Issue 163: Is There A More Confusing Brand Than Chopard?

People say LUC is underrated. I think it's more complicated than that.

Hello and welcome back to The Fourth Wheel, the weekly watch newsletter that has no intention of letting readers generate their own AI-based newsletter based on my greatest hits¹. If you haven’t heard, that’s what Swatch is supposedly going to try. The concept, described as “Artistic Intelligence” will arrive imminently and apparently draw on a library of great historic Swatch designs to generate unique new ones. When I and others said repeatedly that there was a crisis of creativity in mainstream watchmaking, I’m not sure this is the solution we had in mind². If the news had broken earlier in the week I might have done an entire newsletter on AI in watchmaking but as it is, you’ll have to be content with a thorough examination of Chopard’s brand proposition.

ps. On the subject of Swatch, let’s not allow the shiny AI headline to distract us from some worrying numbers:

Swatch Group posted half-year figures that included a 7.1% drop in sales, a 67% drop in operating profit and an 88% drop in net income year on year. Apparently it’s all China’s fault but it’s ok because they think they see signs of a recovery. Believe it when you see it, but the stock market must have bought it because the share price actually rose on hearing this news. Activist investor Steven Wood is using the moment to keep the momentum up in his bid for changes at boardroom level. Swatch UK meanwhile filed accounts showing a 33% fall in pre-tax profits and an 11% fall in turnover for the year ended 31st December 2024, and in the first quarterly result for its financial year, Richemont announced overall global sales increased by 6% but watchmaking (not inc. Cartier or Van Cleef & Arpels) falling by 7%. At this same point last year, the Specialist Watchmaking Maisons were down 13% for the first quarter, so the good news is the rate of decline has slowed. The bad news is they’re down 22% in the last two years.

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

Issue 162: COSC Wants To Be Relevant Again

Issue 161: The Case For, And Against, Fun

Issue 160: Ask Me Anything

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There’s a lot of love out there for Chopard these days. It was Tony Traina and Justin Hast’s praise for Chopard on Instagram (and some of the less positive comments that followed) that prompted me to write this, but I would go so far as to say that the LUC 1860 is approaching ‘critical favourite’ status, joining the very small roster of watches that almost all journalists - a picky and often contrarian bunch - hold in high regard.

I like it too. I’ve liked the LUC XP and XPS for a long time; in no way do I think I was ahead of the curve but they’re watches that have been in my good books for upwards of a decade. One of the first watches I can remember really taking to heart, shortly after becoming a watch journalist, was the original Chopard LUC 8HF, the high-frequency model released in 2012. When I was at QP we did a shoot with the 1963 Chronograph, a terrific looking hand-wound chrono that sat side by side with a Datograph, Patek 5170 and Breguet 5287 without being outshone. Ok, the Datograph is superior, the Patek better known, but it never felt like the Chopard had walked into the wrong room. Many times in recent years have I named a Chopard among my most-wanted or ‘best-in-show’ lists (the Alpine Eagle 8HF Cadence, the LUC Time Traveler One, anything with the honeycomb caseback…)

I say all this because I’m obviously building up to being more critical of the brand and I wanted it on record that it comes from a place of love. Chopard makes a lot of great watches. Fans of the brand like to talk about how underrated they are - and I understand that impulse. We all like the idea of proclaiming your love for something that the wider world hasn’t yet appreciated; it shows you’ve got great taste, whether that’s a band, a restaurant, a clothing brand or anything else.

I don’t think liking Chopard is an act of pure hipsterism, but my hot take is this: the brand as a whole is confused and confusing, which prevents it being respected alongside other haute horlogerie makers. Consequently, it’s best watches aren’t underrated so much as they’re interpreted in completely the wrong light by most people. I’m also going to argue that there hasn’t been a really ambitious LUC release for at least five years. Let’s get into it.