The ink is barely dry on Tag Heuer's contract with LVMH, and already the fashion buzz is building. French luxury goods empire Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, which owns the brands Louis Vuitton, Celine, Loewe and others, acquired prestigious watch maker Tag Heuer International, reportedly for more than US$740 million (HK$5.74 billion).
In so doing, LVMH will endow a 136-year-old watch brand with its image-making savvy and marketing and distribution might. Tag Heuer, hugely successful in its own right, has yet to move past its association with men's sports - it has an almost cult-like following among race-car drivers and tennis stars - and embrace a finer, more fashionable form.
Tag Heuer's bid to fuse its hi-tech, multi-function, durable and predominantly men's watches with couture creativity is part of a trend in the watch business. The connection between fashion and telling the time has never been closer, with designers from Calvin Klein to Chanel slapping their names on watch lines and brands like Concord and Cartier vying to put their products on movie stars on Oscars night.
Next week, Tag Heuer will set out to prove just how much a fashion-savant it is by holding an exhibition of photographs featuring some of the world's most prominent sports men and women dressed by today's most famous designers, and wearing, of course, the latest Tag Heuers.
The event, which is open to the public and runs at Times Square in Causeway Bay from October 28 to 31, is the regional launch of the new Link collection - a line that Tag Heuer says represents the trend of fashion in sport and vice versa. Tennis stars Boris Becker and Monica Seles had outfits designed for them by Alexander McQueen and Narciso Rodriguez respectively, while track athletes Marion Jones and Colin Jackson and soccer player Leonardo were dressed by Gianfranco Ferre, Thierry Mugler and Karl Lagerfeld.
Shot by celebrated fashion photographer Peter Lindbergh (with the exception of Leonardo, whom Lagerfeld photographed), the pictures are intended to convey all the strength and tenacity of the sports stars with the cutting-edge style of pre-millennial fashion.
