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March of the Mechanicals
“The big story is mechanicals”
That's how Francie Abrams, Bulova Corp. senior vice president and chief marketing officer, describes the watchmaker's major focus this fall in the mid-price U.S. watch market. Her comment was echoed by executives of other mid-range and upscale watch brands, as well as popular-price brands, at this year's trade shows.
The surge in mechanical watches—mostly self-winding “automatics”—is spreading from upscale watches to more affordable brands. Armitron, for example, produced and sold some 60,000 automatic watches between October and May. Its men's versions ($78 and $98) were featured in Wal-Mart's Father's Day 2008 marketing, while AK Anne Klein has added an entire line of 29 mm women's automatic skeleton watches.
Upscale Maurice Lacroix is “developing more and more into a mechanical brand,” says chief executive officer Philippe C. Merk, while Cyma is adding self-winding models to each quartz line it updates, says Florin Niculescu, Cyma USA's president. Bertolucci will “add more mechanicals, as we get back to our traditions,” says Philippe Belais, its president and CEO. Upscale Swiss-made Mido (part of the Swatch Group), whose watches are 70 percent automatic, is relaunching in the U.S. market after a long hiatus.
Asian watchmakers also are bringing mechanicals to the U.S. market. Japan's Seiko is “bringing the very best mechanical watches to the market [in Europe and America], as it has for decades in Asia,” says Shinji Hattori, president of Seiko Watch Co. Orient Watch Co., which produces 2 million watches annually ($100 to $900 retail), launched in the U.S. market at The JCK Show ~ Las Vegas, seeking independent jewelers.
The growth of the mechanical watch business is spurred in large part by consumers' fascination with the mechanisms. “People are attracted to the craftsmanship of mechanical watches and the mechanism of their movements,” says Lawrence Rubin, president of the luxury brands Martin Braun USA and Meyers USA. “It's something they can see operating and it's not something plastic. It's like having a Ferrari car instead of a Yugo.” As Alan Grunwald, president of Belair, a leading private label watchmaker, put it, “People want something interesting on their wrist to look at.”
That may be why so many automatics have exhibition backs or are skeleton watches, like Orient's semi-skeleton watches (with partial views of the movements through the dial) or Kriëger's hand-wound Skeleton Skeleton, which has an image of a skull, with ruby eyes, on its rotor. Also notable: U.S. brand Android's Mystique diamond watches whose Myiota mechanical movement “floats” in the center of a patented clear, see-through face and back.
Bulova's Abraham offers another reason. “For some consumers under 40, born after the start of quartz watches in the 1970s, mechanicals are a new technology.”
Many consumers like “the green angle,” says Drew Borrello, vice president, product development for E. Gluck Corp. (parent of Armitron and AK Anne Klein). “They appreciate that automatics are self-winding, with no mercury batteries to dispose of, and see them as eco-friendly.” Japan's Orient Watch has a word for this union of traditional horology and consumers' interests: “Retro-Future” (also the name of one of its lines.)
Price is also a factor, at least for buyers of less-expensive automatics. “In this economy and considering prices of more-expensive [mechanical] watches, they're attracted to the value, quality, and style” of more affordable ones, says Borrello. Mark Kim, managing officer of Purtime, U.S. distributor of Orient watches, says, “There's a niche out there for consumers who want an affordable, sophisticated watch but can't afford to spend thousands of dollars.”
Source: JCK Magazine; November 2008 Issue; by William George Shuster
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