Girard Perregaux

Dear enthusiasts,

again i´m honoured and happy to share another world´s first, the new advertising campaign by Girard-Perregaux:

Shockwave required

I´m sure you will enjoy the new motifs and new approach; not just a very clever campaign, but with GP´s new slogan "watches for the few" a truly matching line.
As Girard-Perregaux puts it:

---

Girard-Perregaux Brand Advertising Platform

In a world in which life is moving faster everyday, everyone seems to be prisoner of increasingly “disposable” trends and fashions. Thus “waiting” becomes a provocation, a metaphor for the ultimate modern luxury: taking time for oneself; understanding and appreciating the value that passing time confers upon some objects; recognizing the real value of things well before they become a status-symbol for everybody else. Today’s world celebrates “new”, “young”, “instant” as the standard bearers of modernity, and tries to erase every trace of passing time even from our faces and bodies. Re-asserting the value of time is therefore a choice of boldness and originality.

Learning to Wait is a cultural endeavour: it requires personality, intuition, strength of character, respect, passion. For the really good things in life, the most precious ones, the rarest, the authentically unique ones, all need time. Time for them to be created, or simply for being understood. For those who can foretell their immense value, it’s well worth waiting for all the time that is needed.

The “Wait” concept in the campaign is elegantly illustrated by the piece of wood that becomes a precious Stradivarius; the Cabernet grapes slowly turning into an exceptional Château-Lafite Rothschild; the unknown and underestimated Gauguin that only time will reveal as a true masterpiece; the millions of years that are necessary for the humble coal to transform into diamonds.

Yes, time matters immensely. The time that Girard-Perregaux needs to hand-craft a “complicated” model, more than one thousand hours; the three years of intense work, every time, to fine tune a new mechanism. These timepieces are the fruit of highly talented craftsmanship that is not guided by the rythms of the markets alone, but rather the number of hours and attention to detail that are necessary to create a unique piece that is as close to perfection as is humanly possible.

Not everyone will agree with this philosophy. Not everyone will understand, nor have the patience to Wait. This is why Girard-Perregaux prides itself in making “Watches for the few since 1791”.

---

Please feel kindly invited to follow the parts to come and have a closer look at some of the new motifs, which will appear in print media all over the world in the future.
And finally, we´ll see how the luxury of taking time to do things translates to GP´s way of creating watches, with some few impressions from Manufacture Girard-Perregaux.

With thanks to Girard-Perregaux Suisse and kudos on some truly great ideas!

Greetings from Germany,

Peter

This message has been edited by PeterCDE on 2007-01-29 14:15:56 This message has been edited by PeterCDE on 2007-02-16 04:49:49

This message has been edited by PeterCDE on 2007-01-26 06:43:59

This message has been edited by PeterCDE on 2007-01-26 06:44:24

This message has been edited by PeterCDE on 2007-01-26 06:44:50

This message has been edited by PeterCDE on 2007-01-26 06:45:15

It looks great. GP have done well with this new marketing; it reminds me of AP's very popular ad line.

Patrick

Now we´ll have a glimpse at Manufacture Girard-Perregaux; some impressions of GP´s production, which may give an idea good things come to those who wait. Or, better put, are made by those who are allowed their time:

Assembling a JeanRichard movement; no robots, but hand-made:

A test prototype at Girard-Perregaux; the Haute Horlogerie department does use these finishing models and all subsequent work is done with hand tools. Not as fast as computer-controlled machinery, but then:

