Tag Archives: Smart Consumerism

Keep it simple

The Wallstreet Journal just published an article on simple automatic watches by Patek Philippe, Frederique Constant, Montblanc, Vacheron Constantin, and Tag Heuer. In Saturday’s Newspaper and Online.

Frederique-Constant-Patek-Philippe-Vacheron-Constantin-Tag-Heuer-in-the-wallstreet-journal-medium

Patek Philippe, Frederique Constant, Montblanc, Vacheron Constantin, and Tag Heuer in Wallstreet Journal

Complications: Not on my watch

After a decade of muscular dominance, feature-packed sports watches and complication-laden wrist trophies are being put aside in favor of simpler models. Think sleek and elegant timepieces that are smaller than a sundial, and can be operated without a Ph.D.

Elegant dress watches are at the moment coming through a very strong revival. You had a time until 2007, 2008, where a watch couldn’t be bigger. The bigger, the louder, the better. And now we are back to a lot of classic, refined and slim timepieces.

Watch-enthusiasts have been waving the flag of time-only simplicity for the past several months, and a Hondikee post about the Trésor De Ville prompted raves from its readers. “People are still freaking out over it,” said Benjamin Clymer, the site’s founder and executive editor. “They think it’s the most beautiful thing.”

As for the shift from complicated to simple, Mr. Clymer said, “It sort of goes along with the whole vintage revival, which, in many ways, is about the search for pure design.” Indeed, the quest for simplicity and elegance is partly retro-skewed. Certain popular dress watches are slightly tweaked versions of timepieces that were launched decades ago, like Patek Philippe’s Calatrava, based on a design from 1912.

Patek-Philippe-Vacheron-Constantin-Frederique-Constant-Tag-Heuer

Clockwise from top left: Patek Philippe,http://www.patek.com,Ref. 5227J Calatrava, $35,400, Patek Philippe at Tiffany & Co., http://www.tiffany.com, 212-605-4036; Antea 365 A10 Watch, $943, stowa.com; Star Classique Date Watch, $2,475, Montblanc, http://www.montblanc.com, 212-223-8888; Frederique Constant Slimline Automatic Watch, $2,495, http://www.frederique-constant.com ; Carrera Calibre 5 Automatic Watch, $2,900, http://www.www.tagheuer.com; Patrimony Platinum Watch, $33,700, Vacheron Constantin, http://www.vacheron-constantin.com, 877-701-1755 F. Martin Ramin/The Wall Street Journal

The Frederique Constant Slimline Range consists of some of the evergreens in our collection and is exemplary to our Accessible Luxury positioning. These timepieces include latest technology, while maintaining their same successful, stylish and clean designs. The Frederique Constant Slimline is also a tribute to fine Geneva Watchmaking with its uniting style, elegance and high quality.

In past, I have written about Frederique Constant as a Smart Buy View. Modern luxury culture fueled by commercialism seems to advocate purchases of luxury items at very high prices. Some people seem to focus only on how expensive an item is instead of focusing on its value. This unfortunate practice has eroded the true traditions of luxury where price was ultimately the function of the intrinsic value and quality of the item being purchased.

By definition accessible luxury refers to items of luxury which are available at an accessible price, however to some the idea of accessibility seems alien when the subject of luxury is discussed. Take for example the undiscerning buyer who might have the financial wherewithal to purchase an expensive product without understanding the finer details about its intrinsic qualities. This sort of person merely understands luxury products as expensive items which are largely unavailable to most. With this in mind, why should anyone want a luxury item which is available to a greater number of people at an accessible price?

It is also what was picked-up by Tom Moris in his comment:

Peter: I admire so much what you all are doing at FC. With your rare and admirable attitude toward luxury and pricing, you are both returning to and reinventing the great tradition of true luxury. Your perspective captures the ancient and noble approach that luxury is about intrinsic quality and the owner’s experience of use. The contemporary redefinition of luxury in terms of exclusivity through inaccessibly high pricing is just a sad departure from the essence of what luxury is really all about. Your business philosophy is so refreshing. It’s also a return to purity, in my view. I own several watches from makers like Patek, Breguet, and JLC. I always make selections based on aesthetics and functionality and never on the exclusivity criterion. People who chase the highest price models just to set themselves apart are looking in the wrong places for their own self esteem. True self worth is manifested by the pursuit of quality that finds issues of inaccessibility to be utterly irrelevant. I look forward to my first opportunity to wear and enjoy a Frederique Constant. As an author and public philosopher, I appreciate immensely what you are doing, as I view it from afar. Good Wishes, Tom Morris

Sophisticated Ideas. With Power.

Tom at Desk Smile

 

Repost by Tom Morris, Ph.D. (Yale University)
See Tom’s blog article at TomVMorris

 

A Simple Luxury: Everyday Beauty

Every morning, we get these push notifications from social media – this person has requested or accepted a LinkedIn connection, that person has endorsed you, there is a new comment on your post, and you have new followers on Twitter. Going through the first run of emails for the day, I usually brush by these quickly. But today, a name caught my eye. I have a new Twitter follower who is the founder and CEO of one of the world’s most interesting companies, and one that I especially admire.

