Editor’s Note
This article reflects on the curious afterlife of watch brands that vanished during a turbulent decade. It asks whether their disappearance was truly deserved and explores the industry’s unique resilience, where brands often find ways to be reborn. A thought-provoking read for anyone interested in the forces that shape—and sometimes resurrect—horological names.
A look in the rearview mirror: did these thirty-three disappeared, erased, or ghosted brands really deserve their fate? Not necessarily! But for some, it already feels like a distant memory… Fortunately, the watchmaking demographic is strong. Besides, it’s well known: watch brands never die! Some are already being reborn…
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2002-2012. An apparently very turbulent decade. As early as 2002, one could already feel the “watchmaking revolution” bubbling up, which would powerfully accompany the rise of the “new generation” [readers of Business Montres have had time to discover it since 2004] and deeply reformat the codes of contemporary watchmaking. This momentum was halted by the 2008-2009 crisis: here again, readers of Business Montres had front-row seats, while everyone else was denying this brutal deflation of the watchmaking “bubble” due to the banking crisis. Was it the “First World Crisis” predicted by Business Montres? Only apparently, since, very fortunately, the irresistible Chinese demand was about to ensure a resounding restart of watch sales and boutique openings in Asia…
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2012: the beginnings of a new crisis, this time truly global [one can no longer count on China, and even less on emerging economies] and broadly socio-economic, are calling into question the very model of our abundant and assisted society. The revolution that is looming seems destined to profoundly challenge the fundamental certainties of our economies. There’s no reason why the watch industry should escape the common fate. Verification of the premises of this reasoning in the coming weeks: “The next watchmaking crisis will erupt before 2013,” explained Business Montres in May…
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All the more reason to look in the rearview mirror of the past decade, which likely saw the birth of about 200 to 250 brands [the cruising demographic speed is now 80 to 100 brands per year, but there were only a handful of creations around 2002]. According to the good old 80/20 rule (Alfredo Pareto’s probability law), natural selection has been fierce among newcomers in the watchmaking ecosphere, also leading to the disappearance of old brands that had not performed poorly. Understanding what could have happened is still the best way to anticipate what might happen: this selection (in alphabetical order) is just a sample of the main victims of the decade…
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In this endless funeral procession, we find a few dead and already buried houses. There would undoubtedly be many others to mention, but those listed below are emblematic. They are sometimes accompanied by brands that are still in intensive care today, or even in resuscitation, if not in a state of hibernation. For now, they have not been declared as permanently ceasing operations. For several of them and for many creators who have fallen off the news radar, this survival is purely artificial [it only delays an inevitable deadline], but, in some cases, a direct sale here and there allows them to hold on and maintain a semblance of brain activity. Where exactly are Franc Vila, Rodolphe, Martin Braun, or even DeWitt? Similarly, we have not taken into account brands that have been bought out or taken over and are currently being relaunched…
The most amusing watchmaker creator of his generation finally threw in the towel, a victim of a “normal” (classic) economic model in a crisis that was not normal at all and which called into question, for “small” brands, access to growth financing as much as the distribution of collections. One certainty: after having very cleanly and dignifiedly managed his disappearance from the market (after-sales service is assured for several years), Alain Silberstein has not said his last word…
Having taken over the brand when everything seemed to be smiling upon him, Thimothy Bovard is now struggling like a devil [the one pulled by the tail] to secure a few sales that will make ends meet! The brand launched by Jean-François Ruchonnet is not dead and can even boast an excellent watchmaking team, but the announced developments are struggling to materialize [due to lack of budgets], while the commercial setup is reduced to its simplest expression. What to do with an aging concept, which wanted to be avant-garde but is exhausted by six years of exposure without a truly new variation?
Mathias Buttet’s shattered dream was swallowed up in the BNB debacle, taking with it the illusions of the young “brothers” who had been given their chance and who had nevertheless pushed the boundaries of watchmaking creativity a little further. Excellent ideas are not enough to establish the legitimacy of a brand, especially when the economic climate turns as brutally as in 2008…
The equation was almost perfect: a historical brand appreciated by collectors [very good for storytelling]…
