Bvlgari is ready to accelerate in crafting men’s watches
Bvlgari men’s watches
A year after introducing the thinnest tourbillon, Bvlgari Octo Finissimo Tourbillon, which houses the brand’s first ever in-house movement, Bvlgari marks its technical capacity to support further development of men’s watches, despite millions of revenue from its renowned ladies’ pieces, said Guido Terreni, the Managing Director of Bvlgari Horologerie
In his recent visit to Dubai, Guido Terreni, the man who is responsible for more than 300 people that build the Bulgari Horlogerie, and who takes charge of the global watch strategy of the brand, starting from the setting of the product creation that includes the concept, the design and the product development, to the industrial pool of the watch activities, which includes movements, dials, cases and bracelets manufacturing, sat with “Day & Night” magazine to shed light on the present concerns of the luxury watch department and the future of the Bvlgari’s watchmaking including its venture to smart watch category.
Why have been the names of Gérald Genta and Daniel Roth removed from your pieces?
The two remarkable brands have a following in a small community of watch aficionados. We believe in the outstanding savoir faire that these watchmakers were known for that is why we created a tribute to them by putting their names on the dials of the commemorative pieces. However, we encountered difficulty in explaining to the customers who found it quite confusing. So, we decided to produce the new pieces without the names of the watchmakers, which I believe is encompassing since a Daniel Roth watch is actually a Bvlgari watch.
What are the know-hows that Bvlgari gained from purchasing the said two iconic brands?
The purchase was made in year 2000 when we at Bvlgari were simply designers, liners and assemblers in watchmaking. Most of the components we used were outsourced then. With the arrival of Daniel Roth and Gérald Genta as independent brands to the company, we integrated their culture to our way of doing things. The said watchmakers were exposed to interesting suppliers, and so we were also led to them including the dial makers as well as the bracelet maker. Now, we have our own dial maker as well as with the case maker, and almost 72% of my tasks are being done in our manufacture in Le Sentier. However, we move away from the two watchmakers approach to niche pieces, yet we use their strict standards in watchmaking.
Since most companies benefit from outsourcing their dials, has it been worth it to have a department that create your own dials?
An entrepreneurial dial maker would take orders, fill machine and deliver the output at the time that he wants to. However, that process does not work for Bvlgari especially if we are providing the dial maker the 100% of his production. So, I believe that saving time from the delay in the production of the dials is far more important than the 10 or 20 francs in a dial that will be gained from outsourcing its production.
How do you foresee the future of Bvlgari in making watches for men?
Yes, we still remain pretty much a ladies’ brand in terms of the number of the watch collections that we currently have. Our three strongest iconic collections – the Serpenti, the Bvlgari Bvlgari and the Lvcea – do us lots of revenue. But the particular interest in crafting timepieces for men is getting stronger now that we found our way in solving our technical concerns in manufacturing. We have to ensure that we have the capacity to build our own movement, which we already did with the Finissimo. This piece has changed the perception in Bvlgari’s men’s watches since it is purely masculine, very elegant and contemporary as well as it is made fully in-house. Now, we can accelerate into men’s watchmaking since we have already answered our technical concerns.
How has the silent recession affected the Bvlgari watch sales?
We have become more aggressive especially in the Middle East which is the second largest in our consumer base. We also believe in the region so we invest a lot here. We have recently cancelled our franchise distribution, meaning we are operating fully on our own. We have refurbished our boutique at The Dubai Mall, allowing our customers a new experience. We fight the slow down with our creativity. Thankfully, we saw double digits in our export of watches when the industry of exportation of Swiss watches reported to be down by 2% in September 2015.
How has been the feedback to your smart watch?
When we developed this piece, we asked ourselves, can technology be useful to our luxury clients? And, we found out that most of their need is on guarding their virtual identity. So, we created a watch according to this theme. The Bvlgari Diagono Magnesium is not exactly a smart watch. It is a concept watch – a mechanical watch that is enabled by an NFC antenna, and that is used as a key to our clients’ virtual safe. Guarded with encrypted key, the client’s information stored in the Bvlagri Vault is secured in the cyber world, allowing users to make contactless payments, access personal data, as well as unlocking doors at home, at work, or on their own car or yacht.
