![]() The three criteria relate to the quality of the retailers, the quality of the after-sales service (waiting time and cost when I have to service or repair my watch), and the selectiveness of the distribution and the pricing policy. This is, of course, the most crucial point for any client of fine watchmaking. And the second criteria not being applied to the Historic Maisons “established with the will to contribute to progress in watchmaking.” Well, I wish that some of the so-called “manufactures” would dare to do as much as the Artisans-Creators do with their limited capabilities in terms of finance, R&D, etc. ![]() Is Panerai less a historical brand than Piaget? Yes, if we look at the interruption of their production no, if we look at their heritage. Everyone knows that a brand living through centuries may one day stop producing due to external events, such as wars, etc. This is the domain where I can’t agree with some of the criteria, such as the uninterrupted history. The FHH was clever enough to introduce two different sets for this evaluation: one for the Historic Maisons where the three criteria go from “authentic and uninterrupted history,” to the respect of the founder’s spirit, to the conservation strategy (heritage collection and archives).įor the contemporary brands, the three criteria range from developing and documenting their own history, the will to “progress in watchmaking,” and the will to start their heritage and their archives. It is a wide field when you want to compare an Urwerk with a Calatrava from Patek Philippe. The four criteria are, of course, mostly very subjective, but the idea is probably to ascertain if certain codes of fine watchmaking design are respected. This is probably the most subjective part of the whole evaluation because it includes criteria ranging from original product design to the use of métiers d’art (what is the exact definition here?), new designs, and techniques. But that would probably reduce the list to fewer than 35 names. I would only consider movements with a 100% in-house R&D including the escapement, at least for the so-called Historic Maisons and Artisans-Creators.
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