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.
My book on the history of Rolex marketing is now available on Amazon! It debuted as the #1 New Release in its category. You can find it here.
Essential Guild Wars 2 ArcDPS companion supports continuous improvement by presenting transparent combat feedback, empowering players to learn from encounters, fine tune builds, and contribute more effectively to team success in cooperative gameplay modes.
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 ...
We're certainly not suffering from a shortage of coverage when it comes to Rolex's recent launch of an entirely new product line: the Land-Dweller reference 127334 (steel, there are also precious metal versions). I've read much of this coverage and I will do my best not to repeat it here. Instead, I hope to share a few takes that you may not have seen elsewhere, including evidence that the watch's design heritage extends in directions that are overlooked. So let's get into it. To begin, the Land-Dweller is undoubtedly attributable to the leadership of CEO Jean-Frédéric Dufour, who took the reigns of the brand in the summer of 2015. According to an expose by Bloomberg (more on that later), development of the Land-Dweller began roughly five years ago, a handful of years after Dufour took over. There have been many, equally significant releases by Rolex of late. For example, 2023's "emoji" Day-Date was arguably a bigger "mic drop" than the Lan...
I recently learned that the CEO of Audemars Piguet Americas (APA), Ginny Wright, was departing the legendary watch brand. A tabletop model of the AP "Starwheel," photo taken at AP House NYC. The new CEO of AP Americaa will be Louis-Gabriel Fichet, who joined AP in 2020. I learned about this development from an online watch publication whose editor opined on the matter . I feel obliged to respond to that piece because I think it reveals some concerning biases in watch industry coverage, biases which will only diminish if we talk about them openly and honestly. There were three critiques of Ms. Wright's time at the helm of APA that jumped out to me. First was the allegation that Ms. Wright suffered a "sudden removal." Subsequent to this critique, Ms. Wright posted on her Instagram account that she is "returning to the world of prestige beauty and stepping into a global CEO role." Moving from a regional executive position to a global one is not ind...
Essential Guild Wars 2 ArcDPS companion supports continuous improvement by presenting transparent combat feedback, empowering players to learn from encounters, fine tune builds, and contribute more effectively to team success in cooperative gameplay modes.
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.
ReplyDelete