Interview: Getting Down To Business With Maurice Lacroix’s Stéphane Waser

I was hoping to have a bit of spare time, you know, on my breaks, but this hasn't happened. As for my wife, she's very busy with our two children, so she doesn't have time to tidy up like me! The garden is really overgrown because the weather has been warm and nice. But I do have a nice terrace, so in the afternoons, I sometimes do my conference calls and my work from outside.
 

Our objective for this whole crisis has been twofold. Firstly, the health and safety of our employees. And secondly, we are a luxury brand, so we need to continue to offer a service. So we planned and organized ourselves, so that whatever requests we receive from retailers or customers, meaning also customer service requests, we satisfy the demand. The factory remains open the whole time. It's just that we have put people on short term work, especially on the production side. We are open for customer service and also for clients as not all the markets are closed.
 

You know, the challenge we have is that we already presented our novelties in Paris. We also went to Inhorgenta in Germany and Southeast Asia – Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Thailand – before the lockdown as they were not closed.

So the thing is, our customers have seen about two-thirds of the program, which means they were also in the position to order novelties, so we were ready. And now it is just a logistics challenge because some markets are closed and cannot import goods. As soon as those logistic challenges are gone, then we can resume business.
 

The last step was Baselworld to show the last bits and pieces of the program, and then we were planning to go to COUTUREtime and hold more local events in Scandinavia and Japan. That was the roadshow plan for this year.

We presented 70% of our novelties in the first quarter, and we were due to present everything else by September. Now we have been in lockdown since March, and things will probably not pick up again until September, so we are missing six months, and it's impossible to shrink nine months of programming into one quarter. So, what we have done is shift the important bits, but we have also taken out some of the novelties for this year because it makes no sense to push our customers.
 

During Inhorgenta, we presented a number of AIKONS, including the 39mm with beautiful anthracite and PVD indexes. There are also some very beautiful combinations of leather and steel. And then on the quartz with the AIKON Quartz, there's a beautiful anthracite and blue piece, which is a beautiful combination. We also have some greens that are very sporty with the black PVD on the bezel, so there were chronographs and a three hands version.
 

Two of our most recent ambassadors are Maurice Goedecke and Jan Armbruster, who founded the Stoff & Schnaps concept store. This retail concept combines cutting-edge fashion brands with the production of their own gin.

In terms of the brand values and brand attitudes, we like mobile modern brands, and it's exactly this kind of association of people we want to work with. We also thought it was interesting to expand the footprint of the brand experience because when you purchase a watch, you have the visual and the physical. But with the gin, you can also experience the smell and the taste of the brand, so it's a five senses experience.
 

In addition, it is important for us to develop synergies with friends of the brand. This is why we have created the AIKONIC GIN with [Stoff & Schnaps]. A blend of Swiss gentian, local mountain herbs, damson plum from the Jura region, as well as lemon, cardamom, and coriander are all combined with a hint of gold, creating a mouthwatering elixir.

This unique gin can be purchased on the website of our friends of the brand!
 

The AIKON Chronograph. First of all, it's the association of colors. It's a beautiful silver and black, which is sporty. The look is really masculine, and I think it's also beautifully finished. I like the leather strap with its perforations and M. Logo. I like that it also has a chronograph, the day, and the date. It also exists in blue, but I prefer the black version.
 

(Photography by Pierre Vogel)