Patek Philippe - Baselworld 2014: An interview with company President Thierry Stern
What are your impressions of BaselWorld this year?
I think that there were a lot more people here this year. There were a lot of press and retailers but also a lot of visitors from the general public. It was impressive and we had a very good fair. I'm satisfied. We have done a good job and managed to allocate all the products that we had.
Your new complication in steel, the annual calendar chronograph (Ref. 5960/1A) has already been talked about a lot. Was there a particular strategy behind this launch?
No, not at all. I am definitely not trying to move into steel because it could be very dangerous. If we produced more steel watches we would find it increasingly difficult to sell the gold models. It is simply that we have two new models in steel this year: one is the Nautilus, which is in any case dedicated to steel, and another one for which I wanted to have a kind of surprise. I don't like it when people expect us to do certain things and say "they will do this" or "they will do that". So this was a kind of acknowledgement of that and we said we would do the opposite of what people expected. I am very proud to launch this Reference 5960, which is a lot more aggressive. It reminds me a little of the Aquanaut and the idea behind it is also to attract a younger clientele, but perhaps not too young, because the watch costs 45,000 Swiss francs after all. So I think that the first deliveries will be for collectors and fans and only then will the younger customers be able to get their hands on one. That is what happened with the Aquanaut.
And we assume that the new Nautilus (Ref. 5990/1A) is an evolution within the range?
Yes, this was not a surprise. I think a lot of people knew that we would be bringing out a Travel Time for the Nautilus. This is quite logical, given that the Nautilus is a watch that people often take on their holidays or their travels. It's a discreet but recognisable piece. These days there is also a security aspect to take into account. And it can be worn with a suit, jeans or even a bathing costume. So it really is a watch for the traveller and the new version with this movement was therefore quite logical and anticipated.
This is an important year for you with your 175th anniversary. You have set up a travelling exhibition that is a veritable miniature museum in itself and has so far been seen in Dubai and Munich. What is the next destination?
It will be in the UK, in London. This exhibition is very complicated to manage and requires two years of preparation. It's very time-consuming for those involved and requires a huge investment, too, so we have to be very careful about choosing where we want to go. The UK is an important market for us and it is also one where people are very knowledgeable about watchmaking. So we will be doing the same thing but in a different environment. The main difficulty with an exhibition like this is finding a venue. It is very, very complicated.
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