Timepiece aficionados were treated to the time of their
lives when they boarded a superyacht in Monte-Carlo to try on the world’s most
coveted pieces from Swiss watchmaker Greubel Forsey.
Brand owner and founder Stephen Forsey gathered this merry
band of serious watch collectors in April on the occasion of the company’s
debut at Top Marques, the supercar show that spotlights ultra-luxury boys’ and
girls’ toys.
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| Greubel Forsey's Quadruple Tourbillon |
Added-value hand-finishing
This year’s event boasted the unveiling of the million-dollar-plus
AeroMobil, the world’s first flying car. And for Greubel Forsey, the exhibition
was the perfect location to highlight the patented Quadruple Tourbillon, which
retails at a cool 700,000 Swiss francs without tax (around $700,000). Like
all Greubel Forsey watches, this piece is handmade and takes some 600 hours to
craft. It represents the very confluence of art, design and precision
engineering.
The collectors onboard Curvelle’s Quaranta super-catamaran
also admired the new Signature 1, a more accessibly priced watch that
represents the essence of Greubel Forsey’s approach to watchmaking. This model,
priced at around 155,000 Swiss francs (without tax), does not have any
complications, and only 66 have been made with this calibre, in red gold, white
gold and platinum versions.
This elegant piece was “a big challenge” to make for a
company that’s so focused on added-value hand-finishing, Stephen Forsey tells
MJ Rabbit. “It was difficult for us to make a hand-wound watch that tells the
time only – just hours, minutes and seconds. There are no complications – it is
the purest essence of a watch. It’s a tribute to traditional handmaking watch
skills,” he enthuses.
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| Signature 1 Limited Edition USA |
Surprising collectors with the unexpected
The Signature 1 was created by a “dedicated, passionate”
team, notes Forsey, including watchmaker par excellence and longtime Greubel
Forsey staff member Didier Cretin, whose name is stamped on the timepiece.
Forsey promises more Signature watches in the future. Again, the team will take
the time to explore ideas. Creativity is the most prized asset in this small,
tightly-knit organisation, based in La Chaux-de-Fonds, near Neuchâtel in
Switzerland. Above all, the company wants to surprise its collectors and
provide them with the unexpected.
Forsey is a fascinating person to talk to for
brand-watchers. A watchmaker by trade, he isn’t a fan of the big-noise branding
favoured by the world’s luxury groups. Retailers of his timepieces – whom he
calls “ambassadors” – include Marcus Watches in the UK, owned by the veteran watch
lover Marcus Margulies, and other carefully selected retailers across the world
where the passion for handmade watches runs deep and collectors congregate.
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| Stephen Forsey, co-founder of Greubel Forsey |
Regular hospitality events in mainland China
Founded in 2004, Greubel Forsey only makes 100 timepieces a
year, many sold to collectors who are personally known to the company. These
collectors are evenly spread across the world, with one-third coming from
Europe (including Russia), one-third from the Americas and one-third from Asia.
The company has a good presence in Asia, in countries such as Thailand,
Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong and Macau. The watches
are not available for sale in mainland China due to the high domestic taxes,
but Greubel Forsey holds regular hospitality events in the country to attract
collectors.
Meanwhile, I will dream on...
