Swatch boss says it's time for Tiffany

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Swatch boss says it's time for Tiffany

Posted On : Apr-12-2010 | seen (500) times | Article Word Count : 1316 |

New president of Swatch, Arlette-Elsa Emch, brings Tiffany luxury to the Swiss watchmaker

Swatch, one of the world's largest watchmakers, is about to launch a range under the Tiffany brand, starting at about £2,000 a piece and heading up to £5,000. Who, one wonders, might be thinking of spending that kind of cash in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression?
In a thick Swiss-French accent, Arlette-Elsa Emch, a board director and president of the Swatch brand, has a stab at answering. "I think it is a feminine brand – it is something that is much more linked to jewellery. It will be a perfect gift from a man to a woman. It will be a pleasure to receive a Tiffany watches," she says, before pausing.
"And I think, urban, well educated, between 28 and 45, if you want this classical answer, which is really nothing," she waves her hands dismissively and affects a bored tone. "But it is much more about the pleasure to receive the watch. It will be the perfect gift, to a well-educated, beautiful woman, a perfect gift. So man, back to your wallet," she snaps.
Dressed in a black suit with wide trousers and beige snakeskin-patterned shoes, blonde hair sweeping her elegantly tailored shoulders, Emch, 60, sits for most of our meeting with legs crossed and her back straight, ending answers with a kittenish smile that spreads slowly across her face.
She wears a delicate pendant and a chunky grey and black Swatch watch, which you suspect she might swap for something a little more expensive when she isn't meeting the press. But, she enthuses, she loves big watches.
She talks about watches the way Nigella Lawson talks about food. "We live for beauty. Our life is beauty. We are selling beauty," she says breathlessly at one point.
We meet in a room of the fashionable St Martin’s Lane hotel in the West End of London, where Emch is flanked by three publicists. Despite it being only 11am, a bottle of champagne is on ice. A platter of sliced fresh fruit has been laid out; the strawberries a vivid red in an otherwise blindingly light room that is filled entirely with white furniture and has floor-to-ceiling windows and white painted walls.
Industry saviour
Swatch owns 19 different lines, from the eponymous low-cost brand that Emch runs, to Calvin Klein, Tissot, Omega, Longines and high-end names such as Blancpain and Breguet. It has almost half the market in Europe and is second worldwide only to Citizen Watch.
The watchmaking industry in Geneva has its roots in the 16th century, when the wearing of jewellery was banned by John Calvin, forcing local jewellers, aided by French Huguenots, to retrain as watchmakers. Four centuries later, the story goes that Swatch saved the industry, which in the 1970s and 1980s had become too remote and was losing market share to Japan and Hong Kong. Swiss banks put a consultant, Nicolas Hayek, in charge of a merger of two loss-making firms in 1983 and he launched the low-cost, mass-market brand, something that at the time won him few friends in Switzerland.
"People were shocked," Emch says. "I remember, I saw the first Swatch at the very beginning, and I thought, oh my god, it's so ugly. A plastic watch – for a Swiss, it was such a new way of thinking."
But, she says, it was perfect timing, arriving at the start of the affluent, consumer-driven decade. Watches become fashion items, swapped with the same ease as a pair of jeans. Today, there are more than 700 Swatch shops worldwide, including eight in Britain, and the early plastic models are selling online for more than $1,200 (£740). Hayek still owns almost 40% of the company and his son, Nick Hayek Jr, took over as chief executive in 2002.
