While the new House of Brands—a collective of watchmakers that officially launched in late April, including Breitling, Universal Genève and Gallet—is not likely to be a rival to Richemont or the Swatch Group, it represents a significant new luxury group in the watch world.
The house, which made its debut at Dubai Watch Week in November, is led by Georges Kern, who became CEO of Breitling in 2017, when CVC Capital Partners acquired a majority stake in the company from the Schneider family and hired him to oversee a major rebranding effort. In mid-April, Kern announced that he’d brought on former Panerai CEO Jean-Marc Pontroué as Breitling’s new chief executive, Grégory Bruttin as managing director of Universal Genève, and Erwan Rossignol as managing director of Gallet.
The three iconic watchmakers under the House of Brands umbrella are being positioned to serve distinct segments of the market, according to a company statement.
Universal Genève, a cult brand whose celebrated Polerouter model gave the legendary designer Gerald Genta his start, is the group’s prestige offering, designed to go head to head with brands like Rolex, IWC, Jaeger-LeCoultre and Audemars Piguet. Breitling sits in the mid-market spot currently occupied by the likes of Omega, Rolex and TAG Heuer. And Gallet, with watches in the $3,000-$6,000 range, will compete with Tudor, Longines and a host of microbrands.
Gallet is priced right to “pick up the aspirational client you don’t get with Breitling,” says Oliver R. Müller, founder of LuxeConsult in Aubonne, Switzerland, noting that Breitling’s average sales price, around $7,000, “might be a little steep for a 25-year-old.”
“For a young guy buying his first serious watch, 2,500 francs [about $3,200] is already a lot of money,” he adds. “The idea is to sell Gallet with Breitling in the same boutiques and that allows you to go for a younger client and grow with the same customer, who may eventually go for Breitling.”
The brand that stands to gain, or lose, the most in its newest incarnation is Universal Genève. Like many historic brands of the 20th century, it fell on hard times during the quartz crisis of the 1970s. In 1989, it was purchased by Stelux, a Hong Kong-based investment group that tried, unsuccessfully, to revive the brand. It languished until the Swiss-based Partners Group, which acquired a controlling stake in Breitling in late 2022, acquired it in 2023.
On the eve of last month’s Watches and Wonders fair, Universal Genève staged an event in central Geneva unveiling six new collections, including revivals of its best-known models, the Polerouter and Compax, as well as a slew of vintage-inspired feminine designs featuring hard stone dials and diamonds.
And yet, Universal Genève’s leadership is keenly aware that placing too much emphasis on the brand’s historic achievements is a potential minefield.
“The archive is an extraordinary source of inspiration, but it cannot become a prison,” Bruttin tells Worldtempus. “From the very beginning, we were conscious that Universal Genève could not simply return as ‘the Polerouter brand’ or ‘the Compax brand.’ One of our priorities was to reveal the full breadth of the maison’s identity, from elegant dress watches and chronographs to montres de forme, jewelry-inspired creations and more expressive couture pieces. That diversity and creative freedom have always been fundamental to Universal Genève.
“The key question for us has always been: if Universal Genève had never disappeared, how would the watches have evolved naturally?” he adds. “In the case of the Polerouter, for example, we asked ourselves how Gérald Genta might have evolved the design today rather than simply reproducing a vintage reference exactly as it existed. That is why our approach is evolutionary rather than purely historical. We preserve the essential codes, including the twisted lugs, the distinctive outer dial ring, the crosshair dial and the refined case architecture, while evolving the movements, materials, finishing and ergonomics for contemporary watchmaking.”
At the heart of Universal Genève’s modern-day reinvention is “a serious investment in proprietary calibres and refined movement architecture,” Bruttin says. “We developed three entirely new movements, including an automatic micro-rotor caliber, a micro-rotor chronograph caliber and a shaped hand-wound movement, all conceived around the philosophy of functional beauty. Preserving that level of technical sophistication while maintaining elegance and refined proportions naturally requires significant craftsmanship and long term investment.”
