How to Bring Back a Beloved Watchmaker: The Resurrection of Universal Genève
(Bloomberg) — If you want to start a watch brand, you have three choices, says Breitling SA Chief Executive Officer Georges Kern: You can begin from scratch with a totally new name and identity; you can buy a struggling brand and try to solve its problems; or you can find a defunct one with a great history but no contemporary baggage.
According to Kern, the first two are terrible options.
“Let’s be realistic. I know one brand out of the top 30 watchmakers which started from zero which ended up successful. I can give you hundreds which start from zero and which are all unsuccessful,” he says. You need preexisting collector enthusiasm to win in the market, Kern explains, and “you need a story.”
Want to get the latest watch news delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the Bloomberg Pursuits Watch Club to get access to our newsletter and exclusive events. Buying an existing brand that’s limping along is no good either, because engineering a turnaround can require quite a bit of time and money to fix flaws you didn’t create. Which leaves the final option — brand resurrection.
“It’s much, much easier to start with a white piece of paper, but with an incredible history,” Kern says. That’s why, when he wanted to expand the footprint of his technical chronograph-specialist Breitling and provide consumers with watches at a wider array of price points, he sought out two defunct Swiss manufactures to create House of Brands, a new portfolio company. Gallet will relaunch in September, and Universal Genève unveiled its products to the world today. Kern is the CEO of each.
Originally founded in 1894 in Le Locle, Switzerland, by watchmakers Numa-Émile Descombes and Ulysse-Georges Perret, Universal Genève became known through the art deco and midcentury modern periods as a design-forward purveyor of well-made, affordable watches. Its timepieces were worn by celebrities from rocker Eric Clapton to model Nina Rindt to actor Bruce Lee. But after an acquisition by a Hong Kong-based parent company in 1989, the brand began to fade and ultimately went dormant.
Over the last decade or so, its historical pieces have become darlings of watch collectors.
“Universal Genève has serious street cred, horologically speaking,” says James Lamdin, founder of vintage emporium Analog/Shift and vice president of vintage and pre-owned at Watches of Switzerland Group Plc. “It was one of the major powerhouses for R&D and for complications in manufacturing in the prewar era and then into the 1960s. UG had calibers that were built in-house, they used the best minds of the era, and they also had interesting, storied collaborations.”
In order to revive the brand faithfully, Kern said he assembled an advisory group of about 25 fervent collectors and industry insiders. “What I found out is that the Patek and Rolex collectors are also Universal collectors,” he says. “At our first meeting in Geneva, I said, ‘Guys, don’t tell me what I should do, tell me what not to do. What are the mistakes or the crimes we could do when relaunching the brand, which would undermine authenticity?’ ”
One of the main things he heard was not to make the watches bigger, since a big part of their vintage appeal is their tidy size — and as a result only a few of the new cases are above 40mm in diameter.
It took about three years to bring this from idea to execution — a short time to conceive, design, and create so many watches. It took Rolex five years to develop its Land-Dweller watch alone, for example, and it took Patek Philippe almost as long to create the Cubitus. But by starting a new brand and building on existing movements from another manufacture, Kern could move nimbly. He says no additional investment was made by the private equity firms that own the majority of Breitling to expand the group and build out Gallet and UG. (The two firms, Partners Group and CVC, in February slashed their valuations of Breitling as the market has softened over the past two years, according to the Financial Times.)
When this whole idea started, “my colleagues from our private equity said, ‘Can we do an IPO? Or do we sell to a group or to another fund?’ ” Kern says. “I said, ‘With the House of Brands having three different price points, it’s much more powerful than being only in one brand.’ ”
When it relaunches in the fall, Gallet will offer aviation-inspired timepieces between 2,500 Swiss francs and 5,500 Swiss francs (about $3,140 to $6,900). Breitling will continue to sell watches from 5,500 Swiss francs up to 30,000 Swiss francs . And UG will generally start around 15,000 Swiss francs and go up to the six figures.
“In the first year we will produce a very limited number of UG pieces,” Kern says. “But then we are going to have road shows. We are going to travel with the collections again.”
Meet the New Watches
UG’s most well-known historical models are the Compax, a distinctive chronograph from 1936 with three subdials, and the Polerouter, an antimagnetic, three-hand dress watch designed for Scandinavian Airlines System by watchmaking legend Gérald Genta in 1954, when he was just 23 years old. (Genta went on to design some of horology’s most famous watches, including the Patek Philippe Nautilus and the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak.) Both have been revived in the new UG, in families with a range of metals and colors.
Related: It Can Be Surprisingly Affordable to Own a Watch Designed by a Legend The name “Polerouter” derives from the concept of the North Pole aviation route. “That watch was meant to commemorate the ability to get to Europe or back by flying over the pole instead of around it. It’s a very romantic notion — going over the top of the world,” explains Lamdin. Since SAS pilots would be flying over the pole often, where the Earth’s magnetic pull is strongest, UG designed the watch to be antimagnetic and gave it to them to wear. “That kind of thing captures the imagination of vintage collectors in a big way.”
The Polerouter was a simple three-hand watch with distinctive twisted lugs. New iterations will be offered in steel, with a leather strap or a brick-style metal bracelet for 14,000 Swiss francs to 16,000 Swiss francs. There are also precious metal versions with semiprecious stone dials, some with diamonds on the bezel, that range from 32,000 Swiss francs to 66,100 Swiss francs. Case sizes are modest — either 37mm or 39mm across.
The new Compax models, with their panda chronograph dial arrangements, will come in steel or rose gold and measure 39.5mm across the case. Like the Polerouter models, they are automatic and wound by a microrotor — a smaller version of the swiveling device that powers most self-winding watches. Microrotors are viewed as valuable by collectors because they don’t have to sit on top of the entire movement, the way a normal rotor does, which allows the watches to be slimmer. Integrating the microrotor with the chronograph and a 72-hour power reserve, the Compaxes will range in price from 15,500 Swiss francs to 39,900 Swiss francs.
The new UG collection also revives the Cabriolet, a rectangular timepiece based on a patent from 1933 that was one of the first revolving watches. Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Reverso from 1931 is the most famous watch on the market with a swiveling face, and it remains an icon today; UG only made a small number of Cabriolets, and most of them are lost.
“The Cabriolet is going to be the most important watch they make,” predicts Lamdin. “Because that watch in the history of UG is probably one of the least known. I didn’t know about that watch. Nobody knows about that watch.”
Prices of the new models, which have art deco-inspired numerals and have the option for an unusual checkerboard bracelet, will range from9,800 Swiss francs to 51,000 Swiss francs.
Universal Genève will also produce a series of bangle-style watches called the “Disco Mini,” with wide, round faces. These will appeal to collectors who wear small watches like jewelry, in the vein of Cartier’s popular Baignoires. Prices will range from 16,000 Swiss francs to 46,500 Swiss francs. And there will be even pricier bespoke and limited edition models on offer eventually.
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