Emch remains one of the few women in a senior position in the industry and claims that she has brought a different approach to the business. "I said, stop making watches for women which are a copy of the watches the men are wearing. Start to make watches sold for women, like the automotive industry has started to do, [by not making] copies of cars for men."
The Swatch president is a regular at fashion weeks and says that, when she travels, she is constantly watching other women to get a feel for the latest trends. "You know I was fighting for years to make watches for women and at the end, women, what do they do? They were buying the watches for the man and they appropriate them. I do the same."
Is that a man's watch she is wearing? "Yes, of course." Doesn't that ruin her argument about designing watches for women? "Well, they also buy watches made for women, but they love to steal their..." she tugs at her top in search of the right word, "the chemise, and the shirt of the man. It is also a way to show, I am present in all your life."
She says that Swatch has adapted over the years to match tastes, introducing metal watches a decade or so ago, but the Swatch line for next year will be tapping into the 80s revival with more plastic and more garish colours. "It is back to the roots."
Jewellery lines
Emch married at 18 and had two children by the time she was 22. She then went back to university and made money by working as a freelance journalist. She went on to work at magazines and a daily newspaper in Switzerland, where she interviewed Hayek and decided she would like to work for him.
She joined the company in 1992 as a communications manager and worked her way up, launching, along the way, a division that makes jewellery lines for a number of the watch brands and which now accounts for a significant amount of group revenue. There is a natural affinity, she says. She also runs the joint venture with Calvin Klein and was made president of the Swatch brand three months ago.
The recession has left its mark across the luxury goods industry. The Swatch group's most recent results showed sales down by 15.3% year on year to 2.48bn Swiss francs (£1.5bn), while earnings were down 28% to Sfr301m, although Hayek Jr has forecast a rebound in the second half. Emch says the most pain was felt at the top end, with sales of the Swatch brand declining only in the single digits. The business has been relatively protected by its strength in emerging markets, she says.
According to Emch, it was once difficult to sell high-end watches in the UK, although that changed with the economic boom. "People here started to buy like hell. Now it is a little bit slowed down, but they have discovered the pleasure to wear a beautiful watch."
I float the idea that these days people simply check the time on their mobiles.
"I disagree totally with you," she says. "You are a man – you have your phone always. If I want to look at my phone it is probably in my bag somewhere and I have to look. This way to look at the time is so natural, so easy, so perfect," she says, tilting her wrist.
So mobiles haven't adversely affected her market? Emch is quick to dispel any such suggestion. "No, because a watch is not just a measure of time – it is also an accessory. For a woman it is much more – it is also part of the personality. I change my watch, I change my shoes. For a man it is the only jewellery he can wear, or he wants to wear. And for a man you know, if you want to show you..." she pauses to choose her word, "personality, you cannot go into a restaurant in your car." She laughs quietly. "You have to wear a watch."

