Issue 128: Women in watches, GPHG predictions, Grøne and flipping

A week of winners and losers in every possible sense

Hello and welcome back to The Fourth Wheel, the weekly watch newsletter that’s coming to you a day late - my apologies. The weeks just seem shorter and shorter this time of year. I hope the additional 24 hours of deprivation has only made you hungrier for horological tittle-tattle, because I’ve got a packed issue for you. Among other things, we are tackling the gender divide, the GPHG (I have given in, weak as I am, and once again done predictions - I never learn) and the long-running question of whether, having paid handsomely for a watch, you are at liberty to sell it on to someone else without being sent to Coventry¹. Enjoy!

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Here’s a little taste of what you might have missed recently:

Harrods Tudor Leaked: Details Confirmed
My Take On The Patek Philippe Cubitus
The Truth About Water Resistance
Everything I Learned About Hairsprings By Visiting Minerva
Why Can’t London Host A World-Class Watch Event?

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The watch world’s problem with women

For almost the entirety of my time in the watch industry, I have been reading similar headlines: “Watchmakers Start To Take Women Seriously”… “Female Collectors Becoming More Interested In Complications” … and more recently “Brand X To Give Up Gender Labels, Focus on Unisex Watches”.

I have witnessed the rise and fall of female-focussed editorial platforms and seen a tiny number of women promoted to C-suite positions. There are power lunches aimed at women in the industry, dedicated collector get-togethers and a number of really impressive women lobbying for the industry to take them more seriously.

This week, Deloitte published a report, co-authored with Watch Femme, a non-profit organisation advocating for greater representation in the watch world. And it makes me wonder if anything has really changed at all. There are some positives, but the key findings all point to a status quo that doesn’t know how to change, and maybe doesn’t have much of an interest in doing so. With sales dipping around the world, finding better ways of catering to an eternally-overlooked demographic might just be a good idea.

The six ‘ladies’ watches’ that will battle it out at this year’s GPHG. Honour the brand brave enough to leave off the gemstones, I dare you.

I’ve picked out a handful of what I think are the key points - often merged with my own analysis; the below is not directly quoted from the report unless clearly identified as so.

• Women are the main buyers of core models like the Cartier Tank and Rolex Datejust yet even as these watches gain more (male) attention thanks to (male) changing tastes, their history as predominantly female-focussed products is overlooked.

• Women, as a group, are still treated as a homogenous bloc of consumers that all think and act in the same way when even a momentary second of reflection is enough to realise this cannot be a useful way of thinking.

• Forty-three per cent of the watchmaking workforce in Switzerland are women, and the industry has an above-average gender pay gap. “Women in the Swiss watch industry are paid on average 24.8 per cent less than men.”

• Women in most key markets either wear smartwatches or no watches at all as their primary choice. This was a damning finding, but you can interpret it in multiple ways. In Japan, Switzerland and the US, the ‘type of watch’ most commonly worn by women was… none! A further seven markets, including most major European nations, Hong Kong, UAE and Singapore, found that smartwatches were most popular. You can take this and use it as evidence that women don’t want traditional watches, or you can use it as evidence that women don’t feel like the right watches for them are available. In isolation, it’s not easy to say which, and it’s likely a combination of both. But the job of marketeers and advertising gurus is, in part, to inspire demand. Clearly, that isn’t working.

• A side note: the report informed me that Frederique Constant has dropped its Horological Smartwatch from the range, leaving precious few Swiss brands bothering in the segment at all. TAG Heuer and Hublot stand out.

• Gender-free designs are more popular in some markets than others; Italy, Japan and Hong Kong all expressed a preference for them, while the UAE, China and France favoured more traditionally female-specific designs. Overall, in 2022, just 44 per cent of women said they wanted a watch designed specifically for women. Twenty-seven per cent of women said that gender categorisation did not matter to consumers, and 34 per cent felt that it brought no utility to consumers, brands or retailers.

