OUT OF THIS WORLD

Storied jewellery and fashion houses are still fighting for watchmaking credibility despite producing pieces of staggering creativity and technical know-how-and snapping up some of Switzerland's best manufactures and watchmakers to do it.

- Paige Reddinger

Perched on a couch last April in a private room inside Chanel's sprawling space at Watches & Wonders, Frédéric Grangié and Arnaud Chastaingt appear serene. Outside, the world's largest watch fair buzzes with energy as press, retailers, and VIP clients gather for a firsthand glimpse of the latest from a wide swathe of brands, including the industry's biggest hitters.

Unlike at Paris Fashion Week, where Chanel is perpetually one of the hottest invites in town, here in Switzerland the maison's iconic logo might be a disadvantage. The fashion house must vie for attention with horological heavyweights such as Patek Philippe, which dominate the landscape and have catalogues of coveted models dating back hundreds of years. But Grangié, Chanel's president of watches and fine jewellery, and Chastaingt, director of its Watchmaking Creation Studio, are unfazed. They insist that Chanel's fresh perspective, combined with an incomparable fashion history and laser focus on savoir-faire, gives the house an advantage in the world of high horology.

"When we look at competition-and we are very respectful of them-some of the houses have been there for two centuries, some claim even more, but we are still in that phase where everything that we are creating is part of a living patrimony," Grangié says. "We see the difference in what we are presenting because, of course. The biggest mistake that we could have made is to be a fashion company making watches as opposed to a watchmaker whose manufacture and craftsmanship is at the service of creation." Chanel didn't enter the watch domain until 1987, but in the short time since, it has become a trailblazer in terms of innovation and creativity.