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<h1>Swatch boss says it's time for Tiffany</h1> Author: <a href='http://www.articleseen.com/profile_zinsser.aspx'>zinsser</a> Swatch, one of the world's largest watchmakers, is about to launch a range under the Tiffany brand, starting at about £2,000 a piece and heading up to £5,000. Who, one wonders, might be thinking of spending that kind of cash in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression?
In a thick Swiss-French accent, Arlette-Elsa Emch, a board director and president of the Swatch brand, has a stab at answering. "I think it is a feminine brand – it is something that is much more linked to jewellery. It will be a perfect gift from a man to a woman. It will be a pleasure to receive a Tiffany watches," she says, before pausing.
"And I think, urban, well educated, between 28 and 45, if you want this classical answer, which is really nothing," she waves her hands dismissively and affects a bored tone. "But it is much more about the pleasure to receive the watch. It will be the perfect gift, to a well-educated, beautiful woman, a perfect gift. So man, back to your wallet," she snaps.
Dressed in a black suit with wide trousers and beige snakeskin-patterned shoes, blonde hair sweeping her elegantly tailored shoulders, Emch, 60, sits for most of our meeting with legs crossed and her back straight, ending answers with a kittenish smile that spreads slowly across her face.
She wears a delicate pendant and a chunky grey and black Swatch watch, which you suspect she might swap for something a little more expensive when she isn't meeting the press. But, she enthuses, she loves big watches.
She talks about watches the way Nigella Lawson talks about food. "We live for beauty. Our life is beauty. We are selling beauty," she says breathlessly at one point.
We meet in a room of the fashionable St Martin’s Lane hotel in the West End of London, where Emch is flanked by three publicists. Despite it being only 11am, a bottle of champagne is on ice. A platter of sliced fresh fruit has been laid out; the strawberries a vivid red in an otherwise blindingly light room that is filled entirely with white furniture and has floor-to-ceiling windows and white painted walls.
Industry saviour
Swatch owns 19 different lines, from the eponymous low-cost brand that Emch runs, to Calvin Klein, Tissot, Omega, Longines and high-end names such as Blancpain and Breguet. It has almost half the market in Europe and is second worldwide only to Citizen Watch.
The watchmaking industry in Geneva has its roots in the 16th century, when the wearing of jewellery was banned by John Calvin, forcing local jewellers, aided by French Huguenots, to retrain as watchmakers. Four centuries later, the story goes that Swatch saved the industry, which in the 1970s and 1980s had become too remote and was losing market share to Japan and Hong Kong. Swiss banks put a consultant, Nicolas Hayek, in charge of a merger of two loss-making firms in 1983 and he launched the low-cost, mass-market brand, something that at the time won him few friends in Switzerland.
"People were shocked," Emch says. "I remember, I saw the first Swatch at the very beginning, and I thought, oh my god, it's so ugly. A plastic watch – for a Swiss, it was such a new way of thinking."
But, she says, it was perfect timing, arriving at the start of the affluent, consumer-driven decade. Watches become fashion items, swapped with the same ease as a pair of jeans. Today, there are more than 700 Swatch shops worldwide, including eight in Britain, and the early plastic models are selling online for more than $1,200 (£740). Hayek still owns almost 40% of the company and his son, Nick Hayek Jr, took over as chief executive in 2002.
Emch remains one of the few women in a senior position in the industry and claims that she has brought a different approach to the business. "I said, stop making watches for women which are a copy of the watches the men are wearing. Start to make watches sold for women, like the automotive industry has started to do, [by not making] copies of cars for men."
The Swatch president is a regular at fashion weeks and says that, when she travels, she is constantly watching other women to get a feel for the latest trends. "You know I was fighting for years to make watches for women and at the end, women, what do they do? They were buying the watches for the man and they appropriate them. I do the same."
Is that a man's watch she is wearing? "Yes, of course." Doesn't that ruin her argument about designing watches for women? "Well, they also buy watches made for women, but they love to steal their..." she tugs at her top in search of the right word, "the chemise, and the shirt of the man. It is also a way to show, I am present in all your life."
She says that Swatch has adapted over the years to match tastes, introducing metal watches a decade or so ago, but the Swatch line for next year will be tapping into the 80s revival with more plastic and more garish colours. "It is back to the roots."
Jewellery lines
Emch married at 18 and had two children by the time she was 22. She then went back to university and made money by working as a freelance journalist. She went on to work at magazines and a daily newspaper in Switzerland, where she interviewed Hayek and decided she would like to work for him.
She joined the company in 1992 as a communications manager and worked her way up, launching, along the way, a division that makes jewellery lines for a number of the watch brands and which now accounts for a significant amount of group revenue. There is a natural affinity, she says. She also runs the joint venture with Calvin Klein and was made president of the Swatch brand three months ago.
The recession has left its mark across the luxury goods industry. The Swatch group's most recent results showed sales down by 15.3% year on year to 2.48bn Swiss francs (£1.5bn), while earnings were down 28% to Sfr301m, although Hayek Jr has forecast a rebound in the second half. Emch says the most pain was felt at the top end, with sales of the Swatch brand declining only in the single digits. The business has been relatively protected by its strength in emerging markets, she says.
According to Emch, it was once difficult to sell high-end watches in the UK, although that changed with the economic boom. "People here started to buy like hell. Now it is a little bit slowed down, but they have discovered the pleasure to wear a beautiful watch."
I float the idea that these days people simply check the time on their mobiles.
"I disagree totally with you," she says. "You are a man – you have your phone always. If I want to look at my phone it is probably in my bag somewhere and I have to look. This way to look at the time is so natural, so easy, so perfect," she says, tilting her wrist.
So mobiles haven't adversely affected her market? Emch is quick to dispel any such suggestion. "No, because a watch is not just a measure of time – it is also an accessory. For a woman it is much more – it is also part of the personality. I change my watch, I change my shoes. For a man it is the only jewellery he can wear, or he wants to wear. And for a man you know, if you want to show you..." she pauses to choose her word, "personality, you cannot go into a restaurant in your car." She laughs quietly. "You have to wear a watch."
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