In the centuries-old Swiss watchmaking universe, Chanel is a relative newcomer. The French luxury brand Chanel entered the market only in 1987, introducing its Première watch, a minimalist women’s timepiece.
But Nicolas Beau, Chanel’s international watch director, noted that the division’s core focus, the women’s luxury watch market, has enjoyed a good deal more attention in recent years from traditional watch companies.
“Our competitors used to just produce ladies-style watches, meaning watches that are the same as the men’s but in a smaller size and with added diamonds,” Mr. Beau, 52, said in a phone interview. “But we are now seeing a more dynamic competition.”
And while such watchmakers as Vacheron Constantin, Piaget and Omega shift their focus to women, this week at Baselworld, the giant watch and jewelry fair, Chanel will unveil its first timepiece specifically for men: the Monsieur de Chanel.
Combining a string of firsts, the Monsieur contains Chanel’s first movement made in-house, the Calibre 1, and becomes its first timepiece to be created entirely at the company’s assembly plant in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland.
So what prompted Chanel to enter the men’s market at a time when traditional watchmakers are headed in the other direction — and particularly at a time when growth in the men’s market is widely perceived as slowing down?
“The way we work is to start from the stories we want to tell,” Mr. Beau explained. “We don’t really look at marketing surveys or whether the market is saturated or not.”
Given Chanel’s desire to explore all fields of watchmaking, he added, “it is natural that this year we would want to explore the great complications of the masculine field. We feel we have a great contribution to give.”
The Monsieur, whose fully integrated movement incorporates two technically challenging complications, a jumping hour and a retrograde minute, took five years to develop. To bring it to life, Chanel hired a team of eight watchmaking specialists in movement construction, testing and assembly.
And to further burnish its watchmaking credentials, the house acquired a stake in the business of Romain Gauthier, a highly regarded independent Swiss watchmaker. Although the move was made in 2011, the somewhat secretive, privately owned Chanel is announcing it only now, in conjunction with the debut of Monsieur.
Mr. Gauthier, who makes an exclusive line of his own watches including the prize-winning Logical One, also supplies several high-end brands with wheels for their movements. It is that expertise Chanel has incorporated into the Monsieur, with Mr. Gauthier supplying them to its specifications.
As in Chanel’s relationship with Parisian heritage ateliers like the embroiderer Lesage and the hat maker Maison Michel, Mr. Gauthier remains totally independent and can even work for Chanel’s competitors, Mr. Beau said.
The decision to support the long-term development and skills of such companies makes for a productive business, he added: “The richness of Chanel is that we are in so many metiers that it creates innovation. Each metier inspires the other one in invisible but clear ways.”
In the past Chanel has designed and selected movements to compliment a watch’s overall aesthetic but, for the Monsieur, the Calibre 1 movement became the driving force for everything that followed. Every component, including the wheels, screws and rubies, Mr. Beau said, was specially designed by Chanel’s creative team in collaboration with its watchmaking department.
It chose for its first complication the jumping hour, in which the hour is displayed as a numeral, to echo the importance of numbers such as No. 5, its iconic perfume introduced in 1921, and 2.55, its handbag style, in its heritage.
The movement’s black, complex and architectural design in matte and glossy tones, revealed through its transparent back cover, is a contrast with the minimalist silvered opaline dial. “You have this very beautiful engine and then you turn it over, and you have an extremely simple, lean and clean design,” Mr. Beau said. “It’s like a watch with two faces.”
The French-Swiss executive, who has been with Chanel for almost 15 years, first fell in love with watches when he joined Cartier in Paris in 1987. A stint as marketing manager at Baume et Mercier in Switzerland followed before he joined Chanel’s burgeoning watch department in 2002.
Today he counts approximately 20 timepieces in his personal collection, bearing in mind, he said, that his two sons have appropriated several of them. His is not an investment collection but one borne out of a simple love of watch design. “I buy a watch when I have a cri de coeur, I would say, when my heart quickens at a design,” he said.
The Monsieur, which in 2016 will be produced in a limited edition of 300 (half in beige gold at 31,500 euros and half in white gold at €33,000), marks a proud moment for Mr. Beau. Another was the 2003 unveiling of the J12 White. At the time, there was virtually no other white watch on the market; today, most watch brands offer one. “I’m proud, not just personally, but that as a young brand in this marketplace, we were able to influence the style of an entire industry,” he said.
In those early days, he noted, media interviews were dominated by questions about fashion accessories and fashion watches. Today he is delighted Chanel is being taken seriously as a watchmaker. “There’s been an evolution. Now I have questions about watchmaking, quality and style,” he said, adding that Chanel now has 46 watch and fine jewelry boutiques and eight exclusively watch boutiques around the world.
The company will unveil 42 new timepieces across its collections at Baselworld, including iterations of the Boy.Friend, its newest women’s watch, and a tremblant version of the Mademoiselle Privé Coromandel, featuring birds that “fly” with the movement of the wearer’s wrist.
Mr. Beau said he often described Chanel not as a fashion brand but as a true luxury brand, consistently creating products that endure. “We are able to mix tradition and fashion,” he said. “That’s the magic of Chanel.”
