Kering, the multi-national fashion house that owns Gucci, Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga and many other well-known clothing, leather and jewelry brands, has agreed to sell Swiss watchmakers Girard-Perregaux and Ulysse Nardin to their current management team.
The Kering press release is below. We’ll keep you informed as we hear additional details about the deal.
“Kering announces the signature of an agreement to sell its entire stake (100%) in Sowind Group SA, which owns the Swiss watch manufacturers Girard-Perregaux and Ulysse Nardin, to its current management.
With a long tradition in watchmaking, Girard-Perregaux and Ulysse Nardin have continuously evolved since their acquisition by Kering, while preserving their identity. Combining an innovative approach to design and technical know-how, they have revamped their product universe, launched new iconic models, and reorganized their distribution, with the opening of directly operated stores and stronger ties with the leading watch distributors.
The Group has supported the two Houses in their development, strengthened their positioning and ensured they have adequate resources to finance their growth. It has confidence in the management in place to successfully pursue the work undertaken.
This transaction is in line with Kering’s strategy, giving priority to the Houses with the potential to become sizable assets within the Group, and to which it can provide decisive support over time.
“The extensive work carried out by the Group in recent years at Girard-Perregaux and Ulysse Nardin has laid the foundations for sustainable growth. Kering has demonstrated its ability to secure the conditions for the long- term development of entities leaving the Group, in the interest of their employees, partners, customers and local communities,” declared Jean-François Palus, Kering’s Group Managing Director.
“On the sound foundations laid thanks to Kering’s support and investments, we have the right setup and resources to implement a plan capable of ensuring the long-term development of both brands” declared Patrick Pruniaux, CEO of Girard-Perregaux and Ulysse Nardin since 2018.
The financial impacts related to this disposal will be reported in the accounts closed on December 31, 2021. The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of the first half of 2022.”
Girard-Perregaux updates its sporty steel Laureato with two grand feu enamel dials to create the Laureato 42mm Eternity Edition.
The Girard-Perregaux Laureato 42mm Eternity Edition, showing green grand feu enamel dial.
The new glossy blue and green dial colors nicely complement the Laureato’s signature brushed and polished steel case and bracelet, a combination new for Girard-Perregaux when it debuted the first Laureato collection in 1975. At the time, integrated steel bracelet watches were novel among luxury watchmakers.
The Girard-Perregaux Laureato 42mm Eternity Edition, blue enamel dial model.
The new Laureato 42mm Eternity Edition joins other Eternity models, including those within the brand’s La Esmeralda Tourbillon and Cat’s Eye collections. All the new Eternity models are meant to celebrate Girard-Perregaux’s 230th anniversary.
The Girard-Perregaux La Esmeralda Tourbillon “A Secret” Eternity Edition, which will be sold in seven different color enamel dials.
“With our Eternity Editions, much like the Infinity Editions that preceded them in 2020, we wanted to produce a limited number of watches that showcase our expertise for the enjoyment of generations to come,’ says Patrick Pruniaux, CEO of Girard-Perregaux.
The Girard-Perregaux Cat’s Eye Eternity Edition.
Girard-Perregaux makes the grand feu enamel dials at its in-house facility using a time-honored high-temperature firing process. Artisans mix metallic powders that they then dust onto the dial and fire in an 800-degree Celsius oven. This process is repeated up to ten times to achieve the desired glossy appearance.
Girard-Perregaux explains that flawless grand feu enamel dials will look new and brilliant for generations, hence their use for the new Eternity Editions.
The watchmaker’s artisans add a final guilloché sunray motif to the new dials to enhance its brilliance when seen in light. Note that the watch’s date display features white numerals on a dial-color disc, a feature that Girard-Perregaux says follows long-time “horological etiquette.”
Inside, the watchmaker places its excellent GP01800 automatic caliber with a pink gold oscillating weight and Côtes de Genève on the bridges. The movement also shines with hand-beveled edges, mirror-polished screws, circular graining on the main plate and engraved gilded text.
