2023-09-26 22:04:09
Co-founder and master watchmaker of Armin Strom, Claude Greisler talks to us about growing pains, Geneva Watch Days, Only Watch and a music festival
What happened at Armin Strom over the past year?
Many things. There are more of us, we went from 22 to 35 people. Demand – like many other brands – has really increased, so we have had to increase production. Since 2009 we have been working to increase volume, so we thought it would be very easy to hire a few more people to do a little more, but we had to completely restructure the company. If you want to grow, you have to build a new company. So we lost a few people, of course, because the new path adopted no longer corresponded to their vision of watchmaking. We lost people, we had to hire people, and it was quite a challenge, but now we have a very strong young team. We have two new CNC machines. We can no longer put them in our factory because we are short of space, so we have a new location in Lengnau where the CNC machines will be installed to free up more space for the watchmaking workshops.
What are your plans for Geneva Watch Days?
We are relaunching our very first in-house caliber for the Geneva Watch Days, the One Week with a double barrel. The first time we used it in an openwork watch, then later it was skeletonized, and now we’re relaunching it because we still like this movement. I’m a fan of long power reserves. So it still has a week of power reserve and it keeps the same name, but it’s a little sportier. We tried to give a new identity to the movement, especially in terms of the power reserve and the winding system, which is always on the dial side.
When you wind the movement on your wrist, not only do you hear the noise, but you also see what’s happening, you see the ratchet wheels turning and it’s a pretty cool animation. We also wanted to be a little smarter with the power reserve indication. The first caliber had the power reserve indication on the differential gear and our Dual Time Resonance – the oval Masterpiece One – has the power reserve on a cone system. We’ve had very positive feedback from collectors because they love the cone that goes up and down. So we decided to integrate the cone system into One Week. It was mostly about exploring the power reserve and diving into the movement. This is also the very first time we have had central hands.
Can you tell us about your Only Watch edition?
The Ultimate Sapphire timepiece is one of our best-sellers in the Gravity Equal Force collection and we made an orange version of it, which attracted a lot of attention from our customers, so we decided to go from forward with this idea and integrating all the colors on the watch, so it’s cool. In fact you should have one or two clients in mind when you are creating an Only Watch piece. I believe this is what most brands do. You know it will sell out in seconds.
How has the company changed since 2010 and how do you imagine it in 2030?
The main difference is that we didn’t have Resonance in 2010, it came in 2016-2018, and that changed everything. We were willing to invent new things and it transformed the company. We absolutely want to maintain the level of hand finishing and continue to develop but without compromising on quality. We will always finish by hand. We are a contemporary brand, we are not a small niche, classic and independent brand that produces 12 to 50 watches per year. We manufacture 400 pieces per year. But the goal is not to reach 2,000 or 3,000 watches, we would like to double the volume, or somewhere in between. In terms of the team, I believe that 60 to 70 people would be the maximum, otherwise we would lose the spirit of the company.
We are here at the Gurten Music Festival with Armin Strom. Can you tell us more about this connection?
This is an opportunity to invite clients, press, friends and colleagues. Serge (Michel) invested in the Gurten Festival because it is a local festival. His family is motivated by art and passion and they are involved in different businesses in the Bern region. So instead of investors in Zurich taking over the festival, where it could have become more focused on numbers than on attracting the best bands, the best music and the best festival experience, Serge wanted to retain the spirit of the festival because he grew up coming here.
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