Davide Traxler, Corum’s newly appointed chief operating officer, believes that the time of huge egos in the luxury watch industry is over. Blessed with an approachable mien and open-minded attitude, he appears to walk the talk.
Regardless of age, company size, production numbers or financial muscle, watchmaking firms always hope that their novelties will become the next big thing, tomorrow’s classics, icons that belong to the pantheon of watchmaking legends.
Corum, a small firm with less than 200 employees based in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, has been lucky on at least two counts. Its first break came in 1980, when it unleashed watchmaker Vincent Calabrese’s creation, the Golden Bridge, at the Basel fair. The watch, with its mechanism reduced to all but a single in-line baguette movement connected at the top and bottom of a transparent case, was a spectacular hit despite the ongoing quartz revolution.
In 2000, Corum struck pay dirt once again with the launch of the Bubble, a 44mm behemoth fitted with a sapphire crystal so thick (11mm) that it acted as a lens that magnified the dial as well as a refractive device that distorted it. The crystal was a minor feat of engineering, but what drew collectors to the watch in droves was its seemingly limitless array of artistic dial designs. In the heady days of the early Noughties, anything and everything went: think outré motifs such as pirates, sharks, skulls and even the Devil.
Despite its popularity, the Bubble was discontinued in 2005. But, as Corum’s newly installed chief operating officer Davide Traxler informs us, the Bubble is set for a revival, with three new editions already launched at Basel 2015 and a further three newbies announced in December 2015 (see side story). “The Bubble is this expression of fun and difference, and it has this standout effect. It jumps out of a showcase,” he says. “The bestselling ones back then were the Casino and the Pirate. Today, retailers are asking for crazy designs again. Several points of sales in England, Germany, Italy, Mexico and the US are asking for the old ones to showcase alongside the new ones.
“I was in London at a very nice store on Bond Street that carries Corum. And [the owner] told me that every year, he has four to five requests for the Bubble. That speaks for itself. The market wants it. It’s so incredibly different that 10 years [after being discontinued], people still remember it. [The watch] allows artists to express themselves on it. [So now] we’ll be asking people from all over the world — street artists, tattooers, motorcycle customisers and so on — to design limited- edition Bubbles.” This, Traxler says, is because the Bubble is about creativity and therefore has to find inspiration outside the watchmaking industry, compared with the Golden Bridge, which is a pure watchmaking product that has to derive inspiration from the industry itself.
Traxler was in Singapore last December to call on retailers such as Cortina Watch, with whom he met prior to our interview. For those who have been in the luxury trade long enough, his name is not unfamiliar: The Swiss national has spent the last 15 years working at Bulgari and Chopard. “I had a fabulous experience with the Bulgari brand’s fragrance division. [The company] is publicly owned, so there’s a lot of reporting and financial bits that you learn. In Chopard, I learnt to respect the retailers and final clients. The Scheufele family [who owns the brand] teaches you that. I learnt every day from everyone. It’s important to keep learning. The moment you think you’ve learnt everything, you’re over.”
Special watches for special people
Traxler was appointed to the role in September 2015, almost a year and a half after his predecessor, the formidable Antonio Calce, relinquished his position (an executive committee took stewardship of the brand in the interim period). Coming into the brand, he was fully cognisant of its market position as a speciality watch company. “We have special watches for special people,” he says. “We talk to those who have self-assurance, that self-knowing, that confidence in choosing their own watch. They don’t need to follow [others].”
For instance, the Coin Watch, one of Corum’s most recognisable products made from the historic US$20 double-eagle coin, was owned by six US presidents (Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H W Bush and Bill Clinton), none of whom were officially presented with the watch. Andy Warhol, too, once owned a piece, which Corum recently acquired from a US collector and added to its museum collection. “This was someone who revolutionised the world of art, who was connected with music, creativity and so on in the 1970s. It shows how much difference we present in the landscape,” says Traxler, who wore a Golden Bridge Automatic on the day of our interview.
With an annual production of about 8,000 watches, Corum is considered one of the industry’s smaller players. For Traxler, size does not matter. In fact, he intends to play it to his advantage. For example, the current market correction, he says, is hitting the big players hard. “The small players can react faster. We can talk to retailers and have an answer in three to four hours, rather than go through a [corporate] machine. We’re very elastic.” In any case, he takes a big-picture perspective of the market and believes that the slowdown is a natural part of the economic cycle. After all, the luxury watch industry has been growing at an exponential pace since the late 1990s, barring the post-9/11 period and 2008 global financial crisis.
