As most readers will know, the bulk of Swiss watchmaking happens in the French-speaking part of the country. Those less familiar with Switzerland than Swiss-made timepieces might even think the whole place is French-speaking, or at least the majority. Such is the dominance of the Romandy that the casual watch lover might think Schaffhausen is a town in Germany. It most assuredly is not, and IWC is as Swiss as they come. Since the manufacture is quite a ways off the beaten path, plenty of watch journalists actually miss out on visiting - getting here from Geneva is more challenging than getting to the La Chaux-de-Fonds, for example. Thus, when asked if we wanted to visit in the middle of summer, we jumped at the chance.

By we, I mean Ruckdee Chotjinda and I, along with our IWC watches. This was actually only the second time I could bring a watch I bought back home for a visit. It so happens that Ruckdee also brought his own IWC, the Portugieser Perpetual Calendar in red gold. Regular readers might realise that this is the trip that we spoke with IWC Manufacture Director Walter Volpers, since I made a point of citing the moment he recognised our watches when we spoke.

Traditionally, manufacture buildings evolved over time, sprawling beyond the confines of whatever space they began in. We will demonstrate this in other stories this issue, and if you are reading in order, you have already seen some. IWC Schaffhausen, which we will simply call IWC to make it simpler to distinguish between the brand and the town, has been in the old town for a little while now. This is where the brand maintains offices, including for the communications team, and also CEO Christoph Herr-Granger, and a nifty little museum. It is also where a pivotal scene in this story will take place, starring Ruckdee’s watch. You will have to wait till the end for that because we have quite some ground to cover, as a Swiss German-speaking person might put it, in English.

Imposing Presence

The new facility that we visited opened at an auspicious time, in 2018, in the sense that it was the 150th anniversary of the brand. It gives IWC options in terms of how it decides to handle the production challenges of the present and future, just as founder Florentine Ariosto Jones was looking to do back in the day. The manufakturzentrum also happens to be an excellent workplace to visit, without much of the upstairs-then- downstairs-just-to-go-up-different-stairs hikes that are typical of many Swiss manufacturers. For a sense of that old reality, the existing office in town is exactly like that. The thoroughly new building has some 13,500 sqm of space, which is amply hinted at in the expansive entry area with its meters high ceiling, arranged on two levels (one above ground as shown and one below).

Everything is welcoming and warm; everything is also easy to follow, with a path laid out for where you can walk. In the images here, the grey area is where visitors walk, while the white areas are where the technicians, engineers, watchmakers and craftspeople ply their trade. This is a nice way to see everything and not feel guilty about invading people’s workspaces. The flip side of this is that you will not be able to peer over someone’s shoulder as he or she affixes a hairspring to a balance wheel. But we are getting ahead of ourselves here.

As it happens, we began with CNC machines, which is only natural because this is how all components are manufactured. A brand that makes a watch collection called Ingenieur has to make certain it projects a certain professionalism and we think you will agree that IWC has succeeded here, just from the pictures. Again, the downside is that the sense of homey craftsmanship is missing – production lines are production lines after all. As the editor of Robb Report Singapore notes in one of his manufacture visit stories, the smell of oils yet manages to fill the air of contemporary manufacturers, and the manufakturzentrum is no exception, spic and span as it is. In other words, the industrial vibe has a certain appeal to it.

Maximum Punishment

Before we speed into the proper activities here, including two of our favourite parts of any manufacture tour, we will spare a few words for a key takeaway here. Unusually, for this particular tour, we managed to get into the quality control area, where there are all sorts of torture tools designed to inflict maximum punishment on finished watches. This kind of activity happens at most reputable watchmaking firms but one rarely gets to see it. As noted in the Conversation story in the Autumn issue, we loved watching the team here send watches flying into a net, courtesy of a good hard whack from a hammer (the watches are subsequently tested for rate and amplitude variations, which can happen when the balance is disturbed by sudden shocks).

Beyond the perverse pleasure of applying some pain to very expensive objects, the idea in quality control, or more appropriately, quality assurance, is to prove that the watches are tough enough to withstand much more than the hard knocks you will subject them to. IWC watches are nothing if not tough, as we can attest. While not every IWC watch is tested or subjected to the same array of tests, samples of various production batches are. We can report that the smiling technical specialists here are very thorough and are positively pumped about what they do.

