Of late it appears that the Kering group is steadly withdrawing resources from watchmaking.
Gucci's watchmaking office in Switzerland. Source: Google Earth. Kering owns Gucci and a number of other brands. In January of 2022, word broke that Kering had jettisoned Ulysse Nardin and Girard-Perregaux. Management acquired ownership and has been operating the brands since then (unless there was another, subsequent, private party sale of ownership stakes).
The most recent step on the path to a reduction in Kering's watchmaking footprint appears to involve Gucci Watchmaking. News broke last week that Gucci's watchmaking office in Cortaillod, Switzerland has notified the trade union for watchmaking that the brand would like to dismiss 25 employees. The brand and the union have started negotiations regarding the possible layoffs.
Such steps are usually the last that a business will take, typically only under the most challenging and fraught financial circumstances. As I wrote not long ago, Switzerland offers a program in which the government will cover part of an employee's pay while a business temporarily reduces their hours of work and the amount that the business pays. This program, RHT, does have a limit on how long an employee can collect supplementary pay. Once that limit is reached, a business may begin looking at termination of employment.
In my prior post on RHT, I discussed the possibility that many watch industry employees may be towards the end of their RHT benefit. It remains to be seen if Gucci's watchmaking division is just the "leading edge" of more layoffs that will spread to other brands as additional employees reach the end of the RHT benefit. Even under such circumstances, there are still ways to avoid these layoffs, though, which includes a lengthening of the RHT benefit's eligibility period.
It isn't necessarily the case that Gucci's struggles are emblematic of common challenges throughout the watchmaking industry. Howeover, the brand is certainly a player in advanced watchmaking. Take, for example, the 25H Minute Repeater, a timepiece with two of the more advanced complications in high horology (a tourbillon and a minute repeater). One of the bigger risks in going down the road of layoffs is that the skilled craftspeople who can create such timepieces may shift to other industries, resulting in a longer-run shortage in the supply of watchmaking skills. Hopefully, a change in government policy or sales would avoid that kind of thing. We will undoubtedly learn more in coming months.
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Gucci is navigating a massive identity transition under Sabato De Sarno, balancing historical luxury with modern minimalism. This intense pressure to perform reminds me of a stressed student wishing to pay someone to take my class for me just to get breathing room. Turbulent or not, luxury moves in cycles.
Last week, Icebox / Swiss Watches GA, a third party retailer of pre-owned watches, officially acknowledged receipt of a lawsuit filed by Rolex USA in the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia - Atlanta Division. A screenshot of the Icebox / Swiss Watches GA retail location Source: Rolex's legal filing. The cause of action for Rolex's lawsuit against Icebox / Swiss Watches GA is "Trademark Counterfeiting, Trademark Infringement, False Advertising, Designation of Origin, Descriptions, Representations, and Unfair Competition." I've previously covered lawsuits of this sort filed by Rolex against independent retailers who sell modified watches. But this one is an order of magnitude different. Icebox / Swiss Watches GA has some very high-profile clientele. For example, a YouTube video from five years ago entitled "Post Malone Buys Rolex For 21 Savage & Autographs A Bugatti!" has over seven million views (the video content is pretty ...
This may not come as a surprise, but I do not read German-language newspapers on a regular basis. Dial of a vintage Omega Constellation, pie pan. I am, however, keenly interested in a scandal involving the Swatch Group and a "Frankenwatch" Speedmaster which was sold at auction a while back for over $3 million. I won't go into all the minute details here, but the punchline is that Swatch Group bought the watch only to discover that some of its own employees may have been part of a conspiracy to assemble a watch which would be quite rare and important if it were authentic. But, apparently, it was not authentic. When the deception was uncovered, various people who were part of the "inside job" lost employment and, reportedly, legal authorities were notified in Switzerland. I originally wrote about this in 2023, you can read my coverage here . There's been excellent reporting on this matter from many sources (see, for example, this story from Bloomberg). ...
Today, I received a dispatch direct from Le Brassus, aka global headquarters for Audemars Piguet. The email cautions collectors that fraudsters are targeting clients of AP and other brands with potentially bad consequences. In the interest of collector protection, and as a bit of "public service," I'm copying the main body of the AP email below. Be careful out there, always check email headers and double-check with your known contacts at any brands before wiring money, for example: "Cybercriminals are trying to scam customers in every industry and watchmaking makes no exception. At Audemars Piguet we want to be sure that our trusted community is well protected against cyber- criminal exploits. Recently, threat actors have been using spoofing techniques to send fraudulent emails pretending to come from trusted brands, such as ours, in an attempt to deceive individuals into disclosing sensitive information, making payment to illegitimate accounts or engaging in fra...
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ReplyDeleteGucci is navigating a massive identity transition under Sabato De Sarno, balancing historical luxury with modern minimalism. This intense pressure to perform reminds me of a stressed student wishing to pay someone to take my class for me just to get breathing room. Turbulent or not, luxury moves in cycles.
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