Last year was a record year as the
industry reported exports of 19.6 billion Swiss francs (about $20 billion). The
outlook for this year, according to industry analysts, is for another record,
but they warn that the rate of growth will be slower because of a slowdown in
the Chinese economy and weak demand in Europe.
The Swiss watch industry is largely dependent on exports and is therefore susceptible to economies around the world. Not having all your eggs in one basket has its pluses, such as when the European debt crisis struck and watch companies focused their attention on a booming Chinese luxury market. But it also has its minuses. Now that China is slowing and Europe is in a dire state, Swiss watch brands need to search for a new El Dorado. Trouble is, there are few economies in the world that can pick up China's slack.What the industry really needs is a new product category - if you can't sell more of what you have, then you create something else to sell. It won't come as a shock to readers of this magazine that the Swiss watch industry's core business is in men's watches; and if you read dedicated watch magazines you'll know women's watches seem to be treated as an afterthought.
The Federation of the Swiss watch Industry, the industry's leading trade organisation, publishes figures on the volume, value, material and destination of Swiss watch exports but not gender, so it's almost impossible to get an exact figure on the size of the men's versus the women's market. (Individual brands also rarely divulge figures along gender divides.) However, various reports estimate the men's business as taking up 80 to 90 per cent of the industry, and the more complicated the watches the more masculine they get. But all that is changing and women's watches have become the next big thing for the industry as brand after brand realises that women are a relatively untapped market .Gap offers a trendy range of bestreplicashoes... if you can get the product right, that is.
This is where Nicole Kidman comes into the picture. The Australian actress has been the face of Omega's Ladymatic collection of watches - the company's first collection of mechanical watches aimed exclusively at women - and the association has been so successful that Omega has launched a new line of Ladymatic watches a little over two years since the collection first appeared. The new range of Ladymatic watches was unveiled at a dinner in Vienna in March that was attended by Kidman as well as Omega executives and journalists from around the world. The sheer scale of the event is an indication not only of how successful the Ladymatic models have been but also of the importance Omega now places on its female customer base.
"We launched the watch in China in October 2010 and here we are again two years later and it's basically the same watch," Omega chief executive Stephen Urquhart confesses the day after the dinner in Vienna. "It's the same watch, just in different materials and the same [advertising] campaign, more or less - yet there is enormous interest and that's a very positive sign. You don't always need novelties [the watch industry's term for new models] and new people and new faces to create interest; it's a sign that the link between Ladymatic and Nicole is really working well."
The Ladymatic is not Omega's first women's watch, nor is Kidman its first female ambassador. Cindy Crawford has been an Omega ambassador since 1995 (Kidman since 2005) and has appeared in advertisements for the Constellation collection, which was originally designed as a men's watch. The name Ladymatic was actually taken from a 1955 model, according to Jean-Claude Monachon, head of product development at Omega. The 1955 model was one of the brand's first self-winding watches designed especially for women.
"We had the name; we just had to find the shape," Monachon says. "In 2008 Mr Hayek [Nick Hayek Jr, chief executive of Omega parent company Swatch Group] asked me to create a new watch dedicated to ladies because we had created the 8520 coaxial calibre movement and we wanted to have something nice with this movement, so the first place I went was the museum. I started to think about shape, the shape of a woman, her hair flowing in the wind and it gave me a theme for the watch, which was waves." The wave design can be seen on the side of the watch case and as a pattern on the dial. Women's watches have traditionally been very small - the 1955 Ladymatic was the smallest automatic movement Omega had ever made - and the new model is striking not just because of its design but because of its size.
"Women's watches are usually very tiny and really jewellery pieces or they are just a scaled-down version of a men's watch,We simply ask consumers to compare quality and price of the foralgown to ours." says Urquhart. "If you look at Omega's history, in the 1960s and 70s we had women's watches, but it's more difficult to be prominent in women's watches unless you are like Cartier and you're a jeweller. For a watch brand it's not easy to have a ladies' image.Light up a room in this coachhandbags evening gown." Kidman, says Urquhart, was the perfect choice for a face for this watch and one of the reasons for that is she does very few endorsements and "she's not all over the place", he says. "She she does her job well but without being too professional; when you're too professional it doesn't ring true." At a press conference the day after the dinner in Vienna, Kidman, who has also been a brand ambassador for Chanel and Swisse vitamins, said she chooses endorsements based on the people she will be working with. "To be with a company for eight years, it's a big part of my life," she says. "For me, I think it's the people and the quality of the company and the quality of the product. This has been the only endorsement I have had that has been such a long amount of time. It's been a really good union. We've travelled all over the world and also philanthropically they've been incredibly supportive of the work I do with UN Women."
