, the brand had a positioning like Longines today — mid-range or accessible luxury, however you want to look at it.

The Bienne manufacture is one of four Rolex manufacturing sites

With the Quartz Crisis (1970-1983) and the pressure put on most Swiss watch brands, a unique opportunity arose for Rolex to climb the ladder of the brand pyramid of the Swiss watch industry. Even though Rolex also tried the quartz path, that experiment was short-lived with an estimated 100,000 Oysterquartz sold over the course of 25 years (1977-2003), which is nothing compared with the brand’s overall sales (est. 1.2 million units in 2022 alone).

Yet Rolex was one of the very few Swiss watch brands that never lost faith in mechanical movements. Even though they did decide to experiment with quartz watches, they never quit the path of “real watchmaking”. That said, Rolex continues to keep its manufacturing capacities of ultra-precise quartz movements and, hypothetically, could at any time launch a high-precision quartz Rolex, a Tudor or… a dedicated third brand. If this happens, it could be another strike from the empire on archrival Swatch Group and Longines, which has a growing fanbase for its V.H.P. (Very High Precision) quartz watches.

Tudor is here to protect Rolex from below

In 1946, Mr. Wilsdorf, who was a marketing wizard far ahead of his time, decided to launch a sister brand with the purpose of offering watches at a more affordable price than Rolex, thus keeping its stringent quality standards. The second purpose — and later the main mission of Tudor — was to protect Rolex from rivals keen to challenge the champion. Notably, Mr. Hayek — the legendary chairman of Swatch Group — adopted the same strategy when he decided to reconquer the watch market starting from the bottom with Swatch, explaining in a Harvard Business Review interview in 1993 that retreating from lower price segments would allow competitors to move up “to the next layer of the cake”.

And that is exactly what Rolex is doing with Tudor and increasingly so. A very smart move was achieving the METAS Master Chronometer certification for the Black Bay Ceramic in 2021, which was intended as a strong signal for Rolex’s main rival Omega, that even its “B” brand can compete at a level beyond the entry range. Rolex is keeping its current double chronometer certification (the movements being COSC certified and the watch head is then internally certified), which lacks an official hallmark comparable with the Master Chronometer — but as we said at the beginning: Rolex plays in a league of its own.

On the other hand, Tudor has been driven by changing strategies since its inception. For a time, it has gone away from its useful purpose of offering an attractive entry into the Rolex world, to being relegated to a sleeping beauty during the decades after Mr. Wilsdorf’s death in 1960. For a time, the people at Rolex were — to put it mildly — not very keen to see Tudor next to their brand. This changed completely with the arrival in 2009 of a new CEO Philippe Peverelli at Tudor with the mission to revive and rejuvenate the brand. Supported by Davide Cerrato as the product director, the pair managed to quickly bring back a positive momentum by launching vintage-inspired models such as the Black Bay collection in 2012.

Tudor's boutiques express a younger, sportier vibe

A lab for new materials and new ways of communication

Rolex’s brand equity is probably one of the strongest in the luxury world and therefore needs to be kept safe. That is where Tudor’s mission starts. Apart from shielding Rolex from competitors trying to move up the cake (this was one of the reasons why it has a logo in the form of a shield), it plays an important role as the de facto testing lab for the group to try new things out. For instance, the use of new materials such as ceramic. Even though Rolex had used it before for its bezel, branded as Cerachrom as far back as 2005, Tudor was the one that made a full-ceramic timepiece.

Tudor Black Bay Ceramic

Tudor is positioned as the more daring younger sibling talking to a younger audience, and launched in 2021 the Black Bay Ceramic, which can be seen both as an experiment with new materials to be potentially used later on by the “A” brand, and an answer to rival Omega’s Dark Side of the Moon.

Tudor Big Block Chronograph Yellow Gold

It is the same with titanium. In 2012, Tudor launched its Pelagos dive watch made of titanium, a material that was only used for the first time in 2022 with the Rolex Oyster Perpetual Deepsea challenge. More recently, the Yacht-Master in RLX titanium brought a fresher look into this product family.