In 1988, Peter Stas and his wife Aletta Bax launched the Swiss watchmaking firm of Frederique Constant. Their vision was simple and brilliant: craft beautiful, elegant watches that would be useful works of art, and accessible to more people than the already existing high-end timepieces for which Switzerland had long been known.

If you are fortunate enough to have artwork in your home that you love – paintings, drawings, sculpture, beautiful rugs, china, or pottery – I hope you enjoy each piece nearly every time you pass it, or sit near it. And if you have easy access to a great museum, or gallery, you can visit to enjoy whatever is on display, sometimes created by the most talented of artists in history, or perhaps in your region of the world. But what about the rest of your time? Are you in touch with beauty in an ongoing way? I’ve come to believe quite firmly that there is a deep aesthetic dimension to our experience of the world, every day, and that we need frequent contact with beauty, in many of its various forms, in order to be our best, feel our best, and flourish in the most complete ways.

A beautiful watch is a small work of art, inside and out, that can go with you nearly everywhere, available throughout the day to add just a spark of the aesthetic to your experience. But the most beautiful watches, for the past half century, have become exorbitantly expensive, and have, in many circles, turned into rare luxuries whose value has subtly shifted, from intrinsically valuable works of art, to often primarily social signifiers – signs that set their wearers apart as members of the cultural elite, the “one percenters” with power, money, and status. Too many people who purchase such amazing, small handmade machines of intricate elegance that sit on the wrist and provide some of the most important information we can gain, do so these days primarily for show, to prove something, to indicate their level of financial attainment and membership in a rarified club of peers. Luxury, in step with this, has become almost synonymous with inaccessibility, the unaffordable and out of reach for the majority of people who could genuinely enjoy that experience of using the goods and services typically thought of as luxuries.

Peter rightly saw that this has gotten all out of joint. Luxury, at its heart, is meant to be primarily about ease and enjoyment, not social display and status achievement. So he and Aletta set out to create beautiful watches, useful works of art that could travel with you throughout your day, and be accessible luxuries, valued primarily for their mastery of craftsmanship and aesthetic qualities, not simply for their brand symbolism, flash, or bling. But of course, beauty has its own flash and bling. And now their brand, Frederique Constant, has become known for its purity of concern with luxury in its original sense, providing ease and enjoyment, which, of course, for most of us must involve reliability, something else they view as of peak importance. They significantly underprice their competition, not by cutting corners on quality, but by focusing on what really matters, and on what they most want to accomplish. And they provide beauty to more of the world, as a result.

Welcome to my little philosophy family, Peter! You believe in the right things!

Read more articles by Tom Morris

 

RETURN ON INVENTORY INVESTMENT (ROII)

€2695 for FC705S4S6  €1995 for FC710MC4H4

€2695 for FC705S4S6 – €1995 for FC710MC4H4

ROII tells our retailers how much money they are making on each dollar invested in their inventory every year. It is calculated this way:

ROII = MARKUP x INVENTORY TURN

Let us review the two elements of this equation.

MARKUP

Frederique Constant offers a larger MARKUP than most, if not all, of its group competitors. Especially during the past years, our Mark-up % became more advantageous as our competitors repeatedly reduced their margins to retailers.

Contrary to our stocklisted competitors, Frederique Constant is family owned and independent. We do not have to report profit every quarter, we can have a more long-term view, stronger colaboration with partners, let our partners earn a better margin.

INVENTORY TURN

Frederique Constant’s INVENTORY TURN is increasing in today’s economic climate. Our Accessible Luxury positioning proved to be a winner during the financial crisis when we grew over 45% in 2010.

As I wrote in a recent press release: “Clients are getting smarter“. Whereas Frederique Constant offers watches with in-house calibers, our competitors offer watches at similar prices with mass produced calibers. Whereas Frederique Constant dials are galvanized and/or have guilloche patterns, our competitors have printed dials with simple printed indexes. Whereas Frederique Constant cases are rounded on sides and hand polished, ergonomic to wear, our competitor cases often have straight sides and rough edges.

With increasing strength of Smart ConsumerismFrederique Constant’s Accessible Luxury watches are increasingly the choice of smart clients.

 

FREDERIQUE CONSTANT “SMART BUY”

Frederique Constant Automatic Runabout Modern luxury culture fueled by commercialism seems to advocate purchases of luxury items at very high prices. Some people seem to focus only on how expensive an item is instead of focusing on its value. This unfortunate practice has eroded the true traditions of luxury where price was ultimately the function of the intrinsic value and quality of the item being purchased.

 

Frederique Constant’s buying viagra concept of providing accessible luxury timepieces stays true to the tradition of providing luxury items for an owner’s personal satisfaction. Frederique Constant provides value regardless of price and not the other way around where value is used as an excuse to drive prices of luxury items higher.

Such purchases could be termed a “smart buy”, where the buyer knows they own a respected and recognized item known for its value rather than its cost.

As smart buyers, Frederique Constant owners are self-satisfied; they acquire products of luxury that have been developed by passionate watchmakers with an perfectionist eye and drive for detail. Frederique Constant owners know the value of what they own.

Live Your Passion.