Clean dials and H. Moser & Cie.

“Day & Night” magazine had a wonderful opportunity to catch up with Edouard Meylan, the CEO of H. Moser & Cie., when he was in Dubai recently. We bring you the highlights of our conversation with him where he explains how minimalism and subtlety – rather than the actual labels – have become trademarks of the brand …

How did the idea of the Flying Hours, where you have a movement that you worked with Hautlence, come about?

The engineers from Hautlence developed it for Moser and then Hautlence used it. We at H. Moser have a particular way of displaying time – very minimalistic, fume dials, etc. – we enjoy a strong identity now. My philosophy is that it can be applied to any complication; we would like to reinterpret or Moserise any complication and the Star Wheel system that was invented 200 years ago was something that we felt would work well for us. It is still loved today, and we managed to work on it very well.

Did it bring you any new clients as it has a totally different feel to it?

I think any new product can bring new clients, but this one did bring more clients than a traditional H. Moser product because it attracted people who were not so much into classic watches. This watch acted as a bridge to those who are closer to concept watches and brought them nearer to H. Moser.

You must have known that the Concept Watch would be a success when you unveiled it, but did you expect it to be this good?

I saw a trend where people were removing the logos from their cars, and de-branding was becoming a trend. At H. Moser, we are known to be understated but we decided to go to the extreme. If you want to express the value of a brand – if H. Moser is to be about understatement, elegance, etc., then for people to understand, we needed to be 200 per cent there.  So, we needed to be as minimalistic and as understated as possible. It worked so well because we had such remarkable dials, but we also had the cases. For instance, a Nautilus without a logo would still be a Nautilus. We needed to be bold and adventurous to take the initiative of de-branding.

We consider watchmaking as an art; you would not see the name of the artist prominently. That is the difference between art and commercial products. H. Moser makes artistic creations and that is why we sign at the back, subtly. It is only in the watch industry that we have the name and full instructions – such as water-resistant to 30 m – written on the most beautiful part of the product, the dial. That for me is marketing. You are trying to sell the product; for me, the product should sell itself.

How hard is to get that distinctive colours on the dials that H. Moser is now famous for?

It is a nightmare and it is slightly different every time, if you look closely. I think we have nearly 50 shades of blue alone. It is not easy, for instance, the blue on the Pioneer Tourbillon should have been the same blue as the Pioneer Centre Seconds, which is much darker. The difference could be because that batch might have been different, or the temperature might have been different. We do small series because every batch may have different parameters resulting in different shades.

So, you do an entire batch at one time just to maintain the correct shade?

Yes, because across collections they may be very different. So, we have the Funky Blue and the Midnight Blue, which are the two main Blues, and then we have an entire spectrum in between.

Have you ever had to refuse a client request for a particular colour?

Not really; what we do is to usually guide the customer into making the right choice. We haven’t done all colours; we have a beautiful Burgundy, we have Blue, we have Cognac, we have the Purple Haze. We do have requests, but we have a palette of colours – some pinks, some champagne, apple green, etc.

How did the idea of the Endeavour Perpetual Moon Concept in Vantablack come about?

We actually have two editions, one in Vantablack and the other in 18K red gold and Midnight-Blue fumé, but everybody talks only about the Vantablack. When we presented it at Baselworld, a lot of critics said it was just a black watch. The response was great and we could have sold two or three times the 50 pieces we made. MCT used the Vantablack for small elements on the dial; we don’t like to be the second but felt it would be interesting to use it on the dial. We realised we had the perfect dial for it; our identity is about being clean, minimalistic, and we had the moonphase that we had engineered and wanted to launch it. We felt the best way to launch a moon was to have it against a dark sky. It should look like a black hole and there is nothing better than the Vantablack to achieve this effect. The Moonphase against the Vantablack, which represents the depths of the universe, is very romantic.

Do you plan to use the Vantablack for other watches in the future?

Yes, we will; the problem we had with the fumé is that it is so strong that we do not sell silver and black anymore. Now we are back with a very strong black that we can own.

Don’t you think that if someone wanted to buy their first H. Moser watch, they would opt for a fumé rather than Vantablack?

No, we have had quite a few who have started their H. Moser collection with the Vantablack; they have said that finally now there is a perfect H. Moser for them; not everybody loves the fumé watches.

How did you get the idea of doing a modular tourbillon, the Endeavour Tourbillon Concept?

It came after someone said we shouldn’t do a tourbillon; we decided to do a tourbillon and make it a H. Moser one – double hairsprings, modular, so that it really fits our ethos. So, we spent a little time and now it is doing really well, well-positioned and really beautiful.

You now have two pillars of the brand – the Pioneer and the Endeavour – with the Alp Watch a special limited edition that you will soon discontinue, right?

Even the Pioneer, which is very successful today, may be discontinued, especially certain models such as the Blue one. It is flying off the shelves right now, but it is our responsibility to protect the value of our watches for the people who have invested in us. Everything will be discontinued, especially when it is still in demand. The Swiss Alp Watch will be discontinued by 2019, when there probably will be 400 to 500 pieces, and that is it.