Yacht-Master RLX Titanium

Tudor is also building a younger and fresher image of the brand with light and snazzy campaign videos that are informative but also entertaining — a good way to appeal to Gen Z’s who might hesitate to wear a Rolex because of its institutional image.

Realignment of strategies for both Rolex and Tudor

Despite what certain analysts think, Rolex is not resting on its laurels and the pace of new product launches has tremendously increased since the arrival of Jean-Frédéric Dufour as the new CEO in 2014. Having worked for three decades in various tenures at different watch brands, he immediately identified the growth potential of both brands. In the last decade, Rolex has probably launched more product novelties than it has in the previous three. I remember a time when Rolex aficionados were getting excited by the new version of a Submariner with 1mm increase in case diameter. And, until recently, Rolex hardly communicated about product innovations, considering it part of its mission to continue elevating the brand.

CEO of Rolex, Jean-Frédéric-Dufour

This has totally changed today with the brand introducing whimsical, colorful dials with the “Celebration Dial” Oyster Perpetual and the Day-Date Emoji Puzzle. Both models were launched at Watches and Wonders in March 2023 and certainly prove Rolex’s ambitions to connect to a younger clientele who venerates its product icons such as the Daytona or the Submariner, but also want to see cooler, trendier watches.

Oyster Perpetual Celebration and Day-date Jigsaw

Apart from those “disruptive” designs, Rolex continues improving on small details that make the whole difference. Here are my observations so far.

Focused product management

We are seeing at Rolex a very focused product strategy with a very disciplined way of managing a product collection. The total number of SKU’s is kept at a constant 450 references, which is comparable with Omega, but Rolex’s sales are almost four-fold those of its rival. For every new product launched, there is at least one existing reference being discontinued. This keeps — and even improves — the legibility of the overall product collection.

Increased value proposition

In the last few years, the Rolex product collection has been enhanced with more Rolesium, precious-metal and gem-set watches, which translates to an ever-increasing average retail price which grew by 15% in 5 years* to CHF 11,600. This trend will accelerate in the coming years because the sales mix will be shifting toward higher-priced watches, as indicated by the recent product launches, for example, a new Daytona with a sapphire exhibition caseback — a first for the Oyster Perpetual product line — and a platinum case to highlight that product innovation is coming from the top. The introduction of new Rolesor variations of the GMT-Master II is also a clear sign that the product offering is going up the ladder.

Rolex Oyster Perpetual Deepsea Challange

Luxury rather than sports chic

Far from leaving sports watches behind, Rolex is elevating the game by refining its base designs and offering high-end versions of its bestselling watches. By trying to keep a sound balance between the “bread-and-butter” steel-on-steel watches and more refined variations, the brand avoids getting caught in the dilemma of having to constantly increase the volumes. Having sold an estimated 1.2 million watches last year — which makes it by far the biggest luxury watch brand and the number four Swiss watch exporter by volume, behind entry- and mid-level brands such as Swatch, Tissot and Longines — Rolex is still having a hard time coping with demand.

The long waiting lists on the primary market (six years for a Rolex Daytona) or hefty premiums — up to more than 100% vs. MSRP — for the fast track on the secondary market, are the best indicators of this strong demand. Even though the secondary market has cooled down substantially since March 2022 (e.g. the price of a Daytona came down from CHF 50,000 to CHF 28,000), the overdemand is still tremendous (the Daytona retails for CHF 14,300).

The whole dynamic of moving the brand upward doesn’t take the grip from Rolex and its sound business principles, so you can sense that shifting the two brands up the brand pyramid is done very cautiously. The space left by Rolex when climbing the brand pyramid is immediately covered by Tudor. This synchronization represents certainly a permanent challenge and a threat for the challengers in the first place. Omega, naturally, but also Breitling and TAG Heuer. These brands must constantly adapt their own strategy by launching counter product offensives.

Rolex the sleeping giant has regained a strong momentum and taken back its role of product innovator — but not the loud and disruptive ones — that stems from its DNA.