The Girard-Perregaux is making 188 of each of the blue or green-dialed Laureato 42mm Eternity Editions. Middle East retailer Seddiqi will sell both versions during December. After January 1, 2022, Girard-Perregaux will offer the watches globally through its retailers and on its e-commerce site. Price: CHF 13,460.
Watchmakers have been multiplying their automotive and motorsports collaborations in recent years. Here, we review a few prominent timekeeping/racing alliances.
By Y-Jean Mun-DelSalle
In this final installment of our series outlining automotive-wristwatch partnerships, we highlight Girard-Perregaux and Richard Mille.
Girard-Perregaux
Girard-Perregaux has signed a multi-year agreement as the official watch partner of British automotive manufacturer Aston Martin Lagonda and the Aston Martin Cognizant Formula 1 team. Both brands are commemorating milestones this year: founded in 1791, the Swiss watchmaker is one of the oldest fine watchmaking manufactures still in operation and celebrates its 230th anniversary, while Aston Martin marks its return to Formula 1 after a hiatus of over sixty years.
For the 2021 F1 season, Girard-Perregaux branding appears on Aston Martin F1 car rear-view mirrors and team uniforms. Girard-Perregaux’s and Aston Martin’s design teams have participated in high-level discussions on movements, esthetics, functionality, material usage and ergonomics.
Several limited-edition timepieces will be unveiled, the first of which was released last June.
The Girard-Perregaux Tourbillon with Three Flying Bridges Aston Martin Edition.
Revisiting a Girard-Perregaux legend, the Tourbillon with Three Flying Bridges Aston Martin Edition is an 18-piece skeletonized high-end timekeeper with no dial or bezel. Three black PVD-treated titanium bridges appear to float between panes of sapphire crystal.
Back view of the Tourbillon with Three Flying Bridges Aston Martin Edition.
The lightweight, 79-component tourbillon cage weighs in at only 0.25 grams, thereby reducing energy consumption, while the micro-rotor’s vertical flank is etched with the Aston Martin name filled with white luminescence.
In a world first, Girard-Perregaux introduces an innovative material never used before in watchmaking on its calf leather strap: a central insert in rubber injected with white gold.
“Rarely do we work with others to reinterpret the Three Bridges, explains CEO Patrick Pruniaux. “However, on this occasion, we have made an exception, mindful of Aston Martin’s prowess for design.”
Later in 2021, a second timepiece will be launched, from another of the manufacture’s iconic collections. We can also expect to see Girard-Perregaux clocks in Aston Martin road cars.
Girard-Perregaux has a long history of collaborations with the automotive universe. During the mid-1990s, then owner and car enthusiast Luigi Macaluso began a ten-year partnership with Ferrari, and together they produced the highly-successful Ferrari watches.
“Girard-Perregaux has had strong ties to the automotive world in the past, which we were keen to reactivate in a stronger way,” notes Clémence Dubois, Girard-Perregaux’s chief marketing and product officer.
Richard Mille
Calling its timepieces ‘racing machines on the wrist,’ Richard Mille is no stranger to the automotive world, with friends and partners like Jean Todt, Alain Prost, Felipe Massa, Sébastien Loeb and the Venturi Formula E team. The brand even owns an all-women LMP2 racing team.
After discussions for Richard Mille’s collaboration with both Ferrari’s racing and road car divisions were initiated last summer, this year it is partnering two F1 teams – Scuderia Ferrari and McLaren Racing – while continuing personal relationships with F1 drivers Fernando Alonso and Mick Schumacher.
The Ferrari F1 SF21 is Scuderia’s 2021 Formula 1 race car.
The new multi-year tie-up extends from Formula 1, WEC endurance programs and Competizioni GT to the renowned Ferrari Challenge single-model championship for gentlemen drivers worldwide as well as for the Ferrari Driver Academy. Starting in 2022 Richard Mille will launch a series of watches bearing the famous Ferrari Prancing Horse logo, developed by Richard Mille’s team in Switzerland and Ferrari’s designers and engineers.
