Baselworld 2018: Swatch Group Chairwoman Nayla Hayek Talks Industry News & Harry Winston Novelties

A very good morning. Yes, we had one hour less to sleep. Yes, it's a pity, but the time change is there now. At least the days are getting longer, we can enjoy them in the evening, and we have to change all the time on the water.

The political situation is sometimes pushing, sometimes limiting the desire of people buying luxury goods. At the moment, it seems that the world is good because the sales go up. They really are back. Everybody says we are selling perfectly, we have been sold out. Someone this morning stated here in a past work we have sold out. Why is this so extreme? It's getting so extreme up and down. I don't think it's the luxury world, I think it's the whole mood to buy something. Because we had this coming back for good results the last three months of last year. So it began in autumn last year that the consumption of every country, everybody was in the mood to invest again. Yes, not only with luxury, also with brands like Swatch. So large, in all our brands are happy here. Yes, we have good results, but we also had when we go to results in January/February, yes.

I think it's a lot of, sorry to say, people like you in the press are very influencing. The mood of the people, because a lot of Asian people they want to invest in jewelry. So we feel it when they feel unsure to invest in shares or real estate, they think of jewelry. But I think it's the world economic situation that created this tough situation we had in the beginning of last year. So I think it's always a political thing, but it's my colleagues reporting about it, not me. No, I am saying they're all part of the job. Of course, you're right, if there's only negative news, there's no good mood. But it's so funny because it came back, and now they prefer, yes, good for us that it came back. It was a hard time, really a hard time at the beginning of last year. It was tough. And thanks to Swatch Group, I don't want to be in a position to have to make decisions on how we continue, how we plan, how we pay salaries. So it's these up and down situations. But Swatch Group is always loyal to its employees. I think this is my father's credo: we don't want to lose our people to have better income. I think first it's unfair to the people. We all need them now. Everybody in crisis, as you said, sold out, so we need the people who are working there. I think also that we are not working for a so-called shareholder value. In social, we are really working for our company, and people are the most important in our company. Family business, you know.

Yeah, New York is the mother house, New York is the flagship. And I think Zurich was a long-time desire to have a store in Zurich, and I think it's the right place, couldn't be better. Yes, very nice store. We have another flagship store which is really a flagship store: we doubled the space in Beverly Hills. So this is a very big one. We opened Istanbul, so we opened in the last three months four boutiques, which was a hard time for our people because we have to train all the new people. We have training people who specially train new employees, and it's not only the salespeople to be trained, we have a lot of security people, the whole world. A lot of work, but I have to say I'm very much in love with the Zurich store. Yes, I think you can be. It's an amazing start. I really enjoy that. And I thought, okay, she's bringing now Harry Winston sort of sweet Sally, you couldn't do it in Beverly Hills, so you have to do it in product wise. I saw you've been this year working very much playing around with men's watches, also focusing on men, more men timepieces. The relationship between men and women watches is stable, still between 60 and 70% women watches and 30% men watches. But this year we had the anniversary of the Ocean collection, so we pushed more models into the Ocean collection. We have the Desert volume line, these are our traditional limited edition. Then we added some limited edition in the Ocean collection because of the anniversary. I think also that it's very important, we discussed this last year, that we need to have some smaller complications in the very elegant line from Harry Winston to make it not too sporty but more small complications also for men if they don't want to wear a sport watch. But to add something that makes the watch modest. Yes, it's a tool, it's an object. You don't need a watch to tell time, no honestly no, we have our smartphones. So it's something you enjoy and want to have, it's an emotion you buy, it's also somehow a piece of your personality. Yes, absolutely. I think it's as my father always said: emotions, we're selling emotions. We are emotional innovations, emotions, credibility, quality, and then the best price. Swatch Group we try our best. I have to say that we have two big lucky heroines to work very close with Blancpain, we have the special movements which they develop for us, so we are at the source which makes it easier. We have also some special edition quartz watches which it is doing for us, so the quality is very stable, very good pricing. You know, we are always fighting because we need all the materials. I saw women's timepiece you did yesterday where the diamonds are set on a sapphire glass, amazing work by the way. I can imagine this must be horrifying to do that, the sapphire glass is 0.2 millimeters and you're setting a diamond. And we saw what I liked, very nice. And then when they named the price, I said oops, that's Swatch Group, because I thought if someone else outside would have done it, it would be double. Honestly, well maybe so, no, it's really the impression because it's expensive, but it's a fantastic timepiece, jewelry timepiece, but for the value you get amazing. This is why we are selling these pieces really, because you have a gold watch, Harry Winston is gold watch, you have diamonds from the best quality, and you have the special dials. So I think this is the power of the brand, and then you have to cook price. I have to say that I'm very proud that we are now in a market price level where we can sell pieces, because Harry Winston had always nice designs and they never could really sell because the quality was not as it had to be and the price was always 30% too high. And the best advertising for you is people wearing. Every man and woman, yes. So you couldn't do better than to have a watch on the wrist. Therefore, when people ask me, you don't need a testimonial for Harry Winston, I said no, I have one testimonial: it's Harry Winston, and the other ones are all the clients.

Yes, it's we created it together with Jaquet. You know, Jaquet is always the specialist on automata. We did the design around the setting and all this, and I think it's just a piece of art. A signing machine. You can in every language put a sentence, your signature, whatever you want. And in three months, this machine is programmed to write legally correct whatever you want as a sentence. You have a lock code to lock it because it's very dangerous, we don't want that somebody can sign your checks, and then we are responsible for it, so it's impossible. But I think what attracted us very much was that it's an automatic movement, but not in a watch. In this signing machine, it comes together with a watch which is on our signing machine, which is the only quote on this automatic. And then for sure you have two wonderful settings of diamonds and the oak pulsar. In the way that has been shown to us, it is signing Harry Reid's, yes, so it's a signature of the founder of the company.

I have to say we showed it to Mrs. Luthor and she said oh, this would be a great idea for the Christmas card. But the sentence has to be quite short. And I was playing, we were joking around yesterday: what happens if you are giving this as a gift to a woman if you want to marry her? I said okay, would you marry me? And then someone said what happens if she says no? I said no, because then someone intervenes. Do you have to wait three weeks? I said not three months, no, if it's the right sentence you can use your real dad. So you will have one of this? No, I don't think so.

I also like that the special edition we did last year, the opera glasses. Your opera glasses, how'd you reopen glasses without a lot? 20 cut stones on it. So this time it's 48 color, no 7, I don't know how many was last year, but this does sound so I card, so this time now it's 70 carats under right. So every carat.