Tudor reviving icons with vintage-inspired designs

Tudor has experienced a strong revival through vintage-inspired timepieces such as the Black Bay, which made a big splash with each new variation presented in the last few years. It is very interesting to see that the recipes used by Rolex are also applied to Tudor with a compelling logic, such as having a product territory for each family. Diving for the Pelagos, the Black Bay in cross sports, etc. Its structure is, however, questionable with a rather mixed bag within the collection apart from the aforementioned classics which rely strongly on vintage design.

Why the Clair de Rose, which could go unnoticed rebranded under another name? The same goes for the Glamour product family. Apart from probably selling in high quantities to Chinese consumers who have for a long time represented its major market, they rather dilute the collection’s legibility. The Black Bay 31, 36, 39 and 41mm variations, too, look like intruders in its product family.

Rolex Pelagos Titanium

Once it had been decided to reboot Tudor, the brand’s distribution was diversified and could still be viewed in some markets as a new brand. In the US, the brand was relaunched in 2013 after having quit that market in 1996.

The distribution strategy has now shifted to move as a team — not twins, but siblings — and this requires that when a new Rolex boutique opens, a Tudor boutique is also being installed next to it (Rolex doesn’t operate any retail activity, apart from one boutique in Geneva). This is a major shift from its previous attitude of having the two brands clearly separated through distinctive sales channels.

Still room for improvement

On the whole, Tudor’s branding feels a little bit less inspired than Rolex’s, with its conventional approach of using brand ambassadors and a tagline “Born To Dare” which fulfills its purpose of a cool hashtag on any social media, but lacks coherence with the rest of the branding. One could make the argument that a tagline like that doesn’t immediately gel with products such as the vintage-inspired Black Bay. From a brand consistency point of view, if we were to make a comparison with Breitling’s brand pillars comprising purpose-dedicated squads and their respective territories, Tudor’s storytelling needs more coherence, which shouldn’t be a big challenge. After all, the epitome of branding coherence is Rolex! There, everything is perfectly aligned and anyone looking at the brand doesn’t need a PhD in marketing to immediately understand what the brand is about: excellence in manufacturing, and hence precision.

Last but not least, when comparing the number of SKU’s between the two, Tudor’s is around 500, while its sister brand is making 16 times more sales with 450…. There is still room to focus Tudor’s product offering on its strengths.

A unique market positioning and a bright future

Meanwhile, Rolex has a unique competitive positioning with almost one-third market share (29% for Rolex and 2% for Tudor*) of the whole Swiss watch industry. To appreciate that figure, we could add that 96% of the worldwide luxury watch market** (watches with a retail price tag above CHF 1,200) is controlled by Swiss-made or Swiss-owned brands. Even more compelling is the fact that Rolex owns an estimated 40% market share in the USA, which is the number one market for Swiss watches at the moment.

There is no other luxury brand in any other segments of the luxury industry that is as dominant as Rolex in their respective markets. Another comparison that we can draw is with a multi-product brand such as Gucci achieving €10.4 billion, which is marginally more than Rolex’s CHF 9.3 billion, but less if we take into account the fact that Rolex is retailing only through third parties (with the one exception mentioned above). In fact, Morgan Stanley estimates* that Rolex has created CHF 13.95 billion in retail value in 2022 or put the other way round, it doesn’t yet capture a retail margin of CHF 4,65B. Now let’s imagine that Rolex decides to integrate their retail network entirely or partially. What would it mean in terms of profitability and the consequences on the worldwide retail structure?

At Tudor, the potential margin to capture would be CHF 256 million and that would easily justify going into brand-owned retailing. Even though Rolex has decided — at least for the time being — not to capture the retail margin, it is quite easy to estimate that its profitability as a mono-product brand must be staggering, and even more so when you take into account the fact the production is almost fully integrated.

