The changing face of watchmaking

[willy]

Watch making has changed in a big way,if you look at past and present.All brands have in the past used out scourcing for calibers-cases-bracelets etc etc.Indeed it was a tradition in the Swiss Watch industry for about 100 years or more.Even brands like Patek out scourced their calibers and even their watch cases in the past.And nobody ever accused them of living on the backs of other manufacturers.Because this tradition was respected in the industry,and everybody used it.The standards were high,and the quality of the end product was the most important.And brands like PP-AP-IWC etc etc,gained great respect.And could indeed call their watches inhouse.Even if strictly speaking,this was not true.

So what has changed today,you might ask?Well the thing that changed the whole ball game,was of course the internet and the creation of web sites like Time Zone.This changed a tradition that had existed for one hundred years,and it turned the watch industry upside down.It became very difficult for brands to hide the facts about where their watches were actually made.And suddenly out scourcing became a bad word,and inhouse became a good word.

So what was the industry reaction to these events?Well many brands got their fingers out,and started to buy the factorys that made parts for them.In this way they were able to put the label inhouse on their products.But not all brands had the financial resources to do this.Huge watch groups developed, like Swatch and Richmont.They had the financial clout to keep and develop all the suppliers and factorys that were neccessary to suppy their needs.And it became so easy to brand products as inhouse,even if nothing could have been further from the truth.Inhouse really means,made in the Swatch Group or Richmont Group etc etc.

The number of watches made today in the Swiss Watch industry is astronomical when compaired to the days before the internet.Mass production of parts is the future and these parts are found in nearly all modern watches you can buy today.Indeed you could say that many watches are almost identical in build and quality today.Uniformity is a cheap and profitable way of making almost any product.
This is why branding is becoming a bigger part of many watch brands total budget.Indeed many spend more on advertising than they do making their watches.So next time you see a klip from Youtube or read a watch brochure that shows a group of watchmakers putting together watches for a brand that sells hundreds of thousands a year. Please take it all with a pinch of salt,or start doing a bit of mathematic caculation. Many top brands would need about 1000% more watchmakers working for them,if they really had to make their own watches.
The thing that supprises me most about all of this.Is the fact that we so called watch nerds,who are supposed to know better,because of our interest and enthusiasm for watches.Do not seem to learn so much about them.Maybe to many of us like to believe to much in the brands we like.Love does indeed make some of us blind.

So i can conclude that the Swiss watch tradition of using many different suppliers to build a watch, is alive and thriving even more so today, than in the past.So what are we missing?
I miss a little bit of individuality in many modern watches.I do not want a product that everyone else is wearing.Or do i ? Well i do and i do not.I like the Rolex Sea Dweller because of the design and the quality of it.But is it individual?Well not really,because it is a watch worn by thousands of other people.So here i have to make a compromise,because i cannot get everything i want.I can however comfort myself with the fact that it is rarer than all the Subs i see around me. Watch buying is usually about compromise,If we had the money,would we buy the Lange instead of the Rolex etc etc.Today i can honestly say,having owned Patek and Lange.that i would pick a Rolex today.But only because i have tried the PP and Lange.And they do not fit the way of life that i have today.

The face of watchmaking is always changing,just like the lives of the people who wear watches.We have never had so much choice.There is watch out there for everyone.There may be many negative things to say about the watch industry.But at the same time there are many positives as well.Please excuse my ramblings when writing this.I have not kept entirely to the subject i started with.