Fashion Watch Chasing "Made In Switzerland" Imprint

The fashion giant Armani group's brand Giorgio Armani and the American fashion accessories manufacturer and retailer Fossil group (Fossil Group) reached an agreement in August 12th. Giorgio Armani will entrust Fossil Group to expand its Swiss made watch product line in the world in the next ten years.

Giorgio Armani's CEO Livio Proli explains the two brands' endless partnership in 17 years. He thinks that Fossil combines its ability of designing and innovating in the watch area with the essence of Armani style, and more importantly, Fossil's ability to create, manufacture and promote Swiss made timepieces gives greater confidence to Armani.

Coincidentally, Tory Burch has officially released the watch business in October, and each watch will be a mechanical watch with "Swiss made" label.

Just after the renewal of Giorgio Armani and Fossil Group, the Fossil Group officially announced at the end of September that it will strengthen its input and vertical management of the Swiss watch making industry in the group. In the future, they will further expand the production capacity of watches and accessories products produced in Switzerland.

Integration of investment in Swiss manufacturing to meet the growing demand for watches and fashion watches for "Swiss made".

Now they have three industries in Switzerland, including design centers, mobile production plants and manufacturing workshops.

As a Fossil group that is allied with many fashion brands and designed and manufactured watches, the fashion brands that they cooperate with include Giorgio Armani, Emporio Armani, Burberry, Michael Kors and more than ten brands, and Fossil group has produced more than ten years of history for fashion brands.

For fashion brands or for consumers, the "Swiss made" label on the timed product is further favored. "Swiss made" represents the superiority of watches in quality, technology and positioning.

In the traditional tabulation market, "Swiss made" pursued by high-end traditional watch manufacturers has long been unnecessary.

In the fashion watch market, most of the fashion watch products are still dominated by quartz movement, because of the previous design and fashion version of this type of watch and the demand for the production process and movement.

In recent years, with the demand of the middle class and high-end consumers on the tabling process of fashion watches, the trend of chasing Swiss made stamps in fashion watch market is becoming more and more serious.

Last year, Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry acquired the Fabbrica Quadranti watch manufacturer in Switzerland. Over the past 15 years, the Swiss watch factory has been responsible for the production of Gucci brand watch surface. This acquisition has been recognized by many of the industry as Gucci watch business to increase its investment in "Swiss made".

Coincidentally, Louis Weedon started the acquisition of Nat BER, a Swiss watchmaker, and bought L L man Cadran, a small Swiss watchmaker.

Another fashion giant Hermes group watch company also held a controlling stake in Swiss watch maker Joseph Erard last year.

"From the current development perspective, fashion watch brands are chasing higher and higher" Swiss made "imprints.

In an interview with our reporter, Jack Quinlan, senior vice president of Fossil Group Asia Pacific, pointed out that "the output of mechanical watches of Fossil group in Switzerland has increased from 400000 in 2013 to 500000 in 2014, and this figure is still rising."

Fashion label is "Swiss made" label insurance.

After acquiring Fabbrica Quadranti, a Swiss watch factory with only 38 employees, Michele Sofisti, chief executive officer of Gucci watch and jewellery business, said: "through acquisition, Gucci will invest in new manpower and equipment in Fabbrica Quadranti, expand production and provide more Swiss made dial.

The purpose of this initiative is to consolidate the status of Gucci watches in "made in Switzerland".

Of course, not all fashion groups and brands can have enough capital to meet the high cost of "Swiss made" label for their wrist watch products, such as Gucci and Hermes.

With the increasing popularity of "Swiss made" and "Swiss Movement" in the minds of high-end consumers, especially Chinese high-end consumers, many fashion brands began to turn their watch making business to Switzerland. They hope to create their own Swiss made watches by working with the Swiss watch factory.

"Not only do more and more fashion watches also want to have" Swiss made "wrist watch product lines, but also some fashion brands that are working with Fossil group, making decisions to make all watches made in Switzerland" made in Switzerland ".

So the fashion watch's pursuit of the label "made in Switzerland" has also become the main reason for the Fossil group to increase its investment in the Swiss watch production line.

According to the new "Swiss made" standard, 80% of the production cost of the mechanical watch with this logo must be consumed in Switzerland.

The 60% of the production cost of electronic watches is in Switzerland.

In addition, the technical structure and samples of the product must also be completed in Switzerland.

Therefore, Fossil hopes to strengthen its Swiss tabulation ability through vertical integration and investment in the Swiss production line, so as to ensure that the Swiss watches produced are in line with the Swiss standards required by Swiss regulators.

At present, the group can complete all kinds of links from design, manufacturing parts, core production and assembly in three factories in Switzerland. "

Because of the superior level of technology and quality, the price of Swiss made goods is much higher than that of non Swiss ones in terms of the production cost and the selling price of fashion watches.

But fashion watches are being tilted to Switzerland from parts of the world, which seems to be an unstoppable trend.

For Fossil's fashion brands, Emporio Armani watches are made in Switzerland and are tilting to the Swiss made product line, while the Burberry watch and the upcoming Tory Burch watch series are made in one hundred percent "Swiss made" products.

The driving force of "Swiss made" for the fashion watch market

According to the global market research report released by Euromonitor International in 2013, the scale of the fashion watch market in the United States is about 2 billion 900 million dollars, and the fashion watch market in the Asia Pacific region is about 7 billion 900 million dollars, of which China accounts for 3 billion 900 million dollars.

Jack Quinlan said: "in the United States, the market share of traditional watches and fashion watches is basically 55%, while in the Asia Pacific region, fashion watches only account for 20% of the market share.

Judging from our analysis of the market, this category will have enormous room for growth in the Asian watch market. "

The judgment of Jack Quinlan is not groundless.

"In mainland China, 67% of high-end watches owner owned or had a Swiss made wrist watch, which has the highest share of Swiss watches in China, Hongkong, Japan, Korea and the United States," Kelton Global, an international market research and consulting firm, said in its latest report.

At the same time, since the global watch growth rate slowed down in 2000, the watch sales in mainland China still maintained a relatively high growth rate, which is expected to remain until 2018.

At present, the watchmaking industry can basically be divided into three categories according to the consumption level, the top is luxury list, the middle is fashion list, and the bottom layer is the public table.

The cooperation between fashion brands and Swiss watchmakers has just met the gap between the upper and middle levels.

In the view of Jack Quinlan, China's expanding middle class has several characteristics on the purchase of high-end watches: "one is to pay attention to fashion, the fashion design of wrist watch design and the demand of fashion watches are greater than those of other countries; the two is to believe the brand, believe the authenticity of the brand and the identity of the brand watches.

The three is the confidence of Asian middle and high-end consumers for "Swiss made" and their desire to consume Swiss watches.

It is also these factors that promote the confidence of fashion brands for wrist watch products and pfer or resettlement of watch production lines.