Rolex still has tremendous potential with a market getting more and more polarized and premiumized. The brand is increasingly applying the same rules as any other luxury brand with regular price increases due to its pricing power, and better brand visibility through a broad range of sponsorships across sports and the arts. Rolex is also very good at becoming the exclusive partner in one domain — for example, Formula 1, tennis or golf — by sponsoring all the main events worldwide.

Once the brand has established its superiority, the sexiness, social status and foremost brand equity will keep growing in a virtuous circle. Rolex is delivering a masterclass in proving that a sports-grounded brand can be luxury. When others struggle to establish a bond between their brand and their sponsorship activities, Rolex has achieved just that since the founding of the brand. Sports-chic and increasingly luxurious Rolex will pursue its journey for glory.

*Estimates published in Morgan Stanley’s annual report on the Swiss watch industry market shares “Sixth Annual Swiss Watcher”, in collaboration with LuxeConsult

** Estimates by LuxeConsult in its exclusive report on “The secondary watch market, pre-owned, pre-loved and gray market timepieces”

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FEATURED FROM THE SHOP

Laurent Ferrier

Laurent Ferrier × Revolution Classic Micro-Rotor “Amazonia”

$57,500.00

TECH SPECS

Movement	Self-winding caliber FBN 229.01 with natural escapement; 72-hour power reserve
Functions	Hours, minutes and small seconds
Case	40mm; stainless steel; water resistant to 30m
Dial	Verdant green, with sector track; applied, white rhodium treated gold Arabic numerals and hour markers
Strap	Brown calf leather with Alcantara lining, stainless steel pin buckle; additional Milanese bracelet in stainless steel
Limited Edition	Limited edition of 15 pieces

The post As Rolex ascends the luxury pyramid, Tudor reprises its role as protector and creative lab of the group appeared first on Revolution Watch.

Moritz Grossmann: A German Jewel

Cheryl Chia — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 09:00:38 +0000

Moritz Grossmann: A German Jewel

A deep dive into the fine watchmaking of Moritz Grossmann.

Feature

By Cheryl Chia

Jun 14, 2023 11 minutes

When talk veers towards German fine watchmaking, it’s the name A. Lange & Söhne that naturally comes up tops. But for some years now, its neighbor in the unassuming hamlet of Glashütte, Moritz Grossmann, has been steadily asserting its presence, carving its own niche in the horological landscape with its remarkable level of craftsmanship and a distinctive approach to movement making. A modest production firm, it specializes in the same caliber of watchmaking that its renowned counterpart is celebrated for but on a significantly smaller scale. In fact, in certain aspects of craft, it even emerges as the standard bearer.

Its story is one not hard to like, having been founded by Christine Hutter, a Eichstätt-born watchmaker and former employee of both A. Lange & Söhne and Glashütte Original. Hutter’s fascination with mechanical watchmaking took root soon after she graduated from university in 1986. She immersed herself in an apprenticeship under the guidance of master watchmaker Wilhelm Glöggler in Munich where she restored pendulum clocks, pocket watches and chronographs. Graduating at the top of her class, Hutter’s journey led her to Glashütte, the revered hub of German fine watchmaking. She began her career at Wempe Germany’s largest luxury watch retailer, then moved to Maurice Lacroix and, in 1996, to Glashütte Original and ultimately A. Lange & Söhne. During her time in Glashütte, she discovered the grand name of Karl Moritz Grossmann (1826-1885), the son of a mail sorter who became one of the founding fathers of the German watchmaking industry along with Ferdinand Adolph Lange, Julius Assmann, and Adolf Schneider.

Like Ferdinand Adolph Lange, the work of Karl Moritz Grossmann had done so much to propel both the advancement of horology and the prosperity of Glashütte. At the encouragement of Lange who founded A. Lange & Söhne nine years earlier, Moritz Grossmann established his own watchmaking company in 1854, where he developed precision lathes for watchmakers in Glashütte and later concentrated on lever escapements and the optimization of pivoted detents for chronometers. The company later became renowned for producing high-quality pocket watches and marine chronometers.

