This year, watch companies will have to meet stricter requirements to label their watches “Swiss Made”. Here’s what it means and how much it matters.
This year, watch companies will have to meet stricter requirements to label their watches “Swiss Made”. Here’s what it means and how much it matters.
At this year’s Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH) watch fair in Geneva, several interesting new spins on watch-case materials were introduced: Richard Mille’s ultra-light carbon-based graphene; Audemars Piguet’s hammered Frosted Gold… and H. Moser’s cheese.
Yes, that’s right. One of the key highlights for the independent luxury watchmaker was the Swiss Mad, a watch made from a composite containing Swiss cheese. And not just any cheese, but Vacherin Mont d’Or, which comes from the same village as H. Moser CEO Edouard Meylan. It also has a cowhide strap. The watch’s raison d’etre: To make a satirical statement against the criteria that companies have to meet in order to label their watches as “Swiss Made”.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Why does Swissness matter? The actual name of a Bill passed in 2013 to protect products of Swiss origin, the term is more than a matter of semantics – it’s big business. Studies have shown that people are willing to pay more for watches from the Alpine nation. While figures vary, a 2016 survey by the University of St Gallen found that respondents were willing to pay up to 100 per cent more for a Swiss luxury watch, as compared to one with no known origin. That’s a lot of Swiss francs.
This positive perception is affirmed by local watch collector and jewellery trader Christopher Yeo, who owns pieces by top Swiss brands such as Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe and Rolex. Says Yeo: “To me, the term Swiss-made means prestige, quality, reliability and technical know-how. When a watch is made in Switzerland, I believe it bears a degree of technical quality that only a few countries are capable of achieving.”
Today, a watch can be considered Swiss-made if its movement is Swiss, its movement is cased up in Switzerland, and final inspection is carried out in Switzerland. It is the definition of what constitutes under scrutiny, and allows plenty of room for manoeuvring: At least 60 per cent of its value – excluding the cost of assembly – must be of Swiss origin, and it must have been assembled and inspected by the manufacturer in Switzerland.
SMOKE AND MIRRORS
While most Swiss high-end watches easily meet the requirements – almost all the parts in H. Moser and MB&F timepieces, for instance, have native origins – entry-level and midpriced watch brands have come under fire for playing fast and loose with the regulations. One way that companies can get around the rules and use largely cheaper parts from Asia, yet easily hit the 60 per cent value requirement, is to include a handful of Swiss-made components, such as balance wheels and springs. This is simply because of the extremely high costs of production in Switzerland.
Dismissing the new regulations, the founder of high-end independent brand MB&F, Max Busser, says: “It doesn’t change anything. Whatever the percentage, you can always find a way around it because production in Switzerland costs so much. Between the machines and employees, producing a part in Switzerland will cost you between $180 and $200 per hour. It’s insane.”
BEYOND BORDERS
For some industry watchers, however, “Swiss Made”, while a typically recognisable mark of quality, is far from everything when it comes to haute horlogerie. Firstly, while the Swiss dominate the fine-watch industry, a few other watch making centres – most notably in Germany and Japan – have emerged (see sidebar: Beyond Borders). Their products are as respected by connoisseurs as any ticker crafted in Switzerland.
Locally based collector Steven Krisman, whose collection includes Swiss brands such as MB&F, as well as Glashutte Original (Germany) and Grand Seiko (Japan), points out: “Grand Seiko, which is Japanese, is no less inferior to Swiss or German watches in terms of finishing and finesse. It does not matter to me where a watch is made, just like it would not change my appreciation of the Las Meninas (by Diego Velazquez), if it had been painted by a non-Spaniard.”
The best watches in my book would require components from outside Switzerland – I would prefer, say, the lapis lazuli on a dial to be from Afghanistan, a black mother-of-pearl dial from Tahiti, or alligator straps from the United States, and so on.” Top watchmakers do not disagree.
A fully curved bezel that appears to float around the spherical inner case, it was “a pretty big nightmare” to create, says Busser. Each bezel was engraved with five-axis lasers, filled with titanium and polished. He says: “The HM7 is fully made in Switzerland except for the bezel, because we couldn’t find anybody in Switzerland who could make it.”
He reveals that the bezels for the watch, which will be made in a limited run of 50 pieces this year, were made in South Korea by a large company specialising in high-end ceramics. With a laugh, he says: “But we didn’t save on any expenses, for sure. It was much more expensive doing it there than it would have cost in Switzerland. We had to go back and forth four times, and we made it do I-don’t-know-how many prototypes and tests. It is a gigantic company, and we broke its stamps, just for 50 bezels.”
To Busser, at the end of the day, the issue that all watch lovers should be concerned with is not the “Swiss Made” label per se, but transparency. He says: “When you have an MB&F, we give you the name and details of every person who has worked on your piece. You can see all their profiles on our website.”
