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| Nicholas Hayek: The Crown Jewel |
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Nothing sells better than a story well told. And no one knows that better than Nicholas Hayek, founder and chairman of Swatch group, the largest watch company in the world, and CEO of Montres Breguet. On the 25th day of September — a day of ambivalent weather so typical of Paris, the air redolent with Chanel No. 5 — Hayek unveiled the two projects he’s held close to his entrepreneurial heart.
One year after closing down for restoration, the Petit Trianon — on the grounds of the sumptuous Versailles Palace and largely associated with France’s most divisive queen Marie Antoinette — reopened to the public, financed entirely by Montres Breguet. Alongside that was the showcasing of the replica of the Breguet watch originally ordered for Marie Antoinette at the behest of an admirer.
The ‘Marie Antoinette’ may have already been displayed in April at Basel, but its presence on this day successfully perpetuated 233 year-old brand’s reputation as the darling of the Versailles Court. “It was exactly on a day like this, on October 5, 1789, that Marie-Antoinette left the palace for the last time,” says Jean-Jacques Aillagon, president of the state corporation of the Versailles Museum.
Petit Trianon, of course, was where Marie Antoinette escaped to, with her innermost coterie, to avoid the gossip and intrigues of the Court. It was at the zenith of her truncated reign as Queen that she was seduced by the one-of-a-kind Breguet watches. Of course, anything she deemed a la mode found several takers and before long Breguet had gained a reputation as watchmaker to the kings.
That has driven Hayek’s game plan ever since he acquired the flagging brand in 1999 — to make legitimate the brand’s legacy as supplier to the most celebrated clientele that history could throw up. Napoleon Bonaparte once owned 19; Winston Churchill was a fan and Breguet has been eulogised in literature from The Count de Monte Cristo to The French Lieutenant’s Woman.
But while in his lifetime, founder Abraham Louis Breguet — a master craftsman always one up on his competitors — found great successes, past his lifetime the brand fell into the hands of owners who couldn’t keep up its heritage . It is under Hayek’s personal custody that Breguet is said to have undergone the most significant renaissance of its time — the factory in Switzerland’s Vallee de Joux has been given a 15 million Swiss franc makeover, and production has more than tripled.
This has only further cemented Hayek’s reputation as a master of reform. Originally a successful business consultant, Hayek first came into prominence when he shook up a flagging Swiss watch industry by merging two bankrupt Swiss watch groups into the Swatch group — what is now one of the country’s largest success stories , and then damning all convention and creating the first Swiss-made plastic watch — Swatch. The Swiss watch industry has never looked back.
Today however, even as gross sales for Swatch group cross CHF 5 billion for the first time, the company is having to work harder to keep the spirit of Swatch fresh amid competition from cheap watches from China and Japan. They realise it is, in fact, their portfolio of luxury mechanical watches including Omega, Blancpain and Breguet that will drive profit growth.
By Arati Menon Carroll, ET Bureau |
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