As sales of men’s watches in China have slowed, and demand in the West is not enough to pick up the slack, major luxury watch-makers are looking intensly at the potential of ladies’ watches
“Women are the future of watches,” says Jean-Claude Biver, head of LVMH‘s watch unit. “There’s huge potential in women’s watches that is only half exploited today.”
Traditionally women have shown little inclination to buy the kind of mechanically complex, multi-functional pieces on which Swiss manufacturers have built their reputation for precision – this kind of engineering needs space and results in the big dials which women tend to shun for battery-powered, unobtrusive styles.
However fashions are changing. A trend for bulkier watches, and a boom in jewellery sales have lifted levels of interest, which has also been driven by a growing middle-class female customer base in China.
Stephen Urquhart, head of Swatch Group’s Omega brand, said the success of its Ladymatic model, first launched in Beijing in 2010, was driven by Asian women. “In China, women are really emerging as buyers. There are more women buying for themselves,” he said.
Bernstein analysts forecast that sales of branded jewellery, which makes up 20 percent of the total market, will grow at a compound annual rate of 8-9 percent from 2012-17, compared with 6-7 percent growth for the luxury industry as a whole.
Last year, Ulysse Nardin launched a mechanical watch for women, the Jade, that – at the request of its Chairwoman Chai Schnyder – does not damage ladies’ manicures because there’s no need to push or pull the crown to set the date and time.
Other watchmakers are hard at work to produce designs that will attract female buyers for whom a chunky timepiece is still a turn-off. “The more functions you add to a mechanical (watch) the thicker it gets. Maybe we have to wait for technical advances to go more into miniatures,” said Thierry Stern, chairman of Patek Philippe, which makes some of the most complicated technical watches on the market. Currently, only about a third of Patek’s watches end up on women’s wrists, but Stern wants to increase that share to 40 percent.
Brands like Hermes and Dior are working at the other end of the scale – offering very small watches this season. “We go a bit against the market with our new Faubourg models because most brands make bigger watches, but we believe in the elegance of a jewellery watch,” said Luc Perramond, head of Hermes’ watch unit, La Montre Hermes. Its new Faubourg watch measures a mere 15.5 millimetres in diameter, even smaller than Dior’s 19 millimetre Mini D.
adapted from Reuters
More from OPPORTUNITIES
Hypebeast sells luxury second-hand apparel on Amazon
Hypebeast’s e-commerce business, HBX, is launching an HBX Archives shop on Amazon’s Luxury Stores platform in the U.S., bringing buzzy menswear, …
RIMOWA partners with La Marzocco for limited-edition espresso machine
RIMOWA is expanding its product offerings with a recent limited-edition collaboration with Italian espresso machinery brand La Marzocco. Continuing to push …
The growing potential of chocolate and candy themed hotels
From the chocolate bathroom amenities and chocolate Spa treatments at the luxurious Sacher Hotel in Vienna to Fauchon L'Hotel's in …