Not everyone in the Richemont Group participates in Only Watch. Why is it important for Montblanc?
There are several reasons for this. The first is that Only Watch is reaching for the summit this year, and if we are talking about climbing summits, Montblanc is the most legitimate to do so. For Only Watch, we are climbing summits in terms of our unique piece being a world premiere, not to mention its packaging, which has never been done before. It is an accumulation of peaks to celebrate Only Watch, an organization which is also striving for the peak this year.
The second thing for us is that Only Watch is something extremely special that we feel very strongly about because it has a real purpose. It is an auction that donates 99% of its proceeds to fight against Duchenne muscular dystrophy. It is rare to see that practically all the money from the sale of the watch is going to be donated to this cause and will be able to make a real impact.
What makes the Montblanc Only Watch 2023 unique piece so special?
The idea is that for Only Watch, we wanted to do something a bit crazy, and we wanted to do it in relation to the mountains, which is Montblanc’s world. So, we decided to create a crazy presentation box. Usually, when a customer buys a watch at auction, they place it in a safe where it can’t be touched. With us, it is the other way around. We have created a watch that is frozen in an oxygen-free packaging.
The customer will receive an ice axe and will have the option of breaking the ice packaging and letting the oxygen in and wearing the timepiece, or leaving it as it is as a piece of art, as owning a watch frozen in a zero-oxygen environment is like as if time has stopped.
Secondly, the watch has a host of unique features. There is a glacier dial in a new unique colour. We worked for months to get this colour of ice for the dial right. The dial is housed in a case devoid of oxygen that is also water resistant to 100 metres. It comes with a 100% recycled PET strap as a reminder of all the PET that mountaineers unfortunately see when they are climbing the world’s highest summits; it is symbolic. And last but not least, the case back features a special engraving of Everest and the side of the watch, at nine o’clock, sees the addition of a silhouette of Everest in SuperLumi-Nova.
What exactly is your new Carbo2 case?
When we talk about glaciers, we talk a lot about CO2 and the impact it has on them, and CO2 is a hot topic these days. At Montblanc, we decided to open new paths by harvesting CO2 gases that are a waste product of recycling plants, and then at the same time, recover certain minerals, which contain calcium, and we mix all this with water solutions and the CO2 gas. Using a type of sponge, we are able to take the gas, which we call internally CACO3, and transform it into a powder which we mix with carbon fibre to create the case.
There has been so much innovation since you took the helm of Montblanc watches, why is this so important for you?
Innovation is what keeps you going. If you don’t innovate, there is no differentiation, innovation is key. It is the secret to long-term success. There are several types of innovation; it isn’t necessarily always technical innovation, but it can be creative innovation, or innovation that goes back to the roots of a product. For us, it is all about looking at our history and seeing what we can do with our history that has never been done before in watchmaking. No one else has zero-oxygen timepieces, Carbo2 cases, glacier dials, unique 3D engraved case backs, crazy presentation cases, and so forth. This is really the concept.
Would you break the case or keep it?
I wouldn’t break it, because today we have access to everything, everywhere, all the time. So, the simple fact of having something that is inaccessible and that only you have the possibility to make it accessible is really powerful. To make the accessible inaccessible or the inaccessible accessible is almost divine, and that’s the power we offer to the future buyer of the 2023 Only Watch unique piece.
