Rolex
This week's episode of Watches in the Wild: Paris is all about jewelry design and watch design cross-pollination. Because, dear readers (viewers), I am on a mission to prove that watch design doesn't always have to be so predictable.
In episode two we meet up with jewelry designers Nadine Ghosn and Charlotte Chesnais to discuss the untapped potential of enlisting fashion and jewelry experts in the watch space. The enormous success of Carolina Bucci for Audemars Piguet, for example, is proof that there can be a successful dialogue between creative spaces.
A small part of Nadine's very fun Swatch collection and a Carolina Bucci Royal Oak!
Chesnais and I discuss fluidity, shape and finding the balance between what is new and timeless when executing her designs – a feat that Cartier has managed to successfully execute. Surprise, surprise – a jewelry house creating timeless and elegant design that speaks to women!
Which leads me to a question: Why is the industry not including more women designers, with broad design reference points, in order to speak directly, and in turn more effectively, to women consumers? This seems like the logical way to move things forward in a carefully considered way. Less generic marketing and more intentional design please!
There is nothing wrong with wearing your watch as an accessory or piece of jewelry – a statement that we learn that Mr. Yves Piaget would have likely agreed with during a chat with Piaget Officer of Patrimony Alain Borgeaud. Back in the 1960s, Piaget would send their designers to the shows in Paris in order to draw inspiration from the collections. This ensured that the watches and jewelry were congruous with the fashion zeitgeist. Sounds like heaven!
Today, the watch industry is set-up almost entirely differently to the fashion industry. A very wise man (aka Michael Friedman) once told me that it all comes down to a dichotomy of permanence and obsolescence. We see high-end watches as a token of forever and fashion as a fleeting fad, but both are fundamentally expressions of culture. And despite their differences, the two really aren't that dissimilar when you frame them both as expressions of personal style.
Watch brands could use a little more contemporary influence and rely a little less on predictable templates – leaning on outside inspiration, like so many do in fashion, in the very same way that Genta was notorious for doing as an interdisciplinary designer. The watch industry will stay stuck in a stalemate if there continues to be so few risks taken. Innovation will always shock, but taste and attitude will often adjust and follow suit. Better to be ahead of the game than to fall behind.
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