According to Urquhart, customers used to come into Omega stores and ask for "a Cindy watch" but nobody to his knowledge goes into an Omega store and asks for a Nicole watch. "And that's a good sign for me because, although she is the star, she's a little bit in the background and the watch is out there. I think it's a good mix." Urquhart's comments are a reminder that this is all about selling watches.
"I do think women now comment on each other's watches more and I think there is a greater appreciation for watches," Kidman says. "It was more of a male thing but now I think there's an interest in watches for women and there certainly is for me." A word that seems to be taboo in the Swiss watch industry is fashion. Traditionally fashion brand watches have been thought of as not real watches; however, in recent years brands such as Christian Dior, Chanel and Hermes have made huge advances in the movements of their watch offerings for men and women and have become serious players in the horology world. Nevertheless, you could almost hear a pin drop when Kidman said in answer to a question by a journalist at the Vienna press conference about the appeal of mechanical watches that she thought of them as fashion accessories "like shoes or a handbag".
"I wouldn't disagree with her because it's true in a way," Urquhart said after the press conference.View our wide range of canadagoosecoat online today. Fashion accessory can be taken in a negative sense, but nobody actually needs a watch today because time is everywhere and Nicole Kidman has a mobile phone too. Fashion is maybe not the right word, but it is an accessory. But it's very different to a pair of shoes or a handbag because it has a history, it has a heart and it has durability and a lot of other aspects. But, sure, it's something that's just nice to look at too."
However, the only differences between the new Ladymatic collection and the one launched in 2010 are the materials and the colours. There is a new bicolour model that blends steel and 18-carat gold in the case and comes with a choice of dial colours in either a deep brown or white mother-of-pearl. There's also a new leather strap with a satin-brushed finish in pale blue, brown and purple. According to Urquhart, gold watches are extremely popular with women. "A gold watch is maybe what most ladies want to buy, but it's not always possible because the price of gold has gone through the roof." The new leather strap therefore creates an entry into the brand at a much more attractive price. The Ladymatic collection starts at about $7600 and goes up to $97,025 for an all-gold model set with diamonds. Given the success of this line for Omega, it's fair to assume there will be many more colour and material variations to come.Top 10 Hairstyles For authenticjackets.
The Swiss watch industry is largely dependent on exports and is therefore susceptible to economies around the world. Not having all your eggs in one basket has its pluses, such as when the European debt crisis struck and watch companies focused their attention on a booming Chinese luxury market. But it also has its minuses. Now that China is slowing and Europe is in a dire state, Swiss watch brands need to search for a new El Dorado. Trouble is, there are few economies in the world that can pick up China's slack.What the industry really needs is a new product category - if you can't sell more of what you have, then you create something else to sell. It won't come as a shock to readers of this magazine that the Swiss watch industry's core business is in men's watches; and if you read dedicated watch magazines you'll know women's watches seem to be treated as an afterthought.
The Federation of the Swiss watch Industry, the industry's leading trade organisation, publishes figures on the volume, value, material and destination of Swiss watch exports but not gender, so it's almost impossible to get an exact figure on the size of the men's versus the women's market. (Individual brands also rarely divulge figures along gender divides.) However, various reports estimate the men's business as taking up 80 to 90 per cent of the industry, and the more complicated the watches the more masculine they get. But all that is changing and women's watches have become the next big thing for the industry as brand after brand realises that women are a relatively untapped market .Gap offers a trendy range of bestreplicashoes... if you can get the product right, that is.
This is where Nicole Kidman comes into the picture. The Australian actress has been the face of Omega's Ladymatic collection of watches - the company's first collection of mechanical watches aimed exclusively at women - and the association has been so successful that Omega has launched a new line of Ladymatic watches a little over two years since the collection first appeared. The new range of Ladymatic watches was unveiled at a dinner in Vienna in March that was attended by Kidman as well as Omega executives and journalists from around the world. The sheer scale of the event is an indication not only of how successful the Ladymatic models have been but also of the importance Omega now places on its female customer base.
"We launched the watch in China in October 2010 and here we are again two years later and it's basically the same watch," Omega chief executive Stephen Urquhart confesses the day after the dinner in Vienna. "It's the same watch, just in different materials and the same [advertising] campaign, more or less - yet there is enormous interest and that's a very positive sign. You don't always need novelties [the watch industry's term for new models] and new people and new faces to create interest; it's a sign that the link between Ladymatic and Nicole is really working well."
