Is Sistem51 a potential black hole for mechanical arts?

Did they really have to tell us? It’s true that the entire watch sector, with mechanical watchmaking in the lead owes its rescue to Swatch’s plastic quartz watches. However, the new caliber Sistem51 – a name owing to its 51 components – is nothing but a mechanical movement that can be produced entirely in factories without the need for human intervention. We are therefore talking about a watch that will be retailing for around CHF 100 or 200. On an international scale, and well beyond the complicated and expensive watches that have our undivided attention, the economic war waged among the leading watchmaking groups could end up spreading to low-end segments.

Incidentally, the Swatch Group happens to be the only organization at that level to dispose of the proper industrial capacity.

The George Clooney syndrome

We know that the Sistem51 is generating thousands of jobs at Boncourt in the Jura mountains, and that it is an industrial accomplishment much admired by technicians. We also know that this could swiftly double or even triple the production of brands such as Swatch, Tissot and Longines. But there was no need to launch the calibre so ostentatiously. There was no need to shout it from the rooftops. An industrial feat of this caliber is in fact a vicious attack on the image projected by Swiss watches for the general public. And yes, maybe that image is a little naïve and maybe it is the product of advertising campaigns (especially those by Omega), but at least that image focuses on a human being: the watchmaker with his loupe, somewhere in Switzerland, fine-tuning the regulation of a watch…

What if the end of this naïve symbol would the starting point of a sort of black hole, which would imperceptibly engulf all that makes mechanical horology attractive to the world’s public? Is that not due to this simplistic belief that the watch market is booming?

Why risk damaging such an deeply-rooted representation of horology in the collective conscience? It was a great thing to do, but why say it?

Week 51

As is the case with innovations and the use of new materials, the will to rationalise has also been a constant factor in horology for the past two hundred years. The proof of this is the creation of manufactures – a most honorable term nowadays. At the beginning, they were only intended as a response to assembly-line production work in French-speaking Switzerland. Such an image is a tough one to change, so much so, in fact, that it is the economic foundation of an entire segment. Have we reached a point of no return, however? I sincerely hope not…

The Swatch Group introduced the first Sistem51 watches onto the markets slightly late, during the penultimate week of December 2013. It was week number 51. A nice marketing strategy, which will make everyone forget about the fact that they their deadline was a little off.