Last 12 months was a tough one for many luxury brands. According to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, 2025 was a “year of significant uncertainty,” with exports down for the second 12 months in a row.
Some analysts framed it as a correction to the post-pandemic boom, however financial realities have seen luxury watchmakers trying to innovate, in an trade characterised by custom.
Ilaria Resta took over as CEO of Swiss watchmaker Audemars Piguet on the finish of 2023, simply because the market “started changing significantly in comparison to the post-Covid era, where there was this euphoria to buy anything luxury,” she advised NCS on the Watches and Wonders commerce present in Geneva final week.
She pointed to the influence of China’s economic problems, the rising value of gold, and US tariffs. “It was really a perfect storm of lots of things happening,” Resta stated.
“That was a challenge, but at the same time, it was a blessing in disguise,” she added. “It was a moment of pause and reflection, of, ‘how do we evolve in the next few years?’”
Audemars Piguet (AP) sells watches starting from round $30,000 to properly over $300,000. The firm celebrated its one hundred and fiftieth anniversary final 12 months and legacy is essential to its picture. “Our founders refused to embrace the industrial revolution approach,” Resta stated. “They refused to industrialize the production process, which means producing and touching every watch by hand.”
But Resta, the corporate’s first feminine CEO, says it’s necessary to not be certain by heritage. At Watches and Wonders, AP showcased the work of its “Fab Labs” — or Fabrication Laboratories — arrange as an area devoted to experimentation and analysis.
AP has even been embracing AI. “We service watches (even) from 150 years ago, and AI helps us to recover the design of the watch, the components of the watch. It’s a way also to have an inventory of the wealth of watches and complexity of watches,” Resta stated. “In the supply chain, in restoration, in client services, AI is a fundamental tool.”
A current Deloitte report surveyed 420 senior luxury brand executives who ranked AI and innovation in supplies and manufacturing because the “most transformative forces shaping the (luxury) industry’s future.” More than 40% of luxury corporations surveyed stated they have been implementing generative AI in chosen areas and 12% have been embedding it in “core functions across the most relevant areas of the organization.”
British watchmaker Bremont is almost 25 years previous and began out making pilot watches. CEO Davide Cerrato says its youth provides it the liberty and independence to create designs that are “projected in the future.”
For its Supernova Chronograph, Bremont partnered with Astrolab, an American firm that develops area rovers. When Astrolab’s FLIP rover explores the moon later this 12 months, it will likely be carrying a Supernova watch, which is able to stay there with the rover, completely.
“We will learn so much more about how (much) further we can push the limit of our technical watches and their durability and their resistance and their strength,” Cerrato stated.
Swiss luxury model IWC Schaffhausen can be trying to area, unveiling the Pilot’s Venturer Vertical Drive at Watches and Wonders. It’s meant for use on Haven-1, which may very well be the world’s first industrial area station, and is predicted to launch subsequent 12 months.
Celebrating its 30-year anniversary in Geneva, Parmigiani Fleurier, a Swiss brand worn by King Charles III, prioritizes a extra discreet type of luxury. Its Tonda PF Chronograph Mysterieux has a chronograph that’s hidden till a button is pressed. It’s a easy idea however technically demanding to implement.
“We are … reinterpreting the chronograph function, which is the most important function in watchmaking, in a way that has never been done before,” stated CEO Guido Terreni. “It appears when you need it and it disappears when you don’t need it.”
“Michelle Parmigiani, the founder, has always been about moving forward watchmaking,” Terreni added. “He refuses to believe that everything has already been done in watchmaking.”