Patek Philippe Calatrava Lake Geneva Barques 5089 (5089G-012)

Worldtempus - 21 January 2013

It was a busy inaugural day at the 2013 edition of the Geneva Time Exhibition, yet among those in attendance one particular individual seemed to stand out, constantly greeted and almost revered. Georges-Henri Meylan was very obviously back in the watch scene and most visitors seemed happy to greet him there, press and retailers alike. Hautlence and H. Moser & Cie. seemed particularly happy, too, to have the former Audemars Piguet CEO now supervising both brands.

The man himself looked content as well. "I decided to retire one year before the normal age, but I've been a little bit challenged by partners that have been working with me for a long time to come back and be the person in charge of putting things together," says Meylan. "I'm not really working, I'm not an operational…I'm just the chairman. It's necessary to have good contacts around the world and a lot of them can help these brands. But you need a very good product with quality and a good program, if not you won't be successful."

Hautlence and Moser are distinctly different from one another: one is more contemporary, futuristic even, and the other clearly follows the classic path of traditional watchmaking. Yet they share an horological soul, the hairspring produced by Moser in their respective calibers. Since last October they also share the same chairman.

Georges-Henri Meylan first started looking at the modern brand. "When I decided to invest again in the watch industry, the first brand I looked at was Hautlence because of the exceptional originality of the watch and because the people in charge were also trusting and had good ideas. We are going to have to work hard on the product, work hard on the marketing and work hard on the retail network", he says. Guillaume Tetu, one of the founders and a member of the board, agrees: "We need to build trust in the long term and Mr Meylan arriving was important, he has credibility - everybody knows him, he has been a successful player in the industry. We took time to clarify everything, gain credibility and visibility in the market. He is involved in the project and trusts me; he is focused on the strategy and helping clarify the price points".

At GTE, Hautlence co-founder Guillaume Tetu showed a couple of new products deriving from the two most important models for the brand's strategy. "It's the first time we introduce the HLRS in Switzerland after showing it in Mexico. We also redesigned the HLRQ in a more aggressive and sportier version. Regarding the HLRS, we achieved cost reduction to save on the price; components were expensive and we had to rationalize the assembly line. New models are in steel and have a transparent sapphire dial. The price is around 33,000 Swiss francs, a more aggressive price positioning comparing to previous prices over 40,000."

From the moment it was first unveiled to the press at Baselworld 2011, the HL2.0 has become the ex-libris of the brand and continues to attract a lot of attention. Now there are new versions as well. "The development of the HL2.0 was quite long, taking four-and-a-half years. It's a timepiece that is complicated to assemble and we are producing just one a month - but we wanted to give it a new look in red gold, white gold and black DLC on titanium for a much lighter weight than the original piece in platinum and also a less expensive price point: 180,000 Swiss francs versus 220,000 beforehand."

The new management will also reposition the brand with a new entry-level price. "We are building the brand with a long-term vision continuing to develop the collection on two main pillars: we have Origin, with the minimalistic approach, and the Avant-Garde collection, more contemporary and putting an emphasis on lifestyle. We want to increase production to 250 watches, and augment the production of the HL2.0 from 12 to 25 a year. But we will introduce a new collection in Basel with a starting price of 18,000 Swiss francs that will open the brand to other customers and also improve the volume of production," says Tetu.

Regarding H. Moser & Cie., Meylan's tone is highly respectful. "It's a brand with tremendous history; if you read the books, if you go to Schaffhausen or if you read the story of Mr. Moser, the founder, it is exceptional and hasn't been used properly in terms of marketing. On the other hand, I've been meeting a lot of retailers that love the product and think that the segment where the brand stands is interesting and can be developed. Hard work has to be done on the product in order to be able to stay in the price range because the costs are quite high. The collection is composed of classic timepieces, we have to come up with new products that are interesting to the market."

Tobias Grunewald, sales manager at H. Moser & Cie., adds that prices had to go up 15 to 20 per cent this year. And, of course, he is happy to have Meylan as a reference. "We had great reaction from the industry - from retailers to customers and collectors saying he is the best solution for us." The novelties are mainly in the management because the main watch novelties are reserved for Baselworld. Still, the brand introduced new dials for the pure Monard - a shinier one with soleille pattern and applied indeces instead of stamped."

H. Moser & Cie. has been working with dial supplier Fluckiger from 2006 after it was bought by Patek Philippe. Moser Cie. is the only other brand they continue to supply. Fluckiger makes the emblematic and exquisite fume dials on several models in the collection. Another specialty of the brand is the hairsprings, and H. Moser & Cie. is today one of only a handful of watchmakers capable of producing hairsprings, curiously having been Hautlence's supplier in that department even before the arrival of Meylan, who's paying a lot of attention to such a strategic area. "One of my partners, Bruno Montalier, is working hard on the project and the idea is to deliver the hairspring to a few selected independent watchmakers in the future."