A gold hunter-cased Moritz Grossmann pocket watch with a white enamel dial that is swept by finely executed blued steel hands

Above all, Grossmann was chiefly remarkable for his extraordinary industry and unwavering passion to elevate the standards of watchmaking in Glashütte. He conducted courses, delivered lectures, and was a voluminous writer who contributed to both domestic and foreign specialized magazines. Furthermore, he authored and translated books on the subject, including the multi-volume anthology “Lehrbuch der Uhrmacherei” (Textbook of Watchmaking) by Claudius Saunier. One of his most significant accomplishments was his 1866 treatise on the detached lever escapement, on which the Swiss Lever escapement present in a majority of watches known today is based and with which Grossmann became the very first German contestant to win a competition tendered by the British Horological Institute. His philosophy of mechanics is also explained in detail in his book On the Construction of a Simple But Mechanically Perfect Watch (1880). In 1978, to ensure a continuing supply of qualified watchmakers, he founded the German School of Watchmaking in Glashütte.

While the school thrived for more than 114 years, sustaining the industry through rapid growth, his own watchmaking enterprise came to an end upon his untimely passing in 1885. Only in 2008 did the name Moritz Grossmann resurface in the world of watchmaking. With the support of her family, Hutter acquired the rights to the name of the 19th-century horologist and assumed the role of its spiritual successor.

The Moritz Grossmann manufacture in Glashütte

By the year 2010, she had acquired a piece of land and enlisted the expertise of Flender & Drobig, esteemed German architects, to conceive a manufacture that embodied her unique blend of reverence for tradition and progressive vision. The launch of the BENU which contained the impressive calibre 100.0 later that year marked the start of a range of watches that in terms of construction and finish would come to rival the best of German – and Swiss – watchmaking.

Moritz Grossmann Benu in platinum

Finely Crafted Hands

Today, with a team of approximately 40 skilled watchmakers, Moritz Grossmann produces no more than 500 watches a year. In terms of dial work, the watches adhere to a timeless Glashütte aesthetic. No detail is superfluous; instead, an exemplary level of meticulousness is expended on the essentials. But what truly sets Moritz Grossmann apart is the amount of effort devoted to crafting hands internally and manually. In contrast, other notable brands do not produce their own hands, underscoring the level of control and artistry that Moritz Grossmann exhibits in their production. Crafting a single set of hands from start to finish is a meticulous process that demands an entire day of dedicated work from a watchmaker.

Each hand is finely crafted in-house and attached to a hub that undergoes bevelling and polishing as well

The process begins with precision cutting the contour of the hands from a flat blank, followed by shaping them into their exquisite three-dimensional form using diamond files. Next, the hands undergo hand polishing using a wooden wheel. It’s worth noting that each hand has its own hub that is bevelled and polished, giving it a distinctly three-dimensional appearance that sets it apart from its competitors. Finally, the tip of each hand may be delicately bent to align perfectly with the minute dial, eliminating any potential parallax.

The hands are filed to achieve their remarkable shape and then polished

The edges of the hands are polished with a polishing wheel which demands great control

Each hand is attached to its hub by a press fit

If the hands undergo the process of annealing, which involves heating them to a specific colour, it is the final step in the production. Instead of the customary blue chosen by most watchmakers, Moritz Grossmann employs a distinctive in-house colour known as brown-violet. Achieving this colour requires the watchmaker to carefully heat the hand to a temperature of approximately 270°C, with a tolerance of only 5°C. However, there is a risk involved, as any mishap during this crucial step could result in the entire effort up to that point being rendered futile. It is also worth remembering that Moritz Grossmann produces some of the thinnest hands in watchmaking where each specimen is ground and polished by hand to its final, needle-thin form that measure a mere 0.1mm in width at their narrowest point.

