Time no longer the essence for luxury watchmakers

birou notarial

Visitors walk past the Chronoswiss showcase at Baselworld fair in Basel March 24, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Christian Hartmann

By Astrid Wendlandt and Silke Koltrowitz

PARIS | Sun Mar 27, 2011 6:21am EDT

PARIS (Reuters) - Time is up for oversize and flashy luxury watches that actually tell you the hour.

The new status symbol for bankers and Russian oligarchs is a sober, featherlike timepiece made from carbon fibre, magnesium or aluminum, executives at Basel's annual watch fair said

Real luxury is now the ability to stop time. This week Luc Perramond, chief executive of Hermes's watch division, presented the "temps suspendu" (suspended time) model, starting at 18,000 Swiss francs ($19,700), which stops time at the press of a button and brings it back again.

For 240,000 Swiss francs you can pick up an Hublot watch whose time can be slowed or sped up and another which is all black, making it difficult to tell the time at all.

That luxury can set you back upwards of 15,000 Swiss francs.

"The value of a watch is not to give you time," Hublot Chief Executive Jean-Claude Biver told Reuters.

"Any five dollar watch can do that. What we are offering is the ability for example to stop time or make it disappear... Time is a prison and people want to get out of it sometimes."

Those embracing the trend for new materials include Hublot, one of the fastest-growing brands, and its younger rival Richard Mille, whose barrel-shaped watches, starting at 60,000 euros ($85,000), are regarded as some of the most expensive.

"The trend now is light and new materials," Biver said, adding that Hublot last week bought a carbon fibre plant to secure supplies and is investing in new methods of dyeing metals and various materials.

In the world of watch fashion, experts say black dominates, followed by grey and matt colors. And minimalism is the style motto, in contrast to the pre-crisis days of 2007 and 2008 when big, multi-functional sporty watches were in vogue.

This watch trend matches the somber mood of Paris Fashion Week earlier this month, expressed at Chanel with its moonwalk collection and at Balenciaga and Celine with much use of dark fabrics and research into the use of new materials.

But the watch industry is also being pushed into redeveloping classic models, encouraged by Chinese demand.

As a result, many brands are re-fashioning old models such as Tag Heuer which last year launched a new version of its classic Carrera model, endorsed by actor Steve McQueen, which starts at 2,000 euros.

"Chinese prefer classic watches, watches with a heritage," Guy Semon, Tag Heuer's vice president for sciences and engineering, told Reuters in an interview.

"And as they have become major customers, this has helped drive the brand to return to some of its historical models."

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