‘Swiss Smart’
Edouard Meylan, CEO, H Moser & CIE waxes eloquent on the brand’s smart watch and its association with style icon Bryan Ferry in a chat with Hiren Kumar Bose
A mechanical watchmaking Manufacture you’ve just come out with a smart watch, called the Swiss Alps. Any compulsions to do it?
Swiss Alps is an interesting product which we have created as a symbol of the brand. The watch industry has two categories—the traditional watches and the smart watches. We are into high-end traditional watches. We believe both the categories can stay together. Each inspired by the other. Lots of people have asked me: are you feeling threatened? Do you want to fight the big brands? No, we are not fighting with the big brands. Swiss Alps has an inspiring shape. By making it we wanted to show that we can make a smart watch.
Most watch brands would not venture to do exercises like experimenting with weightlessness and hyper gravity which you did recently. What made you do it?
We want to be a true Manufacture. And like to go beyond. When we create escapement, hairspring etc. we simulate them on computers. I was talking to our engineers and asked why do get different results and they said it was due to the mechanical constraints of our tests and one can get the right results if we go into space. What we know in theory is different from the practical results. I never thought that we would go to space to test our hairsprings and our escapements. Of course, when the opportunity came our way we did it. We tested different movements to check how they compared with our own models.
You’ve partnered with singer and style icon Bryan Ferry to launch the eponymous Limited Edition, based on an old H Moser pocket watch. What are your expectations from this partnership?
Bryan Ferry is an icon of style. We want to build emotions. We make small elegant watches and who better than Bryan Ferry to personify that. We don’t have great designers like Gerald Genta or a Richard Mille. We (Bryan and the brand) share similar values. Emotions are important to make a decision to buy a watch. And that’s what we want to do.
Like individuals brands too have a personality. Tell us about your brand’s personality.
H Moser is sexy, traditional with strong entrepreneurial skills.
Few words about your classically designed watches, like the Perpetual Calendar Heritage and the Big Date from the horse’s mouth.
With our Perpetual Calendar Heritage we wanted to bring back the heritage of the brand. It has a beautiful design, ingenious movements and is a tribute to 88 years of our history which many are not aware of. In fact, it’s a summary of that. We wanted people to know that. Big Date is an important element of our brand with very smart movements. You can easily adjust both forwards and backwards without inadvertently changing the time. Its Flash calendar enables instant date changes. We like to do functional watches and the Big Date is an example of that.
