Suppliers dial up their creativity

Suppliers dial up their creativity Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. As global demand for luxury watches softens, some of the Swiss industry’s most skilled players — its suppliers — are taking a bold step up the value chain. Long confined to the background as mostly anonymous makers of cases, movements and dials, a growing number of suppliers are now launching or reviving watch brands of their own. “To be a supplier is sometimes riskier than being a brand, and sometimes it is riskier to be a brand. By doing both your risk is more balanced,” says watchmaker Florian Brossard, CEO of Schwarz Etienne since July 2024. Schwarz Etienne has been a movement and component supplier since 1902, with Chanel, Dupont, Caran d’Ache, RGM, Ming, GoS Watches, Atelier Holgur, and several other brands on its CV. It also started making watches under its own name in the 1980s, but, as Brossard puts it, “it used to be a bit of everything and everywhere”. “Now, in 2025, we have our own refined and streamlined collection for the first time,” he says. Thus far two models are in production — the 1902, launched in April 2025, and Geometry. In 2025, for the first time, the brand business is larger than being a supplier of micro-rotor, tourbillon, and base movements. Brossard will not reveal exact figures, but the watch production for its own brand is around 250-300 pieces per year, and the prices start at SFr18,500 ($22,900) for the 1902, and SFr22,500 for the Geometry. The Swiss watch industry is taking a dive after record years. “Everything in the watch world is challenging and complicated at the moment,” says Brossard, adding that heavy times always start with suppliers. “The brands not doing well cancel orders, and the brands doing well start making their own movements. I understand this. First you feed your family, then you feed your friends.” Another advantage with a brand, according to Brossard, is the creative freedom of making watches like the manually wound titanium-cased 1902 with small seconds, and a twin barrel which gives five days of power reserve. “This brings good energy for the team. They are officially part of something that they can be proud of.” The phenomenon of supplier-come-brand exists on different scales. Take, for instance, Taos, the brand co-launched in March 2024 by dial supplier Atelier Olivier Vaucher and Olivier Gaud. Since 1978, Taos has been the dial supplier for limited editions and unique pieces for brands like Richard Mille, Hermès, Roger Dubuis, Vacheron Constantin, Cartier, Louis Moinet, Breguet, and Zenith. “The atelier produces a few hundred dials per year and employs 40 people as engravers, enamellers, jewellers, miniature painters, stone setters and machine CNC operators,” says Taos CEO Olivier Gaud. “Olivier [Vaucher] always wanted a watch that encapsulates full possibilities and capacities of atelier — without clients’ restrictions and constraints,” says Gaud of the watches in the price range of SFr110,000-150,000. “Taos is also a great communication tool for the atelier. Many of their clients don’t want them to communicate on their projects. But with Taos we can communicate freely. You could say that Taos is the crazy laboratory for the atelier, spending hundreds of hours on each unique dial.” Until June 2025 Taos had made around a dozen watches, and only three had been sold. But Gaud says he is not worried, given what has happened in the brand’s first 15 months of existence. “We started working with three boutiques, The Lavish Attic (Hong Kong), Oster Jewelers (Denver, US), and Watchmakers United (Geneva, Switzerland), we had extremely good press, and the feedback from the watch community is excellent. So, all signals are green. In the end we need to find 8-10 collectors in the world every year: collectors searching for something unique. Yes, it takes time to reach them, but it will happen. And thanks to having the atelier with nearly 50 years of existence behind us, we have the trust and confidence needed.” Taos’s new Textiles collection features a ‘Saville Row’ dial This ‘Mother-of-Sky’ dial features in the Essence collection by Formex Formex is another independent supplier which has taken advantage of its manufacturing capabilities to launch its own wristwatch. “We took over Formex in 2016 and relaunched it in late 2018 with a Kickstarter campaign for the Essence model,” says CEO Raphael Granito. The supplier for brands including Ulysse Nardin, Montblanc, Hublot, Jacob & Co and Girard-Perregaux, was not actively seeking a watch brand. Granito said he “stumbled upon it”, and the match felt right, since the brand could benefit from the vertical integration in the existing structures. Granito says “the whole industry is massively affected” by the slowdown, “and it feels like amplitude is larger and wider than other downturns”. However he is confident that with a price range from below SFr1,000 to SFr4,500, Formex’s watches will attract “a new customer group that didn’t shop around for small independent brands like us.” Formex sells 80 per cent of its watches directly to customers, with the UK and US being the fastest-growing markets. “We are also growing in Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong,” says Granito, adding that last year the brand sold about 3,000 watches. However he is still not sure whether starting a watch brand is the best way to go for a supplier. “I think a smarter and much easier way to keep production machines busy would be to get certification for aerospace or medical equipment. Because building and establishing a brand takes at least 10 years. But now that he has made the journey, he will continue to go for strong, instantly recognisable design using the patented Case Suspension System, a cushion-like system that protects the watch’s movement and adds to the comfort on the wrist. “My goal in five years is that without even seeing a logo you should know that it is a Formex.” Comments ## Implicazioni per i Collezionisti di Asset di Lusso Questo sviluppo del mercato evidenzia l'importanza crescente della **gestione digitale degli asset di lusso**. 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