Moving back into the order of the tour proper, IWC takes pains to showcase its materials section, where there is that satisfying moment of holding rods of raw material in one’s hands. This is hardly incidental though because there is a slew of bar-turning and milling operations that take place in the manufakturzentrum, which all involve bars. IWC tells us that approximately 1,500 different components are made in the movement-component workshop itself. This reportedly involves all parts for the calibre families 52 and 82 (automatic), 59 (manual-winding with eight days of power reserve) and 69 (automatic chronograph). Also included are movement components for something like the Portugieser Grande Complication, and its case (which is made here, in the basement with all the other IWC cases, although the component count mentioned does not include what goes into cases).

Some Assembly Required

As expected, it is all industrial action for something like the calibre 52 family, where an articulated robot feeds the aforementioned raw materials into a CNC machine that produces completed components. We did not see the production of components for complicated watches, nor the assembly of movements, but that also takes place in the manufakturzentrum. While robots are indeed involved in the making of components, movement assembly is where the watchmakers take over from machine operators. IWC notes that the production lines for each calibre family are entirely in the spirit that founder Jones envisioned back in his day. We dare say that no one in the 19th century could imagine 21st century engineering processes! In terms of cases, though we are not focussing on that here, a single metre-long bar of material can produce between 30 and 50 cases (depending on material and type of case, according to Time and Tide Watches).

Our tour returned to the roots of watchmaking for its final stage, with the disassembly and assembly of a generic pocket watch movement. While this was a staple of manufacture tours once upon a time, the IWC session was the only one we had in all the visits covered in this section. As always, it is an eye-opening experience that lets one come to grips with the delicate and precise craft of assembling tiny machines out of tiny parts. We recommend that all manufactures restore this practice, for the sake of context if nothing else.

For all the calibres produced in-house here, the activity is carried out in clean room settings, and that is true of typical contemporary manufactures. This limits the ability of guests and journalists to get close to the action, hence the importance of the watch assembly activity, in our considered opinion. It should be noted that what manufactures have in terms of clean room atmospheres is not the same as what one encounters in silicon wafer manufacturing, for example, but it is something close.

Personal Touch

We reserve our final thoughts for the manufakturzentrum itself, which is a stunning structure that is surely meant to reflect the character of IWC itself. With massive windows, it offers a surfeit of natural light for the movement assembly watchmakers. The entire structure feels a little too big and that is by design because it can accommodate 400 staff (currently, some 230 people work here) so it was literally built for the future. While the manufakturzentrum was designed by Zurich architects ATP, CEO Herr-Granger is an architect by training and also personally participated in the design process.

The manufakturzentrum is also a paragon of sustainable practices too, with solar panels installed on the roof, and water for cooling and heating drawn from groundwater sources. This too is in line with the history of IWC, what with founder FA Jones choosing Schaffhausen partly because of the hydroelectric power offered by the nearby Rhine river.

On that note, it is time to return to Ruckdee’s watch, which had a bit of an issue – residue of oil leftover from servicing, on the hands. Upon taking a look at the watch, an IWC watchmaker simply asked Ruckdee to leave the watch in his hands while we went about our tour, and collect it later. True enough, it was all done with no fuss whatsoever, and we can report the Ruckdee is rather pleased with himself. If nothing else, this serves to illustrate that no matter the technology behind the watches, it is the human element that makes the difference.

This article was first published on WOW's 2024 Legacy Issue

For more on the latest, click here.

Sadry Keiser has one of the most unusually authored biographies of any watch industry executive. To be fair, the Chief Marketing Officer of Roger Dubuis probably shares this feature with some of his colleagues because it is so very Roger Dubuis. The company calls itself the “bad boy of the Geneva watch industry,” and it is not difficult to see why. Just look at the watches, and Keiser’s official portrait. In Keiser’s own official biography, which goes out to anyone who interviews him, Roger Dubuis is also described as the Richemont Group’s “maverick” while Keiser is described as a man with an “unexplained attraction to watchmaking.” Keiser himself described Roger Dubuis as the “wild child” of Richemont in an interview with the retailer Watches of Switzerland in the UK. Well, the watches certainly raise the decibel level, sometimes quite literally.

