Frank Neve, sales director of the Swiss watch company Perrelet, from the first seconds of our acquaintance in the exclusive Damas boutique in the Wafi City shopping center, begins to talk about how well his compatriots know and love his watch. Without letting me say a word, he said from the threshold: “Today, more than 40 stores in Russia sell Perrelet watches. The Perrelet Double Rotor lineup is especially popular.” Then he withstood a significant pause, and finally, he allowed me to ask the first question ...
Frank, today many Russian buyers fly to Dubai to buy watches. What do you offer them here?
We entered the Dubai market in 2005. And for today, I can say that we sold a lot of our watches here to buyers from Russia and the CIS countries. Just a week ago, I had dinner at the InterContinental Festival City hotel with our distributor from Kazakhstan, where we came only this year, but have already opened four stores. In addition, Perrelet watches sell very well in Ukraine.
As far as we know, Perrelet is one of the oldest watch companies in the world. Only older, Vacheron Constantin ...
The founding date of Perrelet is 1777. In fact, in 1777, the first automatic clockwork in the world was invented by Abraham-Louis Perrelet. At that time, the company did not exist, as well as the Perrelet brand. This is the date of an ingenious accident that stirred up the whole then watch industry. Abraham-Louis kept a small workshop in which pocket watches were made by order of wealthy citizens. That is, in fact, he was doing the same thing as Mr. Breguet, and other watchmakers.
His grandson Louis-Frederic Perrelet invented the chronograph with two second hands in 1827. Then passed seven generations of Perrele, today inscribed in the history of the brand. At the beginning of the 20th century, Perrelet closed production and for almost 60 years produced nothing.
In 1995, the famous Perrelet double rotor was launched. And in the XXI century, the company glorified itself with unique collections of women's and men's watches with indications of the lunar phases, its own mechanisms of calibers P-1030, P-211 and P-221.
How can Perrelet surprise sophisticated buyers and collectors today?
First of all, Perrelet is one of the five largest manufacturers of Swiss watches. In every automatic watch in the world today lives the spirit of the first automatic watch of Abraham-Louis. And anyone who decides to purchase an automatic watch will first think about Perrelet. Our collections have unique mechanisms, such as the double rotor, which I already mentioned. Moreover, if initially this mechanism was installed on two lines of men's watches, then last year we instructed our designers to do something based on a double rotor specifically for women. As a result, Carmen, our designer, came up with a watch with moving lotus flowers on the dial. For the first time in the history of the watch industry, women's watches appeared on the market, in which the decor element also carries a semantic load, being an integral part of their mechanism.
At first glance, this watch is more like jewelry than an exact mechanical watch ...
It should be so. This is - well
Women's watches, which are designed to emphasize the elegance and femininity of their owner. We offer models with and without diamonds, as someone loves them, someone not particularly.
Yes, and a lot depends on the budget. In a word, we created a collection called Diamond Flower, in which there are steel models and watches made of gold, inlaid with precious stones and without, but with the obligatory image of a flower.
And today in Dubai, at the Damas Les Exclusive boutique in the Wafi Center, we present six rare watches from this collection, which are its top - with round diamonds weighing 11 carats and 6 carats of baguette-cut diamonds on each. These models are quite large for women, but in the last few years, a trend towards a large watch has been traced in women's fashion. And most importantly, one of the models from the Diamond Flower collection was released in only two copies, and one of them is located here in Dubai.
What do you offer to the strong half of humanity?
Our classic and sports watches. It’s easier with men, for the most part they are conservatives, and always pay more attention to technological characteristics. So for them we also produce sophisticated watches with a fairly recognizable design from Perrelet.
Frank, as a sales director, which market do you consider the most favorable for the Perrelet brand?
Today it is the Middle and Far East, certainly, Russia. In the Russian market, men's double rotors, skeletons, five-minute repeaters, as well as our sports collections, are excellently sold. In the last two years, demand for gold models - turbillons and chronographs - has grown markedly. Buyers probably see them as a good investment.
The same trend can be seen in the Middle East market, where people invest in something really valuable.
What do watches mean for you personally?
These are emotions. This is the status. It is a passion for the quality of every detail. This is an image. This is a difference from others.
I can list for a long time. I believe that watches allow people to create their own trends, and not blindly follow what is already loudly proclaimed by someone in the market. This is in line with the philosophy of the Perrelet brand, which also sets its own trends and plays by its own rules for the past 232 years.
If you are the person who, having earned your first ten thousand dollars, go and buy the same watches as your friends, then you are not a Perrelet client. For a Perrelet watch, you must be yourself.
Thanks, Frank. Until new meetings and good luck.