“We still remain in the most beautiful [industry] in the world. We only sell to happy people. I always say, ‘No one buys a watch for a funeral.’ We only have happy people wanting to buy something special as a gift or for themselves. When you have that incredible luxury of catering for the happy, it’s the most beautiful [industry] you can be in.” Perhaps as a result of his experience at the family-owned Chopard, Traxler does not believe in grand strategies for the future, but rather in getting the fundamentals sorted out and keeping his ear close to the ground.
“This is a trade that has developed huge egos over the years and now, the time of huge egos is over. It’s time to listen to what the retailers, consumers and collectors are saying. Listening to this feedback and turning it into a product, while maintaining our DNA. If you visit [our manufacture], you’ll see that the building is transparent. If you look at our Golden Bridge, it’s transparent. The whole ethos of the brand is about being transparent. It’s about getting light and inspiration from outside, and using the know-how we have in La Chaux-de-Fonds to create products that are recognisably Corum.”
A nomadic, multicultural upbringing
Asked what his management philosophy is, Traxler says he has been described as someone with an entrepreneurial style, an approach influenced by his entire life experience. Born in New York to an Italian diplomat father and English housewife mother, Traxler is the youngest of five children — three boys and two girls — and received his education at a French school. His father’s diplomatic postings meant a nomadic, transient life for the family: Zaire, Brazil, Austria, Italy and France were among the places they lived in.
“When you grow up in so many different places, you lack a group of peers who are always around you. And when you don’t have that, you grow up faster. You learn to count on yourself. You learn to be open and to listen. You understand how ridiculous ego can be. You meet people who are presidents one day and no one the next. You learn how to communicate, how little we actually understand each other and how often we make mistakes. I speak five languages — English, Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese. Nothing useful — no Chinese, Russian or German. None of the big economies!” he says with a laugh.
The watch that has the most sentimental value in his collection is also one of the most inexpensive. “It was the watch I bought as a kid — a Timex. I see the dial as I speak — I looked at it so much! Another piece that is valuable is my first Swatch watch. My father was in Bern for a conference and he came back with Swatches for all of us. He explained that it was a new invention and it was the Swiss response to Japanese watchmaking. That was 1981. The first ‘precious’ watch I owned was a Rolex GMT, which was given by my uncle and which my [second] daughter now wears,” says the father of two girls and a boy.
His so-called entrepreneurial style has even influenced his personal life. “I met my wife when I was writing my thesis in university. It was June 1. On Aug 30, I went to her father and said I was going to marry her. That was fast decision-making! When you see the right opportunity, take it, because it’s not going to last long!”
Besides chronicling developments in the luxury watch industry, Aaron De Silva also runs The Time Traveller SG on Instagram (@thetimetravellersg) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/thetimetravellersg)
BUBBLE ECONOMY
After a decade of absence from Corum’s line-up, the Bubble watch made a spectacular comeback at the Basel fair last March. Compared with the models that existed from 2000 to 2005 — there were more than 700 timepieces in all — the new editions have grown from 44mm to 47mm. The sapphire crystals, however, have shrunk in height from 11mm to 8mm. And the dial designs, though artistic and distinct, are much less outrageous/ provocative than their predecessors, signalling a more sophisticated approach.
The two limited editions launched in Basel, for instance, are dressed in sporty chic get-ups: the Bubble All-Black is cased in black PVD and features a raised, chocolate bar-like design on its dial, while the Bubble Vintage is housed in a bronze-tinted PVD case with the same chocolate bar motif, matched tone-on-tone. The third piece, issued in a non-limited series, boasts a skeletonised dial that is seemingly geared for the horological enthusiast rather than the casual watch buff.
In December, a further three models were announced: two inspired by Op Art and one with a miniature cymbal for its dial. The Op Art models, each made in an exclusive run of 350 pieces, are a collaboration with industrial designer Nicolas Le Moigne. The Bubble Sphere2, housed in a blue PVD-coated case, appears to take a leaf from geodesic dome designs as well as the atomic symbol. The lines that traverse sapphire crystal and dial are meant to give the illusion of a sphere within a sphere, hence the name.
The Bubble Drop, meanwhile, comes in a brown PVD-coated case and has a dial with a rippled surface that looks as if a pebble has been dropped in water. Its gentle undulations also remind us of the raked swirls found in a Zen garden. For the third model — the Bubble Paiste (also limited to 350 pieces) — Corum partnered Paiste, a Swiss manufacturer of cymbals that supplies iconic rock bands such as AC/ DC, Kiss and Pink Floyd, to produce a tiny bronze cymbal for its dial. Just like its musical counterparts, each dial is hand-finished and therefore unique. Of course, the watch is dressed in an all-black outfit — you would not expect anything less from a rock star!
This article appeared in the Options of Issue 712 (Jan 25) of The Edge Singapore.