Updating a Classic Blancpain Dive Watch

What have been the challenges concerned in making the seventieth anniversary watch?

The primary — and the one which took the longest — was discovering the fabric; that took years. I wished to deliver bronze out for Blancpain, nevertheless it needed to be proper. I like that the patina adjustments slightly, nevertheless it couldn’t corrode in a manner that destroys the case, so discovering the fabric was a problem.

That turned a three way partnership with Omega, which was engaged on the alloy a yr earlier than us.

The most important problem was discovering gold that may stabilize. The opposite massive problem that we discovered pretty rapidly was with the humidity indicator on the watch. It’s black and attracts mud, however we realized we couldn’t clear it with a solvent.

What’s subsequent for Blancpain, particularly for the reason that firm will flip 290 in 2025?

Within the early twentieth century, Blancpain beneath Betty Fiechter, Jean-Jacques’ aunt, mainly specialised in very tiny actions, cocktail watches, jewellery watches and motion improvement. Then when Jean-Jacques got here in, it switched utterly to sport watches, after which within the ’80s it switched to traditional horology, however they have been all Blancpain.

I wished to deliver all of it collectively. At the moment we now have 40 % traditional Villeret items and 40 % sports activities items. The opposite 20 % is girls’s. For me, that was the objective and for the anniversary, I would like all of some of these watches taking place on the identical time.

Some folks suppose that we stopped doing haute horology and problems. We didn’t. So in 2025, we are going to supply one, perhaps even two, very sophisticated, very Blancpain, high-end mechanical watches as properly. That manner, we are going to deliver all the family members again collectively.

Are you implementing any adjustments on the gross sales and distribution entrance?

We’re lowering very barely the general variety of retailers we’re in, however on the identical time we’re barely rising our stand-alone boutiques worldwide. We now have 40 now and hope to go to about 50, however that takes time. Some places should be discovered; some boutiques, like in New York, can be relocated. We’re lacking, for instance, a boutique in Italy, however we have to discover the proper location.