"Painting cases"
Magali is a Master Watchmaker at GP´s Haute Horlogerie department and in charge of Three Gold Bridges tourbillons, as well as other highly complicated timepieces. You may recall her from our earlier coverage and remember she is a very talented and skilled watchmaker.
Doing the same procedures all over, on dozens of units, isn´t in line with GP´s philosophy of doing things; thus watchmakers are allowed to set their own pace, according to the specific pieces under work. You just don´t do well on microscopic tourbillons parts of a few 1/100mm in dimension and some 1/100 of a gramm in weight when you´re not perfectly concentrated or don´t feel well that day. Therefore you do see watchmakers doing other work as well, which might be inexpected.
Here Magali is "painting a case"; the Platinum case of a "Tribute To Enzo Ferrari" Tourbillon (one of the last made) is polished by hand, which is a considerable challenge given Platinum is a bear to work on. In addition, inscriptions are engraved by hands.
In order to preserve the fine finish of the precious casework, the case receives a protective coating before the movement is installed.
The blue laquer will be remove after the final examination and timing controls before the watch leaves Girard-Perregaux, thus it is an effort invisible to those who see the watch later. A small step, but a necessary one. And even this is done by hand, where it certainly would be faster to use an airbrush tool:

"Polishing bridges"
The "polissage", how the polishing is referred to, is a special task that requires special skills.
Claudia is a very talented watchmaker at GP´s Haute Horlogerie department and in charge particularly of the polishing of the iconic bridges in GP´s masterpieces.
Polishing a soft material as gold isn´t easy to accomplish and requires a steady hand, a good eye and a lot of skills and experience. Over the thumb, a workpiece is harder to polish with a perfect result the larger the part gets. And everyone who had the pleasure of closely encountering a GP Tourbillon will agree they are not small and not less than perfectly done.
The procedure involves manual labour only; certainly it would be possible to achieve some impressive polishing by means of wire erosion or electro polishing, but not a finish as found on the Three Bridges.
Claudia makes use of a wooden piece, where the abbrasive material (in form of an almost liquid paste) is applied. Then she gently moves the wood over the gold plates; enough to achieve the polishing wanted and less than what would cause swirls and burrs. Exactly such is the major challenge; polishing too much will ruin the finish and all work needs to be started all over again.
The whole procedure is then repeated four more times, each time with a different and finer abbrasive on a wooden polishing piece.
This might give an impression of how much work goes into these, which take considerable time to be done. A luxury not every brand allows!

"Fine tuning Enzo"
Another detail is the fine finish of the "Enzo" tourbillons. The more technical look, compared to GP´s classic tourbillons, might cause to overlook the finish is as fine as every GP tourbillon, which involves more work than one might guess.
As with every GP tourbillon, the individual components of the movement are finely finished and then assembled. The assembly is done in an early stage without installing the tourbillon carriage; in this stage, the finish, fit and execution is checked. The movement then will be partially disassembled again, receives the tourbillon and will be finally assembled completely to undergo the performance controls.
Here the anglage of the bridges is checked and "fine tuned"; this is done by a wooden stick, which is used to polish tiny section.
Not an easy task given the dimensions and one that needs meticulous attention, therefore needing considerable time.

As you see, doing things in a traditional way requires time. And subsequently, it will cause need to wait. Which in itself is a form of luxury, for those few who do appreciate and can afford such true luxury!

Greetings from Germany,

Peter

This message has been edited by PeterCDE on 2007-01-26 06:42:22

straight to the point. Makes me be more patient while waiting for my first GP This message has been edited by alex on 2007-01-26 07:31:07

Now let´s hear - which one will accompany the VC´s?


Cheers,

Peter

masterhead

Hey, cool!!!
And this from a guy who used to be reserved about GP´s so far
Then they must have made that one REALLY right

Cheers,

Peter

e

No message body

 I like the concept of exclusivity and craftmanship GP is trying to convey.  Only suggestion would be to make the watch pictures a little larger.

(typo edited by PeterCDE on request) This message has been edited by PeterCDE on 2007-01-28 08:57:04

In our day and age a Rolex and a Cartier are the watches which most humans compare to.

It is refreshing to see that GP has not chosen to play the mass game but to develop a campain which will be appreciated by the current owners and new prospects alike.

All special things take time to develop. It takes a special person to appreciate it. We cannot get around that.

Just one downside, Once you've got one your hooked!

Kind regards,


Hans-Jurgen
Barneveld - The Netherlands

... however, I really like the campaign from GP. In fact, I think it is the best that I have seen for a long long time.
It combines all of the ingreadiants a good awareness campaign must have. Please pass over my compliments!!!