Must Love Watches

There are sales-driven and watch-lover CEOs; Longines' Matthias Breschan is the latter as Augustman finds out

- JONATHAN HO

WATCHMAKING IS A UNIQUE INDUSTRY. In most other businesses, consumers buy a product based on its functionality. Whereas for timepieces, that functionality is secondary to its form and aesthetics. This dichotomy is readily apparent when you go through the many blogs and watch heated debates over vintage (read: sub 39 mm proportions) and whether a particular watch should have a date complication. There's even a truism that round watches sell better than square ones.

Hence, any CEO worth his salt answering to a board of directors, will have to justify his decisions in the context of those market demands. Eventually, the adage was: What watch lovers like, the general consumer will not; and what the general consumer likes, the watch enthusiast will not. Longines CEO Matthias Breschan is here to put it to the ultimate test, making the timepieces that watch lovers go crazy for. And it looks like with 2022 sales figures equalling 2019 numbers with tourists missing in many markets due to the pandemic, a watch lover's perspective is exactly what a 192-year-old brand like Longines needs.

When you redesign a historical reference like the Majetek, what kind of design considerations go into it that it's not a 1:1 copy but still spiritually faithful to the original edition?