CONSUMERS

Luxury Timepiece Brands Using Craftsmanship in Video

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February 7, 2012

This is the featured image caption

Credit: This is the featured image credit

The second in our series of listings, exploring how various luxury sectors are using craftsmanship and video to best express their savoir faire

Over the last decade, collaborations between luxury brands and contemporary artists have gone beyond mere artistic partnerships towards a new kind of luxury branding.

PARIS – Art and fashion have always developed side by side, for fashion, like art, often gives visual expression to the cultural zeitgeist. During the 1920s, Salvador Dalí created dresses for Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiapparelli. In the 1930s, Ferragamo’s shoes commissioned designs for advertisements from Futurist painter Lucio Venna, while Gianni Versace commissioned works from artists such as Alighiero Boetti and Roy Lichtenstein for the launch of his collections. Yves Saint Laurent’s vast art collection, recently auctioned at Christie’s in Paris, testified to his great love of art and revealed the influence of a variety of artists on his own designs.

In the 1980s, relationships between luxury brands and artists were advanced when Alain Dominique Perrin created the Fondation Cartier. In the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, a book marking the foundation’s 20th anniversary, Perrin says he makes “a connection between all the different sorts of arts, and luxury goods are a kind of art. Luxury goods are handicrafts of art, applied art.”

The Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemparain building in Paris

The second in our series of listings, exploring how various luxury sectors are using craftsmanship and video to best express their savoir faire

When we first compiled a listing of Luxury Fashion Brands Using Craftsmanship in Video, it became very obvious, very quickly that leather goods, footwear and fashion films are driven by emotion and visual experience. Very few films in this first series had any kind of dialogue or narration. Almost none included spoken or written facts relating to the technicalities of production.

Timepiece videos – and indeed the products themselves – create far more technical communications challenges. The price and attractiveness of investing in Horlogerie has much more to do with mechanics, movements, metals and materials, than it does an essence, emotion or experience. Fashion and accessories have the luxury of being easy to understand visually, whereas the value of timepieces lies largely in elements that cannot be seen.

“ Video enables timepiece brands to distil layers of complex technical information into succinct and stylish content ”

In this sense, video presents a huge communications opportunity to watchmakers, enabling brands to distil layers of complex technical information into succinct and stylish content. Video can bring clients into Swiss workshops, or visually confirm the expertise necessary to produce these creations, and even reiterate messages of creativity, quality and excellence.

Initially it was difficult to distinguish the use of ‘technical nous’ from the use of ‘craftsmanship’ messages in timepiece videos. There are a host of brands – Panerai, Dior, Rado, La Montres Hermès, Harry Winston, Longines and Bulgari to name a few – that use 3D animation and component breakdowns as part of their advertising, seeking to highlight the complexity of their machines.

But at the time of press, I couldn’t find evidence that these brands were inviting consumers into their manufacturing spaces or seeking to connect them with artisans. The focus for these brands appeared to to be about end-product technical function rather than design, heritage, craftsmanship and the complexities of creation.

Below we present a listing of videos by luxury timepiece brands, which explicitly use the values of craftsmanship and quality to help tell their story.

Audemars Piguet

YouTube: aptvofficial

Baume & Mercier

YouTube: baumeetmercier

Cartier

YouTube: Cartier

Chanel

YouTube: CHANEL

Chopard

YouTube: ChopardOfficial

Ebel

YouTube: ebel2008

Hublot

YouTube: hublotTV

IWC

YouTube: iwcwatches

Jaeger-LeCoultre

YouTube: jaegerlecoultreclub

Louis Vuitton

YouTube: LOUISVUITTON

Maurice Lacroix

YouTube: mauricelacroixwatch

Omega

YouTube: OMEGA Watches

Piaget

YouTube: Piaget

Raymond Weil

YouTube: raymondweil

Tag Heuer

YouTube: TAGHeuerOnline

Vacheron Constantin

YouTube: vacheronconstantin

Van Cleef & Arpels

YouTube: vancleefarpels

Zenith

YouTube: zenithwatches

We invite you to discover the first in our series, Luxury Fashion Brands Using Craftsmanship in Video, and to join the discussion below

Sophie Doran

Creative Strategist, Digital

Sophie Doran is currently Senior Creative Strategist, Digital at Karla Otto. Prior to this role, she was the Paris-based editor-in-chief of Luxury Society. Prior to joining Luxury Society, Sophie completed her MBA in Melbourne, Australia, with a focus on luxury brand dynamics and leadership, whilst simultaneously working in management roles for several luxury retailers.