If your first encounter with Roger Dubuis is at a watch fair, such as Watches and Wonders Geneva, you might actually discover the brand when you hear a racket of some sort somewhere around the Van Cleef & Arpels and IWC booths. Or you might be having a meeting over at A. Lange & Söhne only to find yourself talking over a cacophony of what absolutely cannot be anything related to Swiss watchmaking. Except of course that is, and it is all done on purpose. Keiser tells us, not at all sheepishly, that Roger Dubuis creates a spectacle at the fair to draw a crowd; “I can tell you that 80 percent of the people we see...in our boutiques are not only new to Roger Dubuis, they are new to watchmaking!” Keiser met with us at the Singapore ION boutique late last year (2023) to engage in a free-ranging conversation about the novelties of 2023; Roger Dubuis also inaugurated a new store at Marina Bay Sands late last year but that is a story for another time.

The youthful Keiser – his official information does not list his age but that is as expected of Roger Dubuis because age is nothing but a number here – likes to think of himself as a bridge between the technical side of the story and the design team. In his role as Chief Marketing Officer, he is also a bridge between the brand and the media, and by extension, the public. Keiser cut his teeth in the technical arena of watchmaking at TAG Heuer’s manufacturing end, and that brand’s research and development department. This experience would prove beneficial to his later stint as Head of Product Marketing at Roger Dubuis where he was “overcome by a wild desire to return to marketing – and inject it with his own inflammatory watchmaking passion...”

It was this promise of inflammatory rhetoric that drew our interest to engaging in a lengthy chat with Keiser, who was in town to introduce the Excalibur Spider Flyback Chronograph in particular. Happily, neither he nor the watch disappointed us!

Before we get into things properly, tell us if the Spider Flyback Chronograph is the first production chronograph since the Sympathy collection?

No, there was a chronograph with a plain dial around 2011 or 2012, and it was the piece celebrating the 125th anniversary of the Poincon de Geneve <this was a limited edition of eight – Ed>. It is less characteristic than (our now signature style) with contemporary skeletonizing (although it did have a tourbillon). The team at that time thought it was good to master the various complications but recognised that there are also other players doing the same, maybe better than us or more known than us. So, we needed to bring additional value...we focused on the tourbillon for simple reasons: there are fewer components so there is more space to have transparency and to explore different styles. Then we went with automatics, then double tourbillons, and so on. It took time to get back on track with chronograph complications, and to return to the roots of Roger Dubuis <in relation to the famous Sympathy case chronographs that the founder created – Ed>. It is a different kind of game playing with a skeletonized approach on the chronograph complication. There was no doubt for us on bringing back that complication but just a question of finding the right way to do it. Now is the right time to launch the Flyback Chronograph, because you have never seen this kind of watch before!

No, of course not, so let's dive right into it!

For me, the Flyback Chronograph is an interesting approach because I think we keep the philosophy of the company – putting the mechanics first (and completely visible). Needless to say, having an integrated calibre for us, that was absolutely mandatory. Also, playing with the architecture of the calibre, keeping the freedom of aesthetics that we like, while being respectful of tradition...and keeping the Poincon de Geneve in play.

What I mean by playing with the architecture while keeping elements of tradition is that the column wheel (must be present) for sure, but we put this on the front of the calibre <this distinctive element is normally bridge-side – Ed>. So, once again reengineering the architecture of the calibre to bring (and deliver) specific signatures on the way that people are seeing it.

And last but not least, we talk about the vertical clutch, of course, because once again, it is following the beauty of, and respect for, tradition. But at the end of the day, within the very (contemporary) kind of design that follows the spirit of the Excalibur Spider, there is also an obvious to link to motorsport activities, paying tribute to our Italian friends (that is to say Lamborghini, a long- term partner to Roger Dubuis – Ed).

Why wait till later in the year to debut the Flyback Chronograph when you had the chance to pair it with the Monovortex Split-Seconds Chronograph at Watches and Wonders?

