DESIGNING AT
MONTBLANC
Has luxury changed in recent years?
The way people approach luxury has changed. We don’t seduce, but our
products seduce. So we have to empower them. The feel of an item has to be
instantaneous. I have noticed that this happens to me more and more. When
somebody touches something, and they keep it in their hand, it is a success.
When I present products, I never wear gloves for this reason. Wearing gloves
takes away the one thing that instantly seduces people: touch.
When I started at Montblanc five years ago I was asked what I was going to
contribute. I thought about that and I said “tactility.” What I mean by that is
when we create something at Montblanc, they should be considered
companions. We are making something that somebody wants to keep close
to them. It is something to play with, to hold in your hands.
We always do that here with a pen, a notebook – and a watch. We can
fake visuals and sounds, but we cannot fake touch. I tested all of our leather
bags. You can have the most beautiful bag, but if I touch it and it doesn’t sit
comfortably in my hand, I am not going to buy it.
It’s the same with a watch. You put on a watch, and you feel it on your
wrist and you want to adjust it. So tactility is something we always consider
and adjust.
How do you prepare to design something new at Montblanc?
We need to understand for whom we are designing the product. Who is it we
want to enjoy this product? Then we see if there is something we can add to
an existing product. For example, bags exist, but what can Montblanc do to
make them more appealing. How do they feel? What is their beauty?
And it is the same with watches. Where we used to expand our collections,
more and more today we are looking into our archives. It is tempting to go
directly into the archives, but I stopped myself from doing that. In order
to understand our archives best, I need to understand the current world of
Montblanc. Of course we have to expand our world. We can’t just redefine
ourselves from within ourselves.
When you go to the archives there are challenges. You can’t create a
one-to-one version of something in the archives. If I were to do that with a
writing instrument, for instance, you would say that it is not so good, that it
has no weight. It was a different time, and they were made for that time.
We need to see how we translate an archive piece using modern codes.
How modernity sees vintage. Vintage is a notion, it is idealized.
With the 1858 collection, for example, each figure on it is re-drawn, not
Montblanc Creative Director Zaim Kamal
explains his design process and why he is so
conscious of how a product feels.
replicated. On the new Heritage collection, those dots on the dial are not
exactly the same as on the vintage pieces. They are larger and finished
differently. It shouldn’t look exactly like your grandfather’s watch. You add
your vision to something that was done fifty years ago. This is the biggest
challenge in working with heritage pieces.
At Montblanc we create companions. You buy a Montblanc product
because you want to use it, and it becomes part of your day-to-day
today routine.
What characteristics are you sure to include in each of your watch designs?
I am a stickler for clicks (the sound of the clicks of the bezels.) And springs.
Often, nobody will necessarily thank us for getting everything right, but if we
get one thing wrong somebody will say something. Pushers have to feel just
right. These are the things the user remembers.
This attention to the little things for me was defined very early in my life.
My grandfather used to collect watches. He used to wind of them all once per
week, and when I was old enough I would wind some of them. He said it is
when you turn the crown that you feel the quality of the watch.
Is there a piece you still carry around from those early days?
A Reverso. I loved to play with it. My grandfather was gracious gentleman; he
let a five-year-old play with a Reverso. I also have, from him, an early ultrathin
Piaget Altiplano.
How do you determine which era to focus on when you need to mine the
Montblanc and Minerva archives?
We have done the 1930s, the 1940s in the 1960s. In the 1970s, when I grew up,
we always looked forward, to how we would change the world. Now we seem
to look back. I love the Art Deco period, but we’ll see.
Remember, even when we make a heritage piece you make it to last
forever. Those three lines on the new heritage piece to time your telephone
calls (on the new chronograph dials) we learned about from Minerva from its
archives. Those types of lines were also used yacht timers.
One of the first things I wanted to do when I started at Montblanc was a
pocket watch. The 1858 pocket watch is a result. We have to think how we can
make pocket watches multifunctional. Your pocket watch requires a certain
sartorial dressing. I still think our Rally Timer is perfect for the hand but too
much for the wrist.
WINTER 2019 | INTERNATIONAL WATCH | 109