The newest Hermès
Arceau Cavales, with a
black lacquered and
champlevé dial and
diamond bezel.
Do you seek new collaborations with watchmakers
as you have in the past?
We have several projects in the works. One with Jean-
Marc Wiederrecht and some with other technical and cre-
ative geniuses.
How would you characterize Hermès watches
since you started as Managing Director?
Both models of the
2018 Hermès Carre H
We have not had any drastic change in our strategy. What
we have built up over the years we continue. We upgrade
our collections with know-how and quality on one side and
creativity on the other. This has not changed. We have
become a higher-end watchmaker.
I have changed two things however. One is our retailer
mindset. Our wholesale is over, and we now think ‘sell-out’
not ‘sell-in.’ That was the first mindset revolution I wanted
to implement.
The second one is really to be clear on our priority
between masculine and feminine watches. Our business
priority is feminine watches, which is why we revamped
all of our core collections, especially Cape Cod, Arceau
and H-Heuer, which have been our worldwide pillars
since we began. For women we want to have Hermès as
one of the watch brands she dreams of when waking up
in the morning.
For our masculine collections, we are newer in this
segment, and each year we come out with two, three or
four nice novelties with complications.
Is Hermès cautious about gray market sales
of its watches?
We are one of the few brands that never focuses only on
sell-out rather than sell-in. As a result, eighty-five percent
of our distribution is made only within our own stores. We
still have fifteen percent external retailers selling Hermès,
and most of them are playing by the rules. But some of
them don’t play by the rules, not respecting our lines. That’s
why we chase after them– and why we close the lot of them
each year.
Vaskan Chokarian is the director of iW Middle East.
The Hermès Nantucket
Jete de Diamants
FALL 2018 | INTERNATIONAL WATCH | 55