Movements: a progressive return to the 1950s?
15 August 2010 - Our publishing house, which was originally called Hugo Buchser SA after the name of its founder, used to publish (until 1986) the famous Le Guide des Acheteurs (The Buyer’s Guide). This was before the Internet—it was certainly another world then. For people interested in watches, this guide contained all the addresses in Switzerland’s vast industrial watch sector.
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The Pâté de Veillée and the Enterrement des Veillées
15 August 2010 - In his book published in 1942 called Les Cabinotiers Genevois, Eugène Jaquet, who was then Dean of the Geneva Watchmaking School, reminisced about his experiences as a young watchmaker during the latter part of the 19th century.
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Stop all the clocks
15 August 2010 - I was just about to go to the beach in Menton when I had a telephone call advising me of the sad news. My immediate reaction was to conjure up a vision of the bearded patriarch in a crowded room with the sleeves of his jacket pulled up to reveal two armfuls of watches whilst holding the inevitable Havana delicately between his fingers.
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A great day for Europa Star!
29 June 2010 - After 68 years of independence, followed by nearly 15 years of publishing adventures as part of several large media groups (United News & Media, Miller Freeman, Bill Communications, VNU, Europa Star has returned to its origins. Now once again in the hands of its founding family, it has regained its former independence.
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The watch industry’s big powwow
28 June 2010 - BaselWorld has become a ritual event. It is the big powwow that attracts watch tribes from all around the world who come to reaffirm their devotion to this vast clan that makes up the international industry of time.
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Lakin@large: Scotching the snake!
28 June 2010 - I don’t like snakes. In fact I like them even less than Indiana Jones. I know snakes are not actually moist and slippery, but they give me the impression of being repulsively slimy, slithering evilly towards their virginal Eve and taking credit for the human race’s hankering for sex.
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Long live horolodiversity!
17 March 2010 - It is said that the biodiversity of our planet is endangered. And this is most certainly true. The ‘Red List’ of the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) estimates that, as of the end of 2009, some 21 per cent of all known mammals, 30 per cent of all amphibians, 28 per cent of all reptiles, 37 per cent of freshwater fish, 70 per cent of all plants (yes, 70 per cent!), and 35 per cent of known invertebrates were threatened with extinction.
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Being in our times is being timeless
27 February 2010 - We have a strange feeling that watchmaking is at a turning point in its long history.
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Watchmakers: Haven’t they learned anything?
3 January 2010 - With the economic decline, we cannot help but observe a distressing fact: the financial community has not learned any lessons from this devastating crisis. Of course, it has been forced to accept a few weak regu-lations imposed with polite smiles by various governments, but it has also quickly learned how to easily get around these new requirements.
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The positive side of the crisis
29 October 2009 - On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the manufacture’s founding in 1989, Christophe Claret decided to celebrate the event by exceptionally launching a watch signed with his own name.
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The importance of substance
20 August 2009 - The news is more than alarming—it is a carnage. Statistics released by the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry on watch exports for the first half-year 2009 read like a depressing litany.
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Industrial culture
24 June 2009 - With the economic crisis, certain words are returning to our vernacular -words that, only a short time ago, hardly a few months at most, were considered outmoded, old-fashioned, even quite frankly¿vulgar.
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Long live the watch industry holiday!
27 August 2008 - The watch industry in Switzerland is perhaps one of the only industries in the world to draw the curtain shut and stop production for three weeks every summer.
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The empires, kingdoms, and knights of the watch table
24 June 2008 - The great empires and kingdoms that make up the largest slice of the proverbial watchmaking pie (Swatch Group, Richemont, LVMH, Rolex, Seiko, and a few major independents such as Patek Philippe and Chopard) only continue to become greater.
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Are we approaching the end of the bling era?
3 April 2008 - The question of luxury and its corre-lation—supposed or real—with decadence is an age-old philosophical and historical debate. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for example, a Geneva citizen and, incidentally, the son of a watchmaker, believed that luxury was the cause of the decline of the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations.
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Watchmaking with no taboos
29 February 2008 - Recently, at the Grand Prix de l'Horlogerie in Geneva, one of the awards was not given out. According to the event’s organizers, the ‘prize for the electronic watch’ was not granted because of a lack of competitors!
