Classic and exclusive Laurent Ferrier
“Day & Night” magazine sits down with Vanessa Monestel, CEO of Laurent Ferrier, who talks about the genesis of the marque and what makes it so exclusive…
How significant is it to the brand that the first watch launched by Laurent Ferrier won the GPHG Award?
It was, of course, an honour for Mr Ferrier that the very first watch that he unveiled won the GPHG within a few months of its launch. He was extremely pleased with this award as it helped to launch the company on its adventure. It would have taken much longer for our collectors and potential retail partners to recognise us if we hadn’t received the award.
Why did Mr Ferrier start the watch brand at an age when other people are retiring from work?
When Mr Ferrier was younger he was a race-car driver, and it was when he was participating in the Le Mans 24 Hours Race in 1979 – he came in after Paul Newman in that race – that he and his team mate François Servanin, an industrialist who was financing the races, decided to launch their own watch brand one day. But it was the kind of idle conversation you have with friends about one day opening your own restaurant. The difference was that this friend came back in 2005 with money to invest and asked Laurent if he wanted to join him. It was because he had been responsible for the creation and development of watches in Patek Philippe, and because he has a son for whom he wanted to leave a legacy that he decided that this perhaps was the time to make the watch that he had been wanting to for so many years – something that he would love to wear himself. This would also make him the fourth-generation watchmaker in his family.
Why is the brand insistent that each watch is completely made by one watchmaker?
When you have one department that makes the movements and another that does the casing and the other external parts, they have to meet and then try to figure out which movement could be housed in which case as they are different creations from different processes. One of the main reasons why our pieces are so well-balanced and harmonious is because both the movement and the external parts are created in a single process, both in the design and the assembling stages. When you look at a movement by Laurent Ferrier there is no one element that takes over the rest; every single piece fits together.
Economically, it doesn’t make sense for the big brands, but for us, it does because I cannot afford one person specialising in one task only. Secondly, when a watchmaker tells me that his project is in the final phase, I know that it is perfect because he has put his heart and soul in making a watch that he would wear himself.
How hard is it to find watchmakers who can make a complete watch?
The only thing that is difficult is the decoration; for the assembling, we can hire a person whom the French call ‘a complete watchmaker’, who are trained in all aspects. The only issue is decoration; they are trained in this art in their school but not much. So when they come into Laurent Ferrier, they undergo weeks, sometimes months, of training in decoration before we are satisfied with their level of finishing.
How many watches is Laurent Ferrier producing every year, and is that enough to make the brand profitable?
In the beginning, we were making 20-30 pieces from our initial capital. This is one of the reasons why we have had to pace our growth; I usually describe my job as one of managing growth. Yes, it is profitable but it is difficult at this level of profitability to figure out how to finance the next generation of calibres because the R&D phase is extremely expensive. That is why we spent four years, 2014-2018, without releasing a calibre. As the economic environment was tough, we had just enough to keep growing.
Were you surprised by the huge success of the Galet Traveller when it was launched in 2013?
For me our major success is the Micro Rotor. The Galet Traveller when it came out in 2013 was a talking piece. There is a market for small complications such as the Galet Traveller and the Galet Annual Calendar Montre École. If, as a watchmaker, you can enable the wearer to have a great experience with watches that are easy to adjust, easy to read, and easy to manipulate, then you have a customer base. In the Traveller, you can push a button to change your local time forward and backward; extremely easy. I have a customer who bought a Traveller, without knowing a single thing about Laurent Ferrier. The only reason he chose the Traveller was because he said that he could understand it all in one second; also changing the time – moving forward and back – is so simple.
Our mandate for the Annual Calendar was similar; we wanted to adjust the date forward and backward. If you made a mistake in dates it should be easy to rectify, without having to go through a whole year. We are offering a great experience with these small complications, and this is something people really enjoy.
How long have you been working on the Galet Minute Repeater School Piece that you launched this year?
The Minute Repeater was in the pipeline for nearly eight years; Mr Ferrier’s son started working on a new exclusive movement in 2009, because you need to have some projects ready before you start your company. He was working on different projects: one was the tourbillon that they launched when the company opened, another was the Minute Repeater. The tourbillon was a success but the market demand was for a more affordable piece and that is why we launched the Micro Rotor as our second calibre; it was not the right moment then to offer a piece that costs around CHF300,000.
After the Micro Rotor came the Traveller, and then a very quiet period as the economic environment was not right to launch a new piece. We now have the credibility and market appreciation of our quality to unveil this.
Have you seen a change in customer preferences to automatic winding after the launch of the Micro Rotor? Or do Laurent Ferrier fans still prefer its renowned manual winding?
We still have manual winding for the Tourbillon and the Annual Calendar; the Micro Rotor is the only one with an automatic winding system. I think we are well-balanced in the mechanical world between manual and automatic. Also for the manual winding movements, we have a very comfortable power reserve of 80 hours.
What is it that sets Laurent Ferrier apart from other watch brands?
It is the exclusivity; the differentiator is that we are not selling you a watch, but an experience. The watch is perfect from every angle; the finishing is perfect; everything is integrated. This means only one watchmaker, one movement, and one creation process – everything is balanced and in harmony.
We are never going to produce 800 pieces; if you don’t want your neighbour to have the same watch as you, this is what you buy. For someone who is in love with the finest things, it is the value of the piece – be it cars, books, art, or something else. If one day you wear a watch, you have to understand what is in it. If you are not a big fan of watches, it is not a big deal. I have quite a few customers who only own two or three watches, including one Laurent Ferrier, but they know why they come to us.
How did you achieve the unusual colour of the dial of the Minute Repeater?
We get this colour as the result of a very special technique; we have a silver base that we decorate with a sun-burst effect. Topping this is a translucent kind of painting that allows us to choose the colour very accurately. Since it is not a galvanic colour, we are not limited in our choices.
Does the brand have a Perpetual Calendar on the drawing board to be unveiled next?
We have a lot of projects in the pipeline including a Perpetual; the questions before we launch the next generation of calibres are: Is the timing right? Is it what our customers expect? To be honest, the price difference between a perpetual calendar and an annual calendar is very big and when your principal argument for the annual calendar is that it is set to go forward and back, why would you opt for a perpetual calendar that is a negation of that?