Ferrari F1 Racer Charles Leclerc, wearing the RM 67-02.
“Richard Mille has since its inception been viewed as the Formula 1 of watchmaking,” says Tim Malachard, Richard Mille’s marketing director. “The inspiration of materials and technology found in F1 being applied to produce extremely technical, ergonomic and light timepieces. It is also not a secret that those who like cars and motor racing are also fans of watches. Ferrari and Richard Mille share many common values, and many of our customers are owners of either brand, so another good reason to collaborate over the next few years.”
The RM 40-01 Automatic Tourbillon McLaren Speedtail.
To mark its fifth year of partnership with McLaren Automotive, Richard Mille launched the RM 40-01 Automatic Tourbillon McLaren Speedtail last May in tribute to the fastest road-going car the British carmaker has ever built, with a top speed of 250 mph. The watch is available in a limited edition of 106 timepieces to match the exclusivity of the 106 Speedtail hypercars.
The platinum and red gold winding rotor on the RM 40-01 is inspired by the Speedtail’s hood.
“There are many similarities between the way that Richard Mille and McLaren approach common design and engineering challenges, such as saving weight, reducing vibrational impact and minimizing resistance,” says Rob Melville, McLaren automotive’s design director.
The Speedtail is a streamlined hypercar that is the fourth car in McLaren’s Utimate range.
The watch’s lines mimic the car’s teardrop shape – significantly wider at 12 o’clock than at 6 o’clock – and its bezel indentations evoke bonnet openings while its pushers recall air outlets behind the front wheels.
The watch also debuts numerous firsts in a Richard Mille-manufactured automatic tourbillon: in-house power reserve display, oversize date and function selector complications. Richard Mille’s casing department required an unprecedented 2,800 hours over eighteen months to perfect the contours of the titanium and Carbon TPT case, with the conception of five prototypes before the optimum shape was reached.
As the case tapers between the bezel and caseback, Richard Mille developed an innovative upper crystal glass featuring a “triple contour” to protect the movement.
Y-Jean Mun-DelSalle is a freelance journalist and editorial consultant who has lived on three different continents. She meets with inspirational individuals in pursuit of excellence: emerging and established artists, designers and craftsmen, engaging entrepreneurs and philanthropists, and the movers and shakers of the world today. She contributes regularly to regional and international titles such as Artsy, Asia Tatler, Design Anthology, Forbes, Portfolio, Robb Report, Shawati’ and Vogue, shining a spotlight in particular on art, architecture, design, horology and jewelry.
In response to the COVID-19 outbreak in the Americas, Kering has partnered with the CDC Foundation to provide personal protective equipment and other vital supplies to assist in meeting the urgent needs of healthcare workers across the region.
Kering, which includes Gucci, Boucheron, Ulysse Nardin and Girard-Perregaux under its corporate umbrella, will collectively donate $1 million to the CDC Foundation to support the efforts of frontline healthcare workers in the United States, particularly in highly impacted states such as New York, New Jersey, California, Florida, and locations in Latin America.
The Girard-Perregaux Quasar
The CDC Foundation is the independent nonprofit created by Congress to extend the lifesaving work of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) through public-private partnerships.The CDC Foundation’s Emergency Response Fund allows for the deployment of flexible resources to fulfill priority response needs where appropriated funds are not available or cannot be deployed quickly enough.
The Ulysse Nardin Freak X.
“Kering’s contribution hopes to create complementary impact alongside government in ways that will protect and provide lifesaving support as together we work to combat this unprecedented pandemic,” the company said in a press release.
In addition, with the stance of aiding the American fashion industry impacted by the pandemic, Kering will support A Common Thread, the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund initiative, as well as ‘Your Friends in New York Want to Help,’ an organization launched by Kerby Jean-Raymond with a mission to create rapid local impact within the community.
These contributions follow those already made by Kering in France, Italy, and China in recent weeks and the production of more than million surgical masks and gowns for healthcare personnel.