• Women have become more comfortable buying watches online; in 2020, 64 per cent of women said they preferred to buy in person. In 2024, this figure had dropped to 48 per cent.

• Perhaps most revealing of all: 85 per cent of women said the watches they saw in advertising did not represent the watches they would wear - this contrasts with their perception, held by 75 per cent of the women surveyed, that watches advertised for men are the ones they would actually wear.

• Unsurprising, to anyone who has ever set foot in a watch boutique, but depressing nonetheless: 79 per cent of women felt that they do not have the same customer experience as men in-store. I would have liked to also know, impractical though it may be, what the gender split is for sales staff. There were some interesting details shared - Alexandra Mille, brand and partnerships director for Richard Mille, said that “we used to have low-backed furniture and these tiny mirrors, but women prefer to sit up straight and see themselves fully in a mirror to judge how a watch looks on them. Seemingly small things like that can change the whole experience for a client.”

The report concludes that “Overall, there is still a relatively low visibility of women in the watch space. Looking at leadership positions, experts, public speakers, influencers, media and collector clubs; there is a clear under-representation of women… we hope that thus insight paper has put a spotlight on [a] fascinating, unexplored and promising market.”

I have to agree. I have written before about the circular logic that can lead us to convince ourselves that only men are interested in watches - and I know that I sit here as a man, writing to a database that is overwhelmingly male. But I don’t think it’s true. I think the industry adopts one-size-fits all policies and designs for a single stereotype of women, and doesn’t consider their behaviour, desires or priorities when building its retail networks, marketing campaigns and event programmes. It would have been nice to see the Deloitte report draw on a wider pool of respondents; a significant percentage came from within the industry, which means they are knowledgeable, but also means they are disproportionately well-informed when it comes to talking about the female luxury customer as a whole. From a survey pool of only 107 people, 53 worked in connection with the industry in some way. The report does say that it specifically wanted this perspective, so it’s not a criticism as much as the feeling that in addition, a control group of non-industry women might also be useful. Will change come from it? Who can say; in challenging times, some leaders will double down on what they know best while others will take risks. Frustratingly, circular logic still hobbles the legs of progress: without women in positions of power and influence, my fear is few executives will be motivated to experiment with product and marketing strategies that could unlock a market that, by its own account, is not being served. But the rewards could be substantial, if they’re brave enough to try.

GPHG predictions

Very briefly and purely as a hostage to fortune, here’s my list of what should win and what probably will win in each category. I’m not doing the pictures - think of this as more of a cut-out-and-keep sheet for the night itself.

This is going to take one of the big prizes home, I am sure of it

Ladies’ watch: Should be the Hermes Cut, probably will be the Van Cleef & Arpels Lady Jour Nuit

Ladies’ complication: I’d like to see Trilobe take this one with its Exquisite Hour Secret, but I think Faberge or Louis Vuitton will win.

Time only: The obvious answer is Berneron’s Mirage, but I think that’ll win the overall Aiguille d’Or, leaving the path open here. It should be Bernhard Lederer in my opinion, but I think Chopard will edge it. Uniquely, I like all six watches in this category.

Men’s: How is there ‘Ladies’, and Men’s, and Time Only which is all men’s watches? Anyway never mind, it’s all part of today’s wider theme. Bulgari is cheeky for entering the same watch twice, the Octo Finissimo Ultra Platinum, just with colour differences, so I’m hoping the jury frowns on that, but it probably will win. Betting against Kari Voutilainen’s KV20i Reversed, especially in his anniversary year, is brave, and it’s probably the worthy choice.

Men’s complication: I think Franck Muller’s Long Island Evolution Master Jumper is going to surprise us with a win, and it wouldn’t be entirely unjustified. The triple-jumping complication is impressive; I just can’t enjoy the watch aesthetically. Personally I think technical achievement has to be accompanied by appealing design, so I’d nominate the De Bethune DB Kind of Grande Complication.

