The super secretive world of Swiss watchmaking is opening up

For the Swiss-watch industry, Nicolas Hayek’s shock 2002 announcement was akin to Intel withdrawing its microchip supply to two-thirds of the world’s PC manufacturers But instead of chips, this concerned the biggest fish in luxury timekeeping’s pond: the Swatch Group’s ETA facility. ETA wielded a virtual monopoly on quality, white-label movements, affording hundreds of brands bona fide “Swiss watchmaker” status. Hayek’s decision to stop supplying movements served as motivation for watchmakers to diversify – and fast The industry reacted quickly, with a group of in-house third-party suppliers such as Sellita, Christopher Ward and Louis Vuitton appearing in ETA’s wake.

This rise in proprietary mechanics is illustrated well by Baume & Mercier and its major watch launch of 2018 – the Clifton Baumatic. Not only does the broadest slice of the Richemont Group’s portfolio pyramid now have its own movement with plenty of technical interest in its own right, but Baume & Mercier is . Source