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History never ends
30 October 2007 - We remember that, a few years ago, an American essayist, Francis Fukuyama, predicted the ‘end of history’. In his opinion, the fall of the Berlin wall opened the way to a universal consensus about liberal democracy.
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Let’s talk a little about ‘us’…
12 September 2007 - In a departure from what is customary, let’s speak a little bit about us! ‘Us’ is not only Europa Star, but ‘us’ refers also to the overall watch media and its journalists. Great things are happening now.
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The paradox of 80 percent Swiss Made
5 July 2007 - The great debate, which, under press-ure from the barons of timekeeping, has just begun regarding a reformed definition of ‘Swiss Made’ leading to stricter requirements, is going to weigh heavily on the industry’s suppliers.
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Eighty years of service for the watchmaking of tomorrow
2 March 2007 - This year represents the 80th anniversary of Europa Star, and we still have ‘all of our teeth’ as they say. Yes, 80 years ago, the foundations of Europa Star were laid by our grandfather, Hugo Buchser.
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The mechanical and financial heart of watchmaking
5 January 2007 - In a recent book of interviews with the journalist Friedemann Bartu ‘Au-delà de la saga Swatch’ Nicolas Hayek laid a few cards on the table concerning the episode in the Swatch Group’s history when ETA announced a “suspension of ébauche deliveries” as of 2006.
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Intellectual property is not a universal concept
1 November 2006 - About ten years ago, counterfeit products primarily affected only the luxury goods industry. Today, fakes are seen in all sectors.
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Bubbles
19 August 2006 - We know the famous story of the first economic ‘bubble’, in which the irrational mixed with speculation, but there was also the celebrated tulip bubble (or to be more exact, the tulip bulbs) that broke out in the Netherlands in February, 1637.
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SWATCH versus ROLEX
26 June 2006 - For quite some time, the Swatch Group and Rolex have exchanged pleasantries. We are not yet to the point of name-calling, but a certain tension seems to be building up at our two watch giants, which have, up to now, been relatively courteous to each other.
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My time against yours
30 March 2006 - A conceptual American artist, Jonathon Keats, has just opened his own ‘Bureau of Standards’. He offers every person a personalized ‘conversion table’ that each individual can use to calculate the equivalence between his time and terrestrial time.
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Put the ‘masters’ at the centre of watchmaking
10 March 2006 - In the Swiss watch industry, hardly a week goes by without someone announcing a new initiative in the domain of – how do we call it exactly – “Haute horlogerie,” “Prestige watchmaking,” “The art of watchmaking,” “Timekeeping excellence”…? In our preceding issue, we talked about the creation of the Foundation of Haute Horlogerie, which we will bring up again during the SIHH in Geneva, at the beginning of April.
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Unite for the Long-Term
6 January 2006 - The guru of the Richemont group’s watch division, Doctor Franco Cologni, has just made a few ripples in the sea of watchmaking, by creating the Foundation of Haute Horlogerie, along with Gino Macaluso, owner of the Sowind group (Girard-Perregaux and JeanRichard) and Jasmine Audemars, principal shareholder of Audemars Piguet.
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(End of the) Swatch generation?
3 November 2005 - The very first delivery of Swatch watches, into a test market, took place in October of 1982.
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The parable of the sock
1 September 2005 - At the end of the 1970s, a Chinese peasant from the Datang zone, in the Zhejiang province, recuperates old abandoned machines destined for the junkyard.
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With a little constructive criticism and better recall - watchmaking could only be healthier
4 July 2005 - A recent article in Europa Star has caused us to reflect upon the relationship that watchmakers, or rather watch “companies” and “brands” have with their critics and memory.
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The peak of craziness
11 April 2005 - During my childhood, the word ‘watchmaking’ evoked an exclusively masculine universe, one that was technical, severe and rigorous.
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The Internet - false fears and genuine challenges…
6 March 2005 - The Internet is scary. Just look at what is happening in the music industry. Last year, sales for CDs and tapes fell 30%. What caused thisı Most would put the blame on Internet users all over the globe who freely and clandestinely share and exchange music files through the world wide web.