Part of my answer will have to do with the Monovortex... (because) it speaks to the philosophy of the company: to showcase the expertise of the watchmaking industry and to incubate a fraction of our innovations in one single piece. But when you put everything in one single watch – I am talking about a new regulator a new winding system, alongside a new display system as well...and then a split-second chronograph complication (a high complication that is arguably more complex than the tourbillon – Ed) – the bar is set pretty high. To be frank with you, we needed to go to the real and tangible world, to see if everything works as it should. But at least at that time (during the show in Geneva), we got to demonstrate to the world and certainly to the connoisseur, because every single person attending Watches and Wonders is sensitive to fine watchmaking, who Roger Dubuis is and what we are about. You can see that Roger Dubuis is a serious player.

Then again, Roger Dubuis is not a foundation so we all expected a commercial offering at some point...

That is right! And we decided that the Goodwood Festival of Speed was a good philosophical fit with the Spider Flyback Chronograph; motorsports in general are a good fit for the chronograph. We also did not want to fire all our (marketing) bullets at one time...instead we wanted to create a conversation with the community that helped everyone understand the sequence that we have in mind, from concept to commercially available piece. Because (both the Monovortex and the Flyback Chronograph) are new concepts, in a way. You can see from the Flyback Chronograph if we have captured well that reality behind (some of) the concepts in the Monovortex.

How do you approach Watches and Wonders, or any fair really, from the perspective of introducing watches to the public, or introducing it to partners? Is it sales first? Presentation first?

It is a very good question. I think these shows are moving, let us say from business to business to consumer to become more business to consumer. For a couple of years now, we see the content of such shows moving in this direction as well. As one of the operators at Watches and Wonders, we are also following this trend to (orientate) more towards being business to consumer. You know, we are in that position where we need to be seen by a large audience, but talk only to a few, if you know what I mean. From a marketing perspective, (the question is) how I can be sure to reach a larger audience, where that larger audience can understand the reason why Roger Dubuis exists. What is our unique proposition and does my audience get it? You know, if everyone understands that we are a pure player doing contemporary skeletonised complications with Poincon de Geneve, then I am in heaven!

On the other hand, there are a few people where we need to go a bit further and dig into our own worlds and bring additional stuff to the table. This means explanations on the watches in a way that we can be sure that we nourish and we cultivate the phenomenal experience (of Roger Dubuis). We know that we are not the first brand within the collections of those people...and yet there are those newcomers who are very curious, not only about Roger Dubuis but about watchmaking.

This is a reference to what we spoke about: the people you draw with spectacle, like the robot dog that was the highlight of Watches and Wonders? How do you communicate the values of the brand properly because these people may know what a skeletonised movement is, because they can see it, but they certainly will not know what the Poincon de Geneve is...

Once again, another good question! To be transparent with you, I think half is structure (the communications strategy including all means from advertising to partnerships) and the other half is much more spontaneous. There is a way to communicate the fact that we are a fantastic alternative to the classical operators. At Roger Dubuis, we are a bit schizophrenic. A fraction of what we are doing is, let us say, very Swiss; the other part is ultra-contemporary (and this is where conversations like this one come in). From my perspective, this is the beauty of a brand of our size: we have the luxury of having the time to converse with our clients and friends. We are not always in pushing mode in a marketplace where we are talking about line extensions and everything is transactional. As we discussed, Roger Dubuis is not a foundation but we still need to build (individual) conversations to start relationships!

This article first appeared on WOW’s Festive 2024 issue.

For more on the latest in watch reads, click here.

This is a story that was a long time coming... In fact, it comes all the way from TAG Heuer maybe 10 years ago. While various titles in the group have indeed scored interviews with Bulgari CEO Jean-Christophe Babin since 2013, WOW has not got one since at least 2016 (at least not in the era of this editor, who never had one in any of his previous roles and companies - Ed). Given that WOW has recently managed to interview the CEO of every LVMH watchmaking brand (from Hublot to TAG Heuer), it was particularly galling that Babin eluded us. Well, no more because we finally did it and thus achieved the LVMH Grand Slam of CEO interviews.

