Red carpet rolled out in Beijing
Lutz Bethge, CEO of Montblanc International, exudes excitement when the atelier's new Beijing concept store is mentioned. The brand's only store of its kind is another step in its efforts to strengthen guanxi with its mainland customer base.
'It's a dream come true for us,' says Bethge of the store, which opened in the Sanlitun area on January 12, just prior to SIHH 2012. 'We've often thought about that: how do we not only give beautiful products to our customers but also provide them with the experience of the brand.'
The four-storey store provides visitors with an audio tour guide with stories of the brand's history and an interactive time capsule.
Guests also get the star treatment with a 'red carpet' area where they can experience the flash bulbs of paparazzi - just like a movie star. The concept changes every few months.
Montblanc was one of the earliest luxury watch brands to enter the mainland in the early 1990s. It is also opening stores in new cities and renovating old stores. 'We believed [China] would be strong business for us, but I have to say it was even better than we expected,' Bethge says.
Montblanc's piece de resistance this year is the TimeWriter II Chronographe Bi-Frequence 1,000, the second in its TimeWriter series following the Metamorphosis two years ago. With the TimeWriter project, the brand picks a young watchmaker with a creative design every two years and works with him to manufacture the watch. This year's watchmaker is, surprisingly, not Swiss but a young Spaniard from Menorca - Bartomeu Gomila.
The challenge of measuring 1/1000th of a second in a small watch is that a mechanical watch must have a balance that completes 3.6 million semi-oscillations per hour; its frequency must be 500hz. With parts so small, the friction and wear and tear on the parts would make this almost impossible.
As a child, Gomila used to play with a wooden hoop that he could roll continuously by pushing it with his hand or striking it with a stick. Taking his inspiration from that, Gomila was able to design a balance that oscillated at 50Hz, reducing friction and the required power significantly.
The clean dial with clear indicators and the one-crown adjustment give the watch an aesthetic and functional advantage over its nearest competitor.
The TimeWalker TwinFly Chronograph GreyTech follows in the footsteps of last year's highly successful TimeWalker TwinFly. Satinised and pearl-blasted finishing gives the solid titanium case a monochrome that is contrasted by various shades of grey on the dial components. The 43mm case has the in-house Chronograph Calibre MB LL100.
The 43mm rose gold Rieussec Chronograph Open Hometime pays homage to the first Rieussec chronograph from 1821 with rotating counter discs.
For sailors, Montblanc has come up with the Regulateur Nautique, which pairs a chronograph watch with regulator dial and two time zones, along with a 93cm navigational clock.
Ladies have a choice from four designs for the new 33cm Princesse Grace de Monaco Collection.
Other more classic novelties include the Vintage Tachydate from the Montblanc Collection, TimeWalker ChronoVoyager UTC and the Star Classique Automatic.