Iconic: Piaget’s Polo 79 will win, and I’ll just have to ignore how flawed I think this is as a category. Nothing should win because I don’t think it should exist.

Tourbillon: There’s a lot of love for Daniel Roth Souscription, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised, but I think it should probably be the Chopard L.U.C 1860 Flying Tourbillon.

Calendar and Astronomy: This should be the easiest one to call, with IWC’s Portugieser Eternal Calendar far and away the most impressive.

Mechanical Exception: Here’s that Bulgari again, you see. I have a hard time judging this category, because you’re really asking people to compare wildly different forms of mechanical excellence. Is making an ultra-thin watch more impressive than a repeater, for example? I think it’ll go to the Bovet Recital 28 for its daylight-savings cleverness, and that feels about right.

Chronograph: I’d be astounded if Louis Vuitton x Rexhep Rexhepi’s LVRR-01 Chronographe a Sonnerie doesn’t win, and although my personal favourite in the category is also the simplest - the Angelus Instrument de Vitesse - I have to say the LVRR is out in front of the others. I do like that Massena LAB x Silvain Pinaud monopusher though.

Sports: For these to be up there as ostensibly the six best sports watches of the year, something’s not right. I love the Ming 37.09 Bluefin and would really like to see it win, but Tudor seems to have a hypnotic hold over the GPHG, even though the Pelagos FXD is, for me, the least appealing watch it has made this year. I’d love to see the Singer Reimagined Divetrack win, but we all know it won’t.

Jewellery: I say the same thing every time - you need to see these in person, more than any other category, so it’s irrelevant. On photos alone… I reckon Bulgari will take it.

Artistic Crafts: There would be something so impressive about rewarding Andersen Geneve’s Jumping Hours Black Jade, a watch with a near-featureless dial (nevertheless it requires craft, hence its place on the list) but that is just not going to happen. I feel like Hermes’s Arceau Chorus Stellarum should win but Louis Vuitton probably will, with its Escale Cabinet of Wonders, and that’s not exactly an injustice - there are no bad contenders here, personal taste to one side.

Petite Aiguille: Another Tudor - the Black Bay 58 - so you know what’s probably going to happen. Horologically the Furlan Marri Perpetual One is the most impressive; but I have a funny feeling Frederique Constant x Seconde Seconde might spring a surprise.

Challenge: Definitely going to be Kollokium, and I have no issue with that.

There are four awards that are discretionary in nature. I don’t think the jury will - or can, credibly - award the Eco-innovation prize. It may decide to give the Chronometry prize to Bernhard Lederer, in which case I would expect the Time Only to definitely go to Chopard. The Audacity prize might go to Berneron, if they bottle out of giving him the big one, the Aiguille d’Or, and the Horological Revelation prize is also something you could definitely imagine winging its way in Berneron’s direction. Or, that one might end up with Furlan Marri, which would raise a few eyebrows.

Watch along with me on the night, why don’t you - I’ll be posting live in the Fourth Wheel chat and on Instagram - and we can enjoy how wrong I am together. And please, share your predictions!

Grøne light, or speed bumps?

This week saw the launch of Grøne, a new brand from Bart and Tim Gronefeld, the brothers behind the high-end independent brand of the same name. Conceptually, this follows a path already taken by the brothers’ friend Stepan Sarpaneva, among others, whereby haute horlogerie watchmakers spin out a less expensive suite of designs that carry some of their established DNA and use third-party movements. It’s a business move that is often presented as making available some of the features of very rare and desirable watches to an audience that could never have been able to afford one, but with its limited production volumes, is just as likely to be snapped up by idle, wealthy collectors while they wait for their actual Gronefeld watch to be made (the brothers have had a freeze on new orders for Gronefeld for quite some time, as they look to fulfil existing orders).

Sadly for Grøne, launch week wasn’t quite as smooth as they might have hoped.