t’s a well-known fact that to succeed on today’s market, a luxury brand has to show a formidable sense of hospitality, all the more so as increasing numbers of watchmakers have reinvented themselves also as successful retailers. Yet the reality is more complex, with endless waiting lists resulting in frustration and boutiques too traditional to seduce the younger generations.

And so over the past couple of years, multiple new, experimental formats have appeared in watchmaking circles: retail outlets are disappearing in favour of apartments or “lounges”, cafés are springing up in boutiques, roadshows and even hotels are being launched, to cite the examples of Bulgari and more recently, Chopard. As for the rise of e-commerce and the pre-owned market, the result has been a shortage of watches in the very boutiques themselves.

One brand, whose radical reboot, already reported in Europa Star, took everyone by surprise, has set out to take the hospitality concept to the extreme: Jaquet Droz. And it is perhaps no coincidence that the man at the helm is a veteran of the Swatch Group, as well as a hospitality expert. After working for Omega, then 17 years for Blancpain under Marc Hayek and now Jaquet Droz, Alain Delamuraz spent some time managing the Beau-Rivage Palace hotel in Lausanne, where he won his hospitality spurs.

On this Tourbillon Skull Pink Pointillism, virtually the entire surface of the skull is covered with more than 3,000 spots of paint, each applied by hand with brushes some of which had a single bristle.

More than any other brand, Jaquet Droz has left itself no choice but to apply the concept of customised horological hospitality: the brand made the strategic choice of no longer selling through the traditional retail networks, but to sell solely personalised models directly or through business “ambassadors” to ultra-exclusive clients. Recently, for example, it published a video of the trip by the brand’s CEO to Palm Beach, to personally hand over the timepiece tailor-made for the American singer, Bon Jovi.

“What was the problem at Jaquet Droz? The history of the brand goes back so far it’s already had several lives. It was time to choose the next. But it couldn’t continue selling Grande Seconde watches at 10,000 francs while selling automata at 500,000 francs. In watchmaking you can’t cover such a broad price range, unless you have a voluminous, affordable core collection and a handful of exceptional models. But you can’t do it the other way round, that creates confusion. And so we chose to go with much greater exclusivity,” explains Alain Delamuraz.

The Tourbillon Skelet Sapphire Opal is a one-off piece, the sapphire crystal case allowing light to flood through the translucid, 0.4mm-thick opal dial.

From the 5,000 to 6,000 series watches previously produced at Jaquet Droz, production has dropped to below 100 one-off timepieces a year. But the average price has rocketed to nearly half a million francs. A handful of timepieces, reserved for major collectors, are reported, such as this Parrot Repeater Pocket Watch Automaton costing over 1.6 million francs. “What brands focus on six-digit prices? With these changes, we’ve seized the bull by the horns. We’re absolutely clear in our approach and we intend to pursue it to the end.”

An exceptional, one-of-a-kind piece, the Parrot Repeater Pocket Watch Automaton in red gold took some ten artisans one year to complete. Worth more than 1.6 million francs, it incorporates 1,240 hand-set jewels, including 486 emeralds, 727 sapphires and 16 rubies.

This strategic choice informs every move, including the decision to quit traditional retail. “We owe it to clients with a watch costing half a million francs to know them personally. They arrive in their classic cars, yachts or private jets, they don’t wander into public stores in search of half-a-million-franc watches. They’re in a different category, a different typology and require unique, customised, bespoke treatment,” explains the CEO, who spent a year informing the 167 former points of sale and partners before flicking the switch on the brand’s transmutation.

Jaquet Droz CEO Alain Delamuraz with the singer Jon Bon Jovi at the unboxing of his custom-made model at Palm Beach

«Not destruction, disruption,” says the man who loves “oxymorons like ‘disruptive legacy’”. What Alain Delamuraz had in mind – and what he tried to apply to the automotive market during his sabbatical from the group between leaving Blancpain and joining Jaquet Droz – was the “creative laboratory” concept, picking up the historical thread from the period when timepieces were destined for royal and imperial courts. He cites Victor Hugo: “The future is a door, and the past is the key.”

And so, instead of being present at points of sale (apart from a few exceptions, including the Nicolas G. Hayek Center in Tokyo’s Ginza district and two in China), the brand builds partnerships with brand ambassadors or sales representatives with an address book of exclusive clients, who work on commission – including some former official Jaquet Droz retailers!

“It’s not based on contracts tens of pages long, but on simple, flexible relationships,” Alain Delamuraz underlines. “First and foremost, our ambassadors don’t take the risk of acquiring stock. Commission on a watch costing 500,000 francs can be just as worthwhile as the margin on a stock of more affordable watches.” As for their profile, the sellers can be anything from former retailers to sales reps, with access to an exclusive client base into golfing, yachting or cigars. “But the best ambassadors are the clients themselves. Some of them become business introducers and receive a commission, others just put us in contact with people on a purely friendly basis.”

The Tourbillon Skelet Red Gold – Bon Jovi is a one-off piece, hand-made to the singer’s personal specifications. A self-winding skeletonised tourbillon with an 8-day power reserve, it displays the logo celebrating his group’s 40th anniversary, hand-engraved in a block of solid gold.

But building such a network, when clients are already courted by numerous brands (the watchmaking sector has no shortage of brands devoted to those clients) takes time. “We’re still in the early stages, we’re in this for the long haul. We still have to make our brand and its history better known. Luckily, we’re part of a group that believes in our approach and is granting us that precious time,” adds the CEO.

The holy grail would be to persuade potential clients to come to the manufacture, where they could try out this “horological hospitality”, meet the artisans and choose their watch’s configuration in person. In the meantime, the brand, based in La Chaux-de-Fonds, has equipped its workshops with a brand-new studio with six 4K cameras to convey the experience online and on screen.

The Imperial Dragon Automaton Red Gold– Cuprite is a one-off piece featuring nine animations.

On the production side, despite the dramatic change of direction Alain Delamuraz has not announced any fundamental upheaval in the composition of his teams (about 50 people). The aesthetic centred on the symbolic figure 8 remains key and the brand can continue to count on its strong points – arts and crafts – to produce outstanding models. Solely the motif, made to order, may change –from the traditional, bucolic bird to a helicopter, for example, according to taste!

Jaquet Droz also makes presentation boxes in the form of automata. Are we to expect a comeback of the very automata that made the reputation of Pierre Jaquet-Droz at the European courts of the 18^th century?

At the time, the watchmaker used these androids themselves as marketing tools, selling seats to watch his mechanical shows and taking advantage to sell his horological products. These 21st-century automata would certainly make an impressive visiting card for this new version of the brand – a brand which, considering its target client base, “is not competing with other watchmakers, but with private jet, yacht or racing car manufacturers,” says Alain Delamuraz.

The unboxing ceremony is part and parcel of the experience and viewed as a celebration – if possible in the presence of a group of friends who might, who knows, figure among the brand’s next clients… Envy is a potent fuel for the buying impulse, to which– and perhaps especially – even the happy few are prone!