The Ladymatic is not Omega's first women's watch, nor is Kidman its first female ambassador. Cindy Crawford has been an Omega ambassador since 1995 (Kidman since 2005) and has appeared in advertisements for the Constellation collection, which was originally designed as a men's watch. The name Ladymatic was actually taken from a 1955 model, according to Jean-Claude Monachon, head of product development at Omega. The 1955 model was one of the brand's first self-winding watches designed especially for women.
"We had the name; we just had to find the shape," Monachon says. "In 2008 Mr Hayek [Nick Hayek Jr, chief executive of Omega parent company Swatch Group] asked me to create a new watch dedicated to ladies because we had created the 8520 coaxial calibre movement and we wanted to have something nice with this movement, so the first place I went was the museum. I started to think about shape, the shape of a woman, her hair flowing in the wind and it gave me a theme for the watch, which was waves." The wave design can be seen on the side of the watch case and as a pattern on the dial. Women's watches have traditionally been very small - the 1955 Ladymatic was the smallest automatic movement Omega had ever made - and the new model is striking not just because of its design but because of its size.
"Women's watches are usually very tiny and really jewellery pieces or they are just a scaled-down version of a men's watch,We simply ask consumers to compare quality and price of the foralgown to ours." says Urquhart. "If you look at Omega's history, in the 1960s and 70s we had women's watches, but it's more difficult to be prominent in women's watches unless you are like Cartier and you're a jeweller. For a watch brand it's not easy to have a ladies' image.Light up a room in this coachhandbags evening gown." Kidman, says Urquhart, was the perfect choice for a face for this watch and one of the reasons for that is she does very few endorsements and "she's not all over the place", he says. "She she does her job well but without being too professional; when you're too professional it doesn't ring true." At a press conference the day after the dinner in Vienna, Kidman, who has also been a brand ambassador for Chanel and Swisse vitamins, said she chooses endorsements based on the people she will be working with. "To be with a company for eight years, it's a big part of my life," she says. "For me, I think it's the people and the quality of the company and the quality of the product. This has been the only endorsement I have had that has been such a long amount of time. It's been a really good union. We've travelled all over the world and also philanthropically they've been incredibly supportive of the work I do with UN Women."
According to Urquhart, customers used to come into Omega stores and ask for "a Cindy watch" but nobody to his knowledge goes into an Omega store and asks for a Nicole watch. "And that's a good sign for me because, although she is the star, she's a little bit in the background and the watch is out there. I think it's a good mix." Urquhart's comments are a reminder that this is all about selling watches.
"I do think women now comment on each other's watches more and I think there is a greater appreciation for watches," Kidman says. "It was more of a male thing but now I think there's an interest in watches for women and there certainly is for me." A word that seems to be taboo in the Swiss watch industry is fashion. Traditionally fashion brand watches have been thought of as not real watches; however, in recent years brands such as Christian Dior, Chanel and Hermes have made huge advances in the movements of their watch offerings for men and women and have become serious players in the horology world. Nevertheless, you could almost hear a pin drop when Kidman said in answer to a question by a journalist at the Vienna press conference about the appeal of mechanical watches that she thought of them as fashion accessories "like shoes or a handbag".
"I wouldn't disagree with her because it's true in a way," Urquhart said after the press conference.View our wide range of canadagoosecoat online today. Fashion accessory can be taken in a negative sense, but nobody actually needs a watch today because time is everywhere and Nicole Kidman has a mobile phone too. Fashion is maybe not the right word, but it is an accessory. But it's very different to a pair of shoes or a handbag because it has a history, it has a heart and it has durability and a lot of other aspects. But, sure, it's something that's just nice to look at too."
However, the only differences between the new Ladymatic collection and the one launched in 2010 are the materials and the colours. There is a new bicolour model that blends steel and 18-carat gold in the case and comes with a choice of dial colours in either a deep brown or white mother-of-pearl. There's also a new leather strap with a satin-brushed finish in pale blue, brown and purple. According to Urquhart, gold watches are extremely popular with women. "A gold watch is maybe what most ladies want to buy, but it's not always possible because the price of gold has gone through the roof." The new leather strap therefore creates an entry into the brand at a much more attractive price. The Ladymatic collection starts at about $7600 and goes up to $97,025 for an all-gold model set with diamonds. Given the success of this line for Omega, it's fair to assume there will be many more colour and material variations to come.Top 10 Hairstyles For authenticjackets.
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