Chinese luxury watches challenging Swiss brands

When Chinese brand Atelier Wen released its first watch in 2018, it was not sure whether a pricey Chinese watch that was unabashedly marketed as such would have an easy time finding buyers.

- Lim Min Zhang

The Porcelain Odyssey, which featured a porcelain dial adorned with Chinese characters and made in China, was priced at about US$700 (S$940). The limited run of 570 pieces in various colours sold out in 2019.

Co-founder Robin Tallendier took that as a sign there was demand for such a product - and with the next series of watches released in 2022, what started out as a passion project became a viable business.

"Our ambition as a brand is to celebrate Chinese culture and craftsmanship," said Mr Tallendier, one of the company's two French founders and watch aficionados who met while studying in Beijing. He currently splits his time among France, Singapore and China.

"We realised that the only way to be credible is to make truly world-class watches out of China," he told The Sunday Times.

In recent years, Chinese brands such as Atelier Wen have been gathering international attention for delivering competitive - and to some enthusiasts, compelling high-end watches, in an industry traditionally dominated by Swiss, German and Japanese brands.

China is no longer simply mass-producing affordable watches but also moving up the value chain mirroring a trend in other industries such as electric vehicles and semiconductors.

In 2020, Shenzhen-based Behrens submitted two designs for an annual Swiss watch competition, the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Geneve - sometimes described as the Oscars of watchmaking - and both were among the six shortlisted in their categories.

One of them, called the Rotary, was inspired by early combustion engine designs, and its guts - the gears, springs and wheels that make it tick - can be seen. It is priced at about US$5,000.