COURTING NUMBERS

Luxury watchmakers are shaking off tradition to team up with mass-market players and playful designers, with surprisingly successful, hype-worthy results.

- Aaron De Silva

What do Blancpain, Hublot, Louis Erard and Omega have in common? Besides Swiss roots and horological heritage, they're all embracing the once-taboo collaboration with more accessible, mass-market names.

These partnerships, perhaps once seen as gimmicky or brand-diluting, are now strategically repositioning luxury labels into the wider pop-cultural consciousness – and they're not only finding new fans, but also creating serious collector buzz along the way.

The high-low mashup trend began, as trends often do, in the fashion world. In 2004, Karl Lagerfeld teamed up with fast-fashion giant H&M to drop a designer collection at high-street prices. The fashion world let out a collective gasp – and then camped outside H&M stores to get their fix. Not long after, Balmain, Maison Margiela, Versace and many others followed suit.

Now, the watch industry is catching up. And while luxury watchmakers once partnered with retailers or other luxury watchmakers (in the 20th century), modern-day collabs with accessible brands offer something more potent – cultural cachet, social media virality, and yes, long lines outside stores.

THE OG COLLABORATIONS

Not long ago, co-branding wasn't so much about hype as it was about distribution and practicality. For example, until it developed its own in-house capabilities, Hermes relied on Jaeger-LeCoultre for the elegant inner workings of its timepieces from 1928 through 1972.

In the US, Patek Philippe produced watches for Cartier New York from the late 1930s and then again from the 1940s to the 1970s, with select models double-signed. This refers to timepieces that feature the branding of both the watch manufacturer and the authorised retailer on the dial.