Luxury watchmaking in Italy

Rome

Paolo De Vecchi - It is fortunate that for some time now the concept of luxury watchmaking has begun to be rather better defined in Italy. This change has been all the more significant for the sector since Italy is a very important market.

Paolo De Vecchi

It is fortunate that for some time now the concept of luxury watchmaking has begun to be rather better defined in Italy. This change has been all the more significant for the sector since Italy is a very important market for the branch, not so much for quantity - although for many years the country has been one of the leading consumers in the world of imported Swiss watches, including top quality time keepers, after the United States, Hong Kong and Japan - but in particular because the transalpine market is considered to be an international reference with regard to trends and styles, thanks to the body of critics.

Italy has been considered to be a test market

The heads of the leading watchmaking Houses readily acknowledge that for more than two decades Italy has been considered to be a test market for the launch of new products. The products best liked by enthusiasts and the professionals in the sector subsequently have a genuine chance of success at international level which is perhaps synonymous with significant sales. The merit for this lies in good taste and style allied to a rock-solid knowledge of watchmaking that the descendants of classical culture and the Renaissance and the legatees of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael are clearly able to claim, just like the lovers of good cuisine or those who export red Ferraris, the Armani brand and contemporary design: these are all qualities that are acknowledged world-wide to be Italian. Good taste, style and skill, not forgetting the much-vaunted readiness of Italians to spend their money, are factors that are at the forefront of the choice that precedes the purchase of a watch which connoisseurs now attribute to the luxury segment.

Recently and since the great confusion of the Nineties when it was enough for a watch to be expensive, as was typically the case for highly complicated pieces, for it to be sought after by the great collectors, the direction taken by the various segments of the market has become very much clearer. The decade of the Nineties was followed by a time of immobility, with the emerging markets taking in everything that was no longer being purchased in Italy. Now it is noted that the desire to invest in luxury watchmaking has returned, money and passion oblige, with investments in assets considered to be as promising as contemporary art, vintage cars and the great vintages. This desire has returned essentially through more detailed definition, encouraged by the watchmaking press and the increasing number of specialist publications and by the interest generated by top level professionals such as Franco Cologni, to name but him. In the first place a clear distinction has been created between top quality watches and luxury watches, two categories which until recently were confused, to the detriment of both.

Origins are irreproachable

For Italian enthusiasts, it now appears clear that top quality must be provided strictly by mechanical movements, if possible manufactured (but this message becomes opaque et complicated, especially because of the Swiss watchmaking industry’s habit of using top quality sizes that they do not produce themselves) using noble or high technology materials, by a system of production that, in spite of the use of highly advanced methods, includes a large proportion of artisanal work, by aesthetic or mechanical projects that are original and by the inclusion of historic or new brands whose origins are irreproachable.

It must also be said that luxury watchmaking no longer classifies a product alone but also all of the culture that surrounds it, a fact partly rediscovered by enthusiasts who have given fresh impetus to the sector and created subjective frontiers. Let us now leave the domain of the subjective to highlight a fact acknowledged by collectors and the professionals of the branch: it is not so much a brand that can be defined as being part of the world of luxury watchmaking but rather each of its lines of products. An immutable principle. ■

Print
Ad a comment
Send to a friend

Articles from this issue

Hot off the press...

Advertising