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The Counterfeit is the accident of the brand
3 January 2005 - The mindless copy, or fake, or counterfeit object, is a real economic scourge. That goes without saying. But isn’t it also, in a way, the reverse side of the “brand” or what we might call the “counterbrandı”
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The wolf turns into a sheep
1 March 2004 - “I became a billionaire because I believed in my own judgment and not in that of the analysts. I don’t trust the judgment of analysts because they are financiers. And, financiers cannot judge the potential of an industrial product. Only entrepreneurs can do this.”
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Casualties in the 'Race for Luxury'
1 January 2004 - There is probably no doubt about it, the list of casualties in the 'Race for Luxury' is going to get longer between now and the large watch fairs in the spring of 2004. Whether there is a return of real economic growth or not, the situation won't change all that much. It is already too late for some. A brief survey of suppliers - the best barometer - demonstrates that Swiss production is still operating at a slowed rate. A glimpse into the current state of affairs shows the depth of the current slump.
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For God's sake, stop winking in the dark!
1 October 2003 - Now you've known me long enough to know that the last thing I want to do is be serious on this page. After all, when you're here, you've already mused over the important features, noted the new watches that you really should think about ordering and bathed yourself in that warm afterglow of having read the magazine from cover to cover. What you need now is a little light refreshment.
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The colours of time
1 October 2003 - I have noticed something. In good economic times, people dress in black and wear sober watches, usually made of steel with a geometric design and without number markers. On the other hand, when the economic situation is not good, as is the case today, people wear large, flashy watches, which come in all colours, and if possible, loaded with diamonds.
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A day in a blissful time warp
1 August 2003 - It's that time of the year that we call 'the silly season', when the only really exciting news comes from the sun-drenched deckchair love-ins in Ibiza rather than the cloudy and cluttered confines of watch manufacturers' workshops.
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Stock market points versus confidence pointsce points
1 August 2003 - A few of the newspaper clippings that landed on my desk… "Hong Kong watchmakers refuse to exhibit at Zurich"(1); Watch industry in distress: 26 jobs lost at Le Locle"(2); "At PPR, luxury turns out to be expensive"(3); "Luxury: not Cartier!"(4); "Richemont lays off 80 people in Geneva"(5)…
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Politics & Pneumonia or Masking the Truth
1 June 2003 - To accompany the new show title of Baselworld, we had the additional pleasure of the Swiss Government throwing a political spanner into the works by making the totally illogical decision to not allow the 5,000 Hong Kong exhibitors to work in the Basel annexe of Zurich. 24 hours and some frenzied discussions later, the de-cision was made that would allow them to show their products as of Sunday, the fourth day of the Basel show on the following conditions:
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Death in the gardens of luxury
1 June 2003 - They were surprising times at the two spring watch fairs this year, especially at Basel, which took place in a very bizarre atmosphere, full of worry, fear and forced smiles. Between the war and SARS, the festivities were definitely muted, with the dreary weather adding to the overall gloom.
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I love the Net
1 April 2003 - There's no question about it, it's brilliant. The Internet has to be one of mankind's most ingenious and user-friendly inventions, akin perhaps to that of the bicycle - both of which can take you for a ride if you're not careful. Say what you will though, and naturally there are many of you out there who believe that the Internet is modern man's equivalent to a plague of locusts, as far as I am concerned, it is not only a useful source of information, but also an extraordinary means of discovering everything from the real name of Jack the Ripper to the best mineral water in the supermarkets in the Arctic Circle.
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So then what?
1 April 2003 - So…? In watchmaking? In these difficult times… So then what?
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Europa Star Wars The attack on the Clones
1 February 2003 - I imagine that, like me, you cannot have failed to be confronted with all the hullabaloo concerning clones and cloning over the past few weeks. But just in case you've been in some far-flung date-infested watering hole with no means of clicking onto your favourite news website, here's the story. Clonaid, a research company with close ties to the Raelian sect, claim that it has successfully produced the first human clone using a procedure similar to the one used to clone Dolly the sheep.
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diVide
1 February 2003 - ’Are the rich the new driving force for economic growth?’ The important French daily Le Monde asked this rather provocative question recently, then went on to answer it with a number of concrete examples.
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