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On a balmy day in 1931, Swiss watch collector César de Trey was attending a polo match of British army officers in India. He was suddenly challenged by an officer to create a watch strong enough to resist the strains of a polo match. After giving it much thought, Trey discussed the idea with Jacques-David LeCoultre, the then owner of LeCoultre manufacture, and thus the Reverso was invented. Some of the earliest Reverso watches were personalised with engravings and enamel miniatures. The most famous of these is a watch with the portrait of an Indian maharani whose identity continues to remain a secret.
Much before that, in 1916, the world's oldest Swiss haute horlogerie, Vacheron Constantin, specially created a wrist watch bracelet and a pocket watch for Bhupinder Singh, the maharaja of Patiala. There are countless such tales that highlight the strong bond between Swiss horology and Indian royalty.
Today, these tales of opulence wear muted tones. Princes have been replaced by entrepreneurs. But the desire to own a luxury timepiece crafted by Swiss horologists remains strong. It is to cater to this demand that in the last three to four years luxury brands such as Cartier, Parmigiani Fleurier, Girard Perregaux and Harry Winston have come up with India-inspired designs.
The year 2008-09 witnessed a limited edition of ten timepieces by Cartier especially created for the Indian market. Titled the Cartier Santos 100 Taj Mahal watches, the collection was priced at around Rs 40 lakh and paid a fitting tribute to the monument of romance. The dial featured the Taj Mahal and its grounds in hand-engraved gold, mother of pearl, onyx and emerald.
That was just the beginning. Today, one can find Swiss brands combining Indian motifs, tones and myths with their technical craftsmanship to create innovative designs. For instance, Frédérique Constant, which calls itself an 'affordable luxury brand', has come up with a silvered dial with numerals in the Devanagari script. It is aimed at those who want to behold a piece of traditional Swiss craftsmanship but at a price that doesn't pain.
The idea for a watch with Indian numerals was the brainwave of Frédérique Constant's international sales manager, Sebastien Cretegny, who thought that this would be a relevant strategy to gain a foothold in the vast Indian territory. "This model has become a true success story in India and in places like West Asia where Indian communities are well represented," says COO Aletta Stas-Bax.
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What sets a Swiss watch apart is the quality of the movement or the internal mechanism of the timepiece. Today, brands are innovating on these movements to suit the Indian market. Parmigiani Fleurier, for instance, has come up with the Kalpa Hemisphere especially for a country like India which falls in two different time zones. These watches correct the current failing of the standard GMT watches by offering the possibility of setting the hour and minute readings independently of one another.
"To do so, two distinct crowns have been positioned on the right side of the case -one for setting the reference or home time and the other for winding the movement, setting the local time and local date," explains Manoj Gupta, vice-president (operations), Ethos Summit, which retails Parmigiani Fleurier in India. This timepiece, available in pink gold and steel casing, is driven by an automatic winding Calibre Parmigiani Fleurier PF 337 and features a power reserve of 50 hours.
This demand for custom-made watches is also bringing about novel collaborations between designers and retailers. For the first time perhaps, Rodeo Drive, an Indian retailer of luxury watches, commissioned Swiss watchmaker Century Times to create a timepiece especially for India. This collaboration resulted in a collection of 333 pieces, each featuring an engraving of Lord Venkateswara's image.
But not everyone believes that there is an upward trend for Indianised version of Swiss watches. "Abroad such watches are sold out even before they appear in the market, like the F1 watches made by Hublot. In India, however, brands are stuck with these limited edition pieces for a very long time," says Sandeep Kapoor of Kapoor Watch Company. "The growth seems adequate, but the rosy expectations of these brands, keeping in mind India's population, haven't been met."
Apart from these limited editions, Swiss manufacturers are also offering their classic collections at different price points to suit every pocket. "At the Rs 25,000 level, Swatch, Tissot, Claude Bernard, Cover are doing well. In the next range, up to Rs 1 lakh brands like Rado, Longines, Raymond Weil, EDOX, Frédérique Constant and Tag Heuer are growing. In the above Rs 1 lakh category, Omega, Cartier Rolex and many others hold sway," says Yashovardhan Saboo, CEO, Ethos and KDDL, which retails 50 luxury watch brands such as Jaeger-LeCoultre, Longines, Jaquet Droz, Tissot and Omega.
Brands are hopeful that those passionate about Swiss horology will be driven by the desire to behold a timepiece that combines the Indian aesthetic with Swiss precision, thus driving the demand for the limited edition watches.
