“Day & Night” magazine met with Laurent Lecamp, Managing Director Watch Division of Montblanc, during his recent visit to Dubai. Our discussion with him ranged from the icy glaciers and the tough mountaineering experiences of Montblanc’s Mark Maker; we bring you snippets from our scintillating conversation…
Will Montblanc continue to focus on the Zero Oxygen and the Iced Sea lines in the 1858 Geosphere collection, as it has been doing for some time now?
Yes; these are key products for Montblanc. The Iced Sea was launched this year and has been a huge success since day one. This is the first time that Montblanc has released a dial that is 100 % in keeping with our roots. The Iced Sea and the Zero Oxygen released this year have their dial in common. When I joined Montblanc last year in January, I was reading about the Montblanc emblem that was created in 1913 and it depicts a view of the mountain and the six glaciers surrounding it. I went to the glacier at Mer de Glace and took a picture from the glacier.
I wanted to make the first glacier dial in the watchmaking industry. I came back to Switzerland and worked with the team; after many prototypes we were able to capture the look of the glacier. This is the dial that both these watches feature. It is important to have true storytelling and a differentiating factor, both of which are fulfilled by the glacier dial.
The Geosphere collection – started with the Geosphere, then the Geosphere Chrono and now the Geosphere Zero Oxygen – seems to have become a stable part of the Montblanc universe?
Yes, and it will always be so. Don’t forget that the Geosphere has a Minerva complication. The Geosphere complication is made at our Villeret manufacture and it is a unique complication because it features the time in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres. Because of this, a Geosphere timepiece is easily recognisable on the wrist.
This provides three main conditions – a strong differentiator in terms of looks and design; strong innovation; and a high perceived value – all of these combined with the fact that it is easily recognisable. The glacier dial is unique; it takes around 30 days and 30 sequences to produce one dial. We are the only ones who do it, and that is the signature of Montblanc.
Each of us need something that makes us stand out from others, and for watches we have to find something very different that will make people say “Wow, it is a Montblanc!” Once you have seen a Montblanc watch, you will never forget that it is a Montblanc product. That is why Zero Oxygen is key to our collection.
We have the complication with the Northern and Southern hemispheres, the Zero Oxygen – which is not visible, but a definite plus. The Zero Oxygen is very new and something that will be there for many years.
How did you get the idea for the Zero Oxygen?
I spent a lot of time studying the maison when I first joined Montblanc and Minerva, as it is very important to understand the roots of the brand. I couldn’t just come in and say that I have an idea and that we should do it. I met one of our key Mark Makers Reinhold Messner, and we had many discussions. During one of our conversations, he told me that he was the first person to climb the highest peaks in the world – between 1978 and 1986 – without the use of supplementary oxygen. It was then that I got the idea for Zero Oxygen from our Mark Maker who is the best mountaineer ever, and the concept of Zero Oxygen was born.
I then consulted with our team, asking them what would Zero Oxygen bring to us, from a technical standpoint. They said that it was truly magnificent idea as there is no oxygen in the watch. If you are travelling to Dubai, the temperature is around 20-21⁰ inside the plane and when you reach your destination, it is sometimes 40⁰. This sudden change of temperature results in droplets forming inside the watch. When there is no oxygen inside the watch, there is no humidity and therefore no droplets. Another advantage is that with the removal of oxygen, the oxidation process of the parts is extremely slow. On a philosophical level, it is connected with our Mark Maker Reinhold Messner, and on the technical side, we have these two major advantages.
Since the concept of Zero Oxygen was totally unknown earlier, was it difficult to make people understand the benefits of this idea?
In the beginning, there were a few sceptical smiles, but people understood it more easily when our storytelling explained the connection to Reinhold Messner, who is famous for his climbs without the use of supplemental oxygen – we had a product that connected with our Mark Maker. After this, when we explained the technical aspects of Zero Oxygen, it was very impressive. Of course, the fact that no other brand works with this concept, which is a Montblanc-exclusive, makes it even more impressive.
Even if another brand wants to work with the Zero Oxygen concept, they would have to develop a technique to do it. Inside our manufacture, we have created a chamber that has no oxygen – with only nitrogen – inside, and this was very expensive.
How is the watch assembled?
Inside the atelier, we have a chamber that is fully closed and has a pair of gloves that can operate inside the chamber. The watch is placed inside and, then on the press of a button, a mechanism sucks out the oxygen and puts in the nitrogen. After this, the watchmaker puts their hands inside the gloves and starts assembling the watch. With the watch comes a document certifying that there is no oxygen inside the watch. Our team is now developing the after-sales Zero Oxygen chambers worldwide – in the Middle East, Europe, and other countries – meaning that customers will not have to send their watches to our headquarters to be serviced.
The 1858 Geosphere and the Iced Sea are the bestsellers from Montblanc; can we expect more complications in the future?
The Iced Sea is conceptualised on the glacier; we have the green, blue, and black dials because these are the natural colours of the glacier. The Iced Sea features a unique stainless steel bracelet that is tapered, is interchangeable, and adjustable. The watch has a unique glacier dial, a 3-D engraved caseback depicting an iceberg and a scuba diver, is a diver watch, and also ISO 6425-certified – the highest certification in the watchmaking industry for diving timepieces.
The Iced Sea is a Montblanc product for many more years. It definitely is a key collection for Montblanc. The timepiece is an amazing success; twice now, we have had high-end watch collectors from different corners of the world buying the Iced Sea in different dial colours – for themselves, their wives, and their children. This shows that the appeal of the watch transcends age groups and gender.