Finally, the hands are annealed over an open flame to a beautiful brown-violet tone

A closer look at the Moritz Grossmann Benu 37 Steel with Grand Feu Enamel Dial for Revolution & The Rake's grand feu enamel ivory dial and the watchmaker's incredibly delicate hands heat treated in their signature colour

Elaborate Construction

As for their movements, they adopt an anachronistic pillar-and-plate construction in which the going train is sandwiched in between a main plate and a two-third plate, held together by German silver pillars supporting the two plates at their peripheries. This construction dates back to the 17th century and fell by the wayside with the advent of the Lépine calibre in the mid-18th century which replaced the two plates with a single base plate onto which the wheel train is secured with independent bridges. Nevertheless, the pillar-and-plate construction endured in clocks and marine chronometers as the larger size of the movement parts in these timepieces rendered the milling of a solid block of brass to accommodate the parts simply impractical. The pillar construction method, like the three-quarter plate construction, presents additional challenges during movement assembly as all the upper pivots for the gears in the going train must align precisely with the upper jewels.

The beautifully constructed and finished Caliber 100.0

Note the contoured German silver pillars between the plates

All the train wheels are crafted from ARCAP rather than brass. ARCAP is an antimagnetic alloy composed of copper, nickel, and zinc, known for its lightweight, corrosion resistance and remarkable tensile strength.

Generally, all Moritz Grossmann movements replicate the formula adopted in marine chronometers to obtain balance power by incorporating an extra-large balance wheel that has a traditional beat rate of 18,000 bph, or 2.5Hz. The balance wheel was developed in-house and was designed with poising screws on two recesses on opposite sides of the rim. Due to the recessed screws, the balance wheel can be made larger, occupying the maximum available space. Consistent with the traditional chronometer principles on which it is built, the hairspring is equipped with a Breguet overcoil. An elaborate, 12-part index regulator is used to adjust the hairspring. The balance cock features a transversal bore with a deep-threaded micrometer screw, which remains exposed. The tapered end of the index tail engages with the screw’s thread. By turning the screw, the index pointer is affected, thereby adjusting the active length of the hairspring and consequently modifying the oscillation period of the balance.

The 107.0 with an inverted construction that powers the Backpage. Note the numerous inward angles on the bridge that supports the motion works

Beyond their construction, the movements are very visually appealing as well. The brand makes judicious use of colour in terms of materials. Polished gold chatons, perfectly annealed brown-violet screws and white sapphire jewels adorn German silver movement plates to create a striking visual composition that provide a beautiful contrast to their restrained, classical dials. Notably, inspired by historic Grossmann pocket watches, the brown-violet screws and the gold chatons that hold the white sapphire bearing jewels are raised, adding depth to the movement while also enabling the jewels to be safely removed and cleaned without risk of damage to the plate when resetting them.

The brown-violet screws and the gold chatting are elevated, providing a sense of depth to the movement. This also allows for safe removal and cleaning of the jewels without the risk of scratching the plate

Due to the fiendish construction and the relative softness of German silver as a result of its high copper content, every movement undergoes a meticulous double assembly process. First an initial assembly for mechanical evaluation takes place, whereby the endshake of the train wheels are adjusted, followed by the adjustment of the escapement and the truing of the balance. Subsequently, the movement is then completely disassembled and the individual parts are decorated before the final assembly.

The balance wheel is spun on a poising tool to check for poise errors

As a small production company dedicated to upholding Grossmann’s philosophy of simple, impeccably engineered watches, the brand primarily focuses on classic time-only watches, which are available in a variety of guises, small complications such as the date, power reserve and GMT, as well as watches that are nominally time-only but showcase clever mechanics such as the Backpage with an inverted movement, and the Hamatic, an ingenious and intriguing take on the hammer winding system.

The elaborately constructed Caliber 106.0 in the Hamatic features a swinging weight that triggers a pair of pawls to engage with the teeth of the winding wheels, which wind the mainspring. Image: Wanyu Lee (IG: Deletrium)

When the brand does delve into complications, they are typically executed in as exotic a fashion as possible such as the recently launched Universalzeit, in which six time zones are displayed digitally in apertures with the city names marked on a world map.

