Interview

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Interview - Urban Jürgensen
Brice Lechevalier met with Soren Jenry Petersen, president and CEO of Urban Jürgensen.

What have your priorities been since you took over the company?

Urban Jürgensen has been operating continuously for 243 years, and for the last 30 as a one man owned company creating handmade timepieces of the highest quality. While we will continue to do so, it is fair to say that we have set about changing most of the operating assumptions as a basis for recalibrating the company for the next couple of decades. Streamlining the distribution and sales process, communicating the Brand legacy story and promise, creating a sustainable product roadmap, and bringing on board an experienced management team as well as hiring watchmakers have been the top priorities. Due to the planned growth, also finding a befitting new Atelier that can house all activities has also been important.

What is the strategy for the next 5 years?

Urban Jürgensen timepieces will continue to remain at the absolute top end of the market. They are Atelier made, utilizing the most traditional watchmaking techniques on key parts such as hands, dials, moon disks, hand-finished bridges and cases. Trying to do everything yourself eventually leads to becoming merely average, so we naturally use a selected array of partners to secure only the very best individual components. In this way, we honor the timeless traditions of the watchmaking crafts that underpin the brand’s positioning at the top of the game.

In terms of product strategy, we are engaged in a multi-year process of carefully expanding the collection count, so we can cater to a slightly more diverse range of tastes that is currently the case. This is a very delicate balance, but as can be seen from our 2016 Baselworld launches, it is an exercise done with care and quality in the choices we make.

We are engaged in a multi-year process of carefully expanding the collection count.

Soren Jenry Petersen

Our distribution strategy aims at building genuine partnerships with high-end retailers that in many cases are also several generations old. Timepieces like Urban Jürgensen require very skilled and knowledgeable retailers, which means we are looking for true partners that share our commitment to and passion for quality and handcraft, and can also see the opportunity in investing for growth with us at this end of the market. We have a history and depth of Brand that requires no artificial marketing – and all the qualities of our products are visible to the naked eye.

According to you, what existing model best reflects the brand’s DNA ?

That’s a difficult question, as all our models represent our history and you can perceive in each one of them the different influences of the era in which they were conceived. I would highlight the Ref. 10 as arguably the most perfectly designed classical perpetual calendar ever made. It has incredible balance in the overall construction and design, while displaying our quality of choices in the guilloché execution. That said, it is hard not to love your own children, and my favorite from our 2015 collection would be the Ref. 1140L in Platinum, where we carefully took a step forward in expressing the DNA of Urban Jürgensen through a more contemporary look and feel, as well as referring to our history with the Urban Jürgensen 1930s-inspired Arabic numerals. This has now evolved further in the Ref. 1741 perpetual calendar with an in-house movement, where we combine these DNA traits further in very careful manner. The 2014 GPHG award for the patented Detent escapement 1142C SC as best men’s watch underscores the capability of this exclusive Maison.

What’s your favorite 2016 new release?

Our new Reference 2240 is very special to me, as it displays two of the core traits of what we at Urban Jürgensen hold very dear. Firstly, we have equipped the model with yet another traditional handmade dial craft – namely Grenage, which has become extremely rare these days. It is a distinctively handcrafted process that produces unique individual dials, and as such cannot be reproduced in even medium-scale production. Secondly we have taken our first careful step away from our hallmark teardrop lugs, opting for more contemporary tapered lugs in a classic design. This shows our commitment to handcrafted classic timepieces that will truly stand the test of time for generations.

 

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Urban Jürgensen