All That’s Good in TimeVolume 18, N 7 The Movement Issue

Oct

ober

201

5

Watch Journal

10>

$10

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Featuring: The Cartier Clé

Pushing Power Reserve Boundaries. Top In-House Movement Makers. Philanthropy: Only Watch. Eric Giroud on Design.

Exploring Modern Watchmaker’s Benches.

Do In-House Movements Matter?

Engine Turned

OPPOSITE: The Hautlence HL2 movement

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It seems like just about every watch company is making its own movements nowadays. In the past, brands that produced their own movements used to be quite rare, but that has certainly changed. How did this happen, and do in-house movements really matter?

DEFINITIONS

One issue in the watch industry is the lack of clear definitions when it comes to movements and movement development. The words manufacture and in-house and proprietary are bandied about almost interchangeably, so knowing which term to use to describe a new movement is tricky. There is no strict definition for any of the terms, just assumptions and those assumptions vary from person to person.

Often a company will use a movement from a supplier and affix its brand name and a model number, for example, leaving the impression that it’s the company’s own movement, when it is not. Other companies develop a propri-etary movement with a movement supplier. Then there are brands that design and produce their own movements: These are the “manufactures.”

But some companies call a movement a manufacture movement even if they bought it from a supplier specializing in movements. You can see it’s a gray area.

Armin Strom Tourbillon Fire, Hamilton RailRoad Small Second

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MOVEMENT SUPPLIERS

From the early days of watchmaking, companies that sold complete watches bought the parts from a network of specialized suppliers. Movements came from one company, hands from another, dials from yet another.

There were, of course, exceptions to the rule, companies that did everything themselves, and these became known as manufactures. Some examples of today’s manufactures are Patek Philippe, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Rolex, Vacheron Constantin, Blancpain and Breguet. These companies might not make every-thing that goes into their watches, but they could, and they come close to 100 percent most of the time (sapphire crystals, SuperLuminova and straps are three parts commonly outsourced).

One of the biggest, and arguably the best, movement suppliers is ETA, origi-nally an independent company, but now owned by the Swatch Group. ETA makes most of the movements watch lovers know by heart—the 7750, the 2836, the 2892, the 2824. After the Swatch Group announced plans to limit the sales of ETA movements to its competition, the Swiss government aided the industry in finding alternative solutions.

Today other movement manufacturers (among them, Soprod, Ronda, Accurat Swiss, Vaucher, Sellita, Dubois Dépraz and Concepto) have stepped in to fill the void and many companies have reduced or eliminated their dependence on ETA movements. Companies like Bovet, Officine Panerai, Frederique Con-stant, TAG Heuer, Carl F. Bucherer, Tutima, Armin Strom and others have developed their own movements, either on their own or in partnership with other companies.

DO IN-HOUSE MOVEMENTS MATTER?

Due to the high investment needed for movement development and the rela-tively small volume, in-house movements often necessitate a premium in price for the collector. So, given the increase in price, are in-house movements im-portant? That depends on who you ask.

DeWitt Twenty-8 Full Moon

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FRÉDÉRIC WENGER, CEO, ARNOLD & SON: In-house movements certainly matter, especially in high-end watches. The reason is exclusivity, but also the fact that an in-house movement can be an integral part of the watch’s design and characteristics. In such a case, the movement is designed from scratch to perfectly fit the watch’s design that was defined before creating the move-ment. This is how Arnold & Son works and what sets it apart from most watch brands.

At the end of the day, a good watch is not only defined by knowing if every single component was made in-house, but much more by its overall aesthet-ics, functionality and quality. Therefore, the discussion about in-house versus supplier movement is often a little artificial and misses the point.

GUILLAUME TETU, COFOUNDER AND CEO, HAUTLENCE: Some custom-ers and collectors need to have in-house movements as proof of competence. For us, it’s a question of creativity; some displays and ideas we put in our de-signs are not available in a supplier catalog, and we have the in-house knowl-edge to make it. It’s a question of transparency. We are really honest about what we do and why we do it.

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DAVID GOUTEN, MANAGING PARTNER AND COFOUNDER, MANUFAC-TURE ROYALE: There are two ways to see the move to in-house movements: Either it’s a marketing point of view and brands want to make a statement or it’s a question of autonomy, survival and prices. As you might have guessed, for us it’s all of these. We’re producing in-house all we can and assembling too. It’s our own development and production. In this way we are much more flexible, monitoring our quality in the best way.

There are drawbacks to in-house movements: one is the cost of development; another is the delay when waiting for parts from outside suppliers; and third, engaging in the testing period to make sure that everything is working. At Manufacture Royale, we like to bring our own touch and propose different in-terpretations of complications at reasonable prices. We can only do that with our own creations.

SYLVAIN DOLLA, PRESIDENT, HAMILTON WORLDWIDE: When you look at what we do, we do it thinking about the consumer. We didn’t develop our new movement for exclusivity. We wanted one with a power reserve that lasted over the weekend. This was a simple consumer wish that we translated into an exclusive Hamilton caliber.

The Jazzmaster Skeleton was the same. We wanted a skeleton under 1,000 euros, and there was no existing movement capable of getting us to this price. For us, the volumes are high, and we are taking advantage of ETA and its in-dustrial background.

ERIC LOTH, FOUNDER, GRAHAM SA: As long as independent movement manufacturers exist in Switzerland, they will represent the best option for an independent brand like Graham to realize specific projects with its complete scale of manufacturing capability. Thanks to access of such diversified pro-duction sources, Graham realizes very ambitious movement concepts like the Tourbillon Orrery Planetarium, the Silverstone RS Skeleton and the Endurance Chronograph movement concept.

SERGE MICHEL, CEO, ARMIN STROM: For us, making our own movements is central to everything we do. It’s why we always reveal part of the movement to show the artistry, the engineering, the passion of mechanical watchmaking. We’re constantly challenged and energized to design a new movement from scratch and to keep reinventing. One example is our Tourbillon Gravity Fire automatic with a microrotor. It was the natural next step after we designed our first tourbillon in our manual-wind Calibre ATC 11 movement. We saw that the double barrel could be replaced with a microrotor, which allows us to still show a lot of the movement, its perlage and hand-engravings.

Christophe Claret Maestoso

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CHRISTOPHE CLARET, OWNER, CHRISTOPHE CLARET MANUFACTURE:Certain companies inevitably don’t have the potential to produce all of their movements. Nevertheless, I think that it’s important that they are clear in this. It’s logical and coherent that manufactured products have a higher price point than products from cheaper subcontractors, which allow more accessible prices.

It’s necessary to understand that to design and produce movements with a very high level of complication, the investment is considerable, be it in design-ing, manufacturing or fine-tuning. That’s why it’s extremely difficult for a small brand to do this.

JEROME DEWITT, FOUNDER AND DESIGNER, DEWITT From the first day, I wanted to be free. I wanted everything in my control. If we are too depen-dent on suppliers and they don’t deliver, we will die. The big groups want to squeeze everyone else, so we had to be independent. Independence is cre-ativity and having in-house capabilities makes us able to move quicker.—Keith W. Standberg