Just before sunset on March 24 around 40 people gathered at Chez Calvin for Salon WorldTempus, where we invite writers of opinion editorials to live interviews in front of an exclusive audience.
“For large watch maisons, change is taboo. It is frightening, because it would run counter to the “heritage” and “tradition” they keep repeating as a mantra. In my view, it is far more interesting to assert coherent, bold, contemporary aesthetic choices than to rest one’s legitimacy solely on reputation and your blast from the past,” he said.
The people gathered was an eclectic mix of industry people, collectors, and people curious to find out what a true entrepreneur who both co-launched an independent brand and worked as CEO for Ralph Lauren Watches, before his current tasks as consultant and CEO for a private label watch company.
Mr. Tetu’s foremost argument was that the watch industry should be more experimental – or it will be stuck in a time capsule that will by nature be forever shrinking. “Large brands should be inspired by smaller brands that are truly agile and creative, offering a lot of watch for the money,” he said. “This is how we will create new future icons that will appeal to the next generation of collectors.”
Salon WorldTempus is a monthly initiative in collaboration with Chez Calvin. In the future the plan is to also arrange the events inspired by the Parisian salons in other locations around Geneva.
“Both the opinion editorials and the Salon WorldTempus are cool initiatives – I hope it will continue. The watch world needs informal events like this where we can also learn from and inspire each other,” said Guillaume Tetu.