The brand’s most complex watch to date, the Benu Tourbillon, on the other hand, is a stop-seconds flying tourbillon that incorporates a brush made of human hair at the end of the brake lever. The cage’s pillars are designed with a triangular profile, ensuring that even if the brush accidentally falls against one of them, the hairs will separate and maintain contact with the balance wheel. Additionally, it is a slow tourbillon that completes a rotation in three minutes, which is, if anything, even rarer than stop-seconds tourbillons. In contrast to the standard one-minute tourbillon, it requires a different gear ratio that necessitates the placement of gears within the tourbillon cage. This subtle reconfiguration results in a more visually intricate tourbillon, which thanks to its unhurried pace, can be fully admired. Furthermore, the balance wheel beats at a leisurely 18,000 vibrations per hour, offering a slow moving spectacle.

The Benu Tourbillon features a stops-seconds flying tourbillon that completes one rotation in three minutes

Lavish Finishing

One of the most striking elements of its movements is the ratchet wheel which is decorated with a traditional triple-band snailing to distinguish them from its peers. Ratchet wheel snailing is often taken for granted in watchmaking or may initially appear perplexing until one witnesses the machinery involved. This is because spinning an abrasive wheel against the ratchet wheel will only result in concentric circles, much like perlage. Achieving a radial pattern that emanates from the centre, however, requires the ratchet wheel itself to be constantly turning in the opposite direction. Thus, the process involves two spindles with one positioned at an offset radius for grinding and the other dedicated to turning the part. Once programmed, this can be executed reliably and quickly.

The distinctive triple-band sailing on the ratchet wheel. Image: Wanyu Lee (IG: Deletrium)

However, to achieve a stepped, three-dimensional effect, it took the brand several months to develop the right technique. The teeth of the ratchet wheel are initially bevelled and polished along the circumference, which contrasts well with the snailing. Starting from the innermost circumference, layers of snailing are progressively added outward.

The crown wheel has a black-polished steel cap while the ratchet wheel is decorated with their signature triple-band sailing. Note their finely polished teeth

The three-band snailing, in turn, contrasts nicely with the Glashütte ribbing which are widely spaced and typically feature four to six stripes on the movement. For a company that devotes so much effort into finishing its hands and movement parts, this is certainly not a cost-cutting measure but a deliberate aesthetic choice, as is the frosting on the base plate, so as to provide a subdued backdrop for all the decorated components. All the inscriptions on the two-third plate including the uppercase brand name are finely engraved by hand.

The inscriptions on the two-third plate are engraved by hand. Image: Wanyu Lee (IG: Deletrium)

Visible next to the ratchet wheel, the crown wheel is actually spokeless and is supported by a black polished steel cap that is held in place by two large screws. Black polishing involves meticulously smoothing its surface to the extent that it becomes a mirror, reflecting light as black. The edges of the cap are also bevelled and polished.

The two-third plate terminates with straight, bevelled edges and a large semi-circular cut-out that showcases the in-house balance wheel. The balance itself is finely executed with chamfered and polished rims while the arms are decorated with perlage. In the majority of movements, both the balance and escape wheels are held in place by cocks that have been hand-engraved with an exquisite floral pattern whereas the third cock that supports the pallet fork is snailed. There is virtually no component too small to receive a surface treatment; even the square head of the micrometer screw and the bevels on the edge of the head have been polished.

A Glashütte specialty, the cocks for the balance and escape wheels are engraved by hand while the bridge that supports the pallet fork is snailed (©Revolution)

It is this uniquely Saxon combination of qualities and dedication to detail, craftsmanship and technical quality that ultimately gives birth to watches that even after years and decades have passed will remain consistently compelling and undiminished by the tides of competition.

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TECH SPECS

Movement	Self-winding caliber A-500; 60 hours power reserve
Functions	Hours, minutes, small seconds, chronograph and date
Case	42.5mm; titanium; water resistant to 30m
Dial	Salmon (6N gold plated) with gené or frosted area; Super-LumiNova filled Arabic numerals
Strap	Ballistic gray rubber; titanium folding clasp

The post Moritz Grossmann: A German Jewel appeared first on Revolution Watch.

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