Seriously though, Babin represents one of the last of the old-school watch and jewellery bosses, yet is not at all married to tradition. Indeed, he often zigs when you think he will zag, as they say. We, and no doubt you too, recall very well when Babin announced Bulgari’s ultra-thin watch challenge in BaselWorld, probably in 2013 or 2014. It was a deeply astonishing move from a man who had only just moved over from TAG Heuer, where he had been CEO since 2000. The seeds for this had already been laid at the brand he would lead from then right up to the present because the Octo Finissimo had debuted in 2012 and the Serpenti was already successful. On the boldest frontier yet, Bulgari had already jumped into home furnishing and the hospitality business by Babin’s era.

Read More: Bulgari Dresses New Octo Finissimos in Carbon Gold

Born in France but described consistently (by his own team and himself) as Italian at heart, Babin differs from his peers in that he never inserts himself into the conversation. That is true from the design language down to communication about the brand’s identity; Babin is pretty clear about what he wants for Bulgari (one consistent identity across all the areas it operates in) and he knows he has the right team to deliver. In fact, the team he built at Bulgari is what he cites first when asked about his legacy – he singles out Vice President for Marketing and Communications Laura Burdese in particular because she helps him with what Bulgari calls One-Brand Elevation, which is that aforementioned strategy of keeping the brand consistent in all areas.

As a veteran of the trade, Babin does speak his mind – unlike many Swiss brand executives, he can and does regularly mention his competition by name, right down to the product level. All of this is on the record, of course, as you will see. Babin is also unafraid to make bold claims – boldness is central to the Italian identity of Bulgari after all. When he initially lauded the ultra-thin achievements of Bulgari in watchmaking, he was taking the fight to some pretty big players and Bulgari had no experience in this arena. The results speak for themselves there, although Babin is adamant that the idea was not really to have a go at world records or grab headlines.

With that, we will let Babin take it away, with a salvo fired almost from the start...

How was Geneva Watch Days for you?

As you know, this is the fourth Geneva Watch Days in a row. We started during (the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown) because we felt the need for a show to replace BaselWorld (now defunct) and SIHH (now Watches and Wonders, and transformed that year into a digital-only event). Geneva Watch Days was the first physical event for the watch and jewellery trade that year (although the larger component was likely still the digital version because people still could not travel).

And this year, it is bigger than ever with 40 brands; this is a large number of brands for a new show! Not only do we have the support of Geneva (the city and the Canton), but we now have the full support of the FHH on the ground the FHH is the organiser of Watches and Wonders – Ed. So more than ever, we are the official Geneva watch fair! And it is not even just a watch fair any longer; it has become a watch forum. By that, I mean that part of the entire fair is dedicated by the brands to forums and symposiums. Yes, the brands are here to introduce novelties but a huge amount of time is also (invested) in communicating (in the format of a forum, panel discussion and so on). Bulgari had a great symposium with Wei Koh (of Revolution) on the topic of brand builders. I participated in another one with Georges Kern (of Breitling) and Max Busser (of MB&F) on the future of retail. So, there are a lot of activities at Geneva Watch Days, not forgetting also an auction to benefit the Geneva watchmaking school.

I mentioned 40 brands earlier but really there are many more taking advantage of this big gathering (of ours) to organise their own events. There are probably another 20 to 25 (non-exhibitors) organising such events (during Geneva Watch Days), and this makes it one of the most important watch fairs on the global calendar.

Read More: On Exploring Jewelled Watches With Bulgari’s Antoine Pin

So Geneva Watch Days is here to stay then...

Well, you know, I was at BaselWorld for many, many years – first with TAG Heuer and then with Bulgari. I visited the SIHH in Geneva virtually every year too, driven by curiosity. At the end of the day, even before things came to a head, I was very skeptical of the formats and concepts of those fairs but not because I do not like or believe in watch fairs (per se). So, 30 to 40 years ago, the approach was very clear and logical. With advancing technology; evolving consumptions habits; new clients (of different markets and types); and digital media consumption, it was all getting a bit old fashioned... not to mention prohibitively expensive.

So I was planning to withdraw from BaselWorld anyway and then came COVID-19, which accelerated things; since I did not like the historical format of the fairs, some friends and I who shared the same vision decided to start something new. Without COVID, we would have started this anyway, maybe in 2021 or 2022, but (like I said, things got accelerated). It was the worst possible time...there were lockdowns...we had to move the date three times... But in the end, in August of 2020, we made it (even though the world was far from back to normal).

