Montblanc, a comprehensive storyteller

Montblanc’s offerings at Watches and Wonders 2023 saw the maison add timepieces to its iconic collections, such as the 0 Oxygen – which has been enlarged with The 8000 capsule collection, the Iced Sea, Star Legacy, and the Unveiled Minerva. Nicolas Baretzki, Global CEO of Montblanc, explains to us how Montblanc’s passion for storytelling ensures that each element of a watch – even to its packaging – is a vehicle for its narrative

Can you tell us about the Montblanc 1858 0 Oxygen The 8000 capsule collection – what differentiates it from the regular Iced Sea collection and why is The 8000 your hero collection of the year?
I consider the Iced Sea with the grey dial and The 8000 as the centrepieces of our offerings. The idea is to have a consistency in the storytelling, which is the Mont-Blanc, the glacier, but also the performance of the watch and about our Mark Makers Reinhold Messner and Nimsdai Purja. I was having dinner with them two days  ago and the following day, Nims was flying back to Nepal because he was meeting with a client on the Annapurna at 6,000 metres. The client had started climbing in the morning and Nims had to catch up with him; these guys are crazy!

Because of the way we are highlighting the colour and the glacier part, it is even more detailed and even more real. It is also the fact that we maintain these identity and design elements consistently. For instance, the 0 Oxygen is of course a different colour, a grey; the popular colour in the industry now is blue and green, so it is good to have something different and yet maintain consistency.

For me, the 0 Oxygen is interesting because it has a superb story; Reinhold was the first person to climb the Everest without oxygen 45 years ago and Nims climbed it last year with the previous edition of this watch – the Montblanc 1858 0 Oxygen. This watch is not just about a Chrono Geosphere or a Geosphere, because we are growing it as a full collection. The 0 Oxygen is not just a design element or story but a highly interesting feature that adds to the longevity of the movement.

All of The 8000 capsule collection comes with 0 Oxygen and the blue on the sides of the sapphire?
Yes; the blue is the gasket that acts to protect against the oxygen and adds to the longevity of the movement as well. Because the construction is different, the gasket is not visible.

How did Montblanc come up with the name The 8000?
For that, we go back to the story of the 14 peaks, back to the story of Nims and Reinhold. Both of them have climbed all the 14 peaks – Reinhold took a few more years to climb them than Nims. That is why we have the 14 peaks that they have climbed engraved on the back of the watch along with the famous tattoo Nims has on his back. Nims is the one who designed the back of the case.

Fitting that design with 14 peaks would not have been an easy task?
If it had been easy, we would not have done it. We had to do 14 peaks with 14 numbers on the small space that is the caseback of a watch.

The Iced Sea has become a pillar of the maison in the very short time since its launch; are you surprised?
Honestly, yes, I am surprised. We had worked quite a lot when we launched that watch. We had to tell many people why we wanted to go in that direction, the story, and the link with the dial. We had to work a lot on having the right approach to having a beautiful dial that is also a technical marvel, but you can never tell if a watch will be successful from day one. We were optimistic but we really did not expect such a great reception. I am super-happy because now the Iced Sea is becoming an iconic face of the maison. The Geosphere is now established as is the Chrono Geosphere. The 0 Oxygen is becoming a major face of the maison.

Our work is inspired by the topography of Mont-Blanc and we also have brought a consistent storytelling and design element. We are not trying to go everywhere; we focus on where we belong and where it makes sense for the maison. At the end, it is beyond the marketing of stories; it is about real inspiration.

How did the Montblanc Unveiled Secret Minerva Monopusher Chronograph come about?
The Minerva, of course, has elevated our approach a lot – the fluted bezel and its other distinctive features. This watch is the result of many of our clients telling us over the years that they wished people knew that there is a beautiful Minerva movement inside their Montblanc watch. Sometimes, we have great ideas, but lots of other times, our clients have great ideas. The fact that we worked on this reverse movement in the Montblanc Unveiled Secret Minerva Monopusher Chronograph Limited Edition came because many clients told us that they have to take off their watch to show their friends how beautiful the movement is. Now, they don’t have to do that anymore; they can just flip the movement over.

The new edition of the Montblanc Unveiled Secret Minerva Monopusher Chronograph Limited Edition is in distressed steel; how were you able to achieve the distressed effect?
I love the fact that we always have a good reason for what we do. I love the fact that we can mix the quartzite from Mont-Blanc and the limestone from La Combe Grède – a beautiful mountain that our watchmakers can contemplate every day from Villeret – to get this effect. There is of course a more detailed recipe of other materials, etc., but, at the end, we just bake it in a particular machine for two-and-half hours and we get a unique finishing on the case that is wholly Montblanc. This effect is the combination of two materials from our history. Whether our client is at the entry level, the 0 Oxygen level, or the Minerva level, they still have a story in which our mountain plays a part.

This year, all the Minerva watches come in a unique presentation box; why such extravagant boxes?
The idea was to create an element of surprise – the surprise could come from the design, or a beautiful movement, it would surely come from the chronograph that works from the bezel, but it could also come from how you discover the piece. The idea was to continue the element of surprise and the element of the storytelling. There is also the capacity to personalise the box – if you have a logo or a family crest, you can have it on the box.

We also wanted to do something that is from Switzerland; the watch industry has multiple sourcing when it comes to packaging, and we wanted to do something that again connects to our roots in Switzerland. That is also one reason why the secret boxes are important. Now, we can say that our watches are fully made in Switzerland.