It was a success, confirming that our philosophy and the pillars of our new concept were much more in tune with time than (the old fairs), and this is why Watches and Wonders does not like us so much... Obviously it is always painful to see a small group of medium sized brands organizing a fair quite easily for very little cost while getting the support of authorities who never gave their support to the bigger conventional fairs that are very costly...

Things have changed a lot in watchmaking over the course of your career. How have things changed for you personally, from your time at TAG Heuer to your present role in Bulgari?

First of all, Bulgari is like a group, you know, because we are operating in many different areas. Bulgari is a small luxury group compared with LVMH, of course, to which we belong, but we are operating in jewelry, in watches, in hospitality, in fragrances, in accessories, in bags... TAG Heuer is primarily a watchmaker, although it was obviously successful in eyewear too. We made some inroads into luxury mobile phones but TAG Heuer was and is a watchmaker. Forever.

So, the first difference is that I have to be much more agile, mentally, to switch from one category to another. This is because Bulgari is competing against different brands in different categories. This competition is driven by different factors; client expectations are different from category to category and therefore I need the agility to jump from the one to the other while keeping a very strict frame (of reference encompassing all aspects) so that eventually for the client, there is one brand only, even though it is in multiple categories. To achieve this, I have defined – in a very explicit way – that Bulgari is primarily a magnificent Roman jeweller, and that everything else we would do would be connected to being Roman and being a jeweller.

This means that we are the Roman jeweler of time; the Roman jeweller of precious skins; of olfactive emotions (for fragrances); and of hospitality for the hotels (and so on). So everything is done with the same obsessive attention for perfection, for beauty, for detail, for excellence of ideals. This is the thread (connecting all the categories) that I'm responsible for because I don't have an artistic director responsible for overall brand consistency and creativity. I am the one making sure all the businesses converge with the mission. Together with my Marketing Vice President Laura (Burdese), we ensure that out of our diversity, the consumer and client perception is that there is one brand only. Ideally, it is the most desirable experience in luxury you can get worldwide (in watchmaking, to cite the novelties of Geneva Watch Days, this is much like the rose gold bridges paired with platinum micro-rotors marking the calibres BVL138 and BVL305 that power the Octo Finissimo CarbonGold Automatic and the Perpetual Calendar). So, we are on our way. It is not yet achieved because, you know, it is a very ambitious goal. But this is the vision, and this vision drives us.

Read More: Bulgari’s New High Jewellery Collection Pays Homage to the Mediterranean

Given the amazing reputation Bulgari has as a jeweller– reports on LVMH consistently opine that Bulgari’s jewellery business is bigger than all of LVMH’s watch business, but correct me if I am mistaken-

No, no, I won’t correct you!

Ok! So why focus on all these other areas? Why put all this effort into making Octo Finissimo the thinnest watch in the world, over 10 years and across complications?

Well, first, you know, the watch market is quite a big one and we have a relatively small share. We are an important player, but no brand has a commanding share, except Rolex.

Obviously, when the market is fragmented, it is often easier to get market share, provided you are creative and consistent, with a qualitative approach. We spent a lot of effort on micro mechanical engineering with the Finissimo, yes, but also in the Piccolissimo for ladies (which later resulted in some powerful models in the Serpenti range, which is Bulgari's biggest-selling line)... This is to say that making ultra-thin watches was never for the sake of beating world records. It was to execute our vision of style for men; the vision was the ultimate masculine contemporary elegance.

Read More: Bulgari’s Lucia Silvestri Talks About High Jewellery, Venice, and Travel Plans

In ready-to-wear, we call it slim fit. And so, as gentlemen indulged in slim fit, they needed a slim watch because otherwise there is a mismatch. This was the genesis of the ultra-thin Octo Finissimo! The slim fit style obliged us to reinvent the mechanical movement in order to make it compatible with the aesthetic vision. And we have been so successful in this that we have the ultra-thin record in every category...you name it, we have it!

This article first appeared on WOW’s Festive 2024 issue.

For more on the latest in watch reads, click here.