Interview with Julien Tornare, CEO of Zenith

El Primero has always had a huge impact and a major role in Zenith history. When I joined in 2017 we had long discussions with Jean-Claude Biver about El Primero having such a renowned and strong movement. I think we all agree it is a major strength and many brands would dream to have such an iconic movement. It’s quite a unique factor and it’s not that our branding is not strong enough as the movement. We need to build the brand further to be strong as a global one. What we are doing in the last few years is building the brand image to become much more appealing and much more attractive but staying as we are. So El Primero plays a significant role as it has always done. But it’s just that it has been cannibalized by the rest of the brands. Coming back in 2019 with the anniversary celebration of El Primero was the best way to kick off the Chronomaster.

I think it’s probably one of the best decisions and one of the most strategic initiatives and definitely one of the top three of my favorite ones that we worked on over the last few years. Zenith icon is basically a way to tell people that Zenith uses only its own movement in the watches. As the manufacturer we trust that we can restore any watch from day one, and thanks to this we are able to give many more lives to a watch that was created 50 or 60 years ago. So we talk to younger generation about sustainability, circular economy and we know that the watch we produce is going be there forever. This is our commitment and it really works so well giving a strong legitimacy to the brand. Yes, it’s been a fantastic communication tool for the brand to establish its identity. My main challenge with Zenith icon is the sourcing and I will tell you why. We primarily keep this Zenith icon watches that we restore in Le Locle in our headquarters, and some in our boutiques in Paris, Ginza-Tokyo and China. We are supposed to open in Dubai in a few weeks’ time and so also in Singapore. We have a huge customer segment in Dubai and Singapore so should have started earlier but I was too short on sourcing. My problem is that we have restored 18 pieces and we sold out 15, so today I have 3 Zenith icons available for our clients. It’s a nightmare in terms of sourcing and in the meantime when I came on board we started the Zenith icon. Today if you have one in good condition in our stores saying this is guaranteed by the brand, the market is following up. It means my task to source all these watches to be restored is getting tougher and tougher. This is my main challenge but now I’m asking my team to develop that. Zenith icon started with old Chronomaster and of course if you think about the DEFY 30642 that we did recently they are also doing well. Tomorrow it’s going to be the Pilot collection, so it’s a great way to show what the brand equity is all about.

Super simple and this was also one of my first statements. I always say that Zenith is basically built around three main points. One, you mentioned it very well, is heritage. History is very rich and very long and therefore, really is a strong one. Then, authenticity is important to me. Authenticity means 100% of our movement is made in-house. When you visit the manufactory you will see that it’s true, that we are not making up stories as many others do. Our stories are true and I really want to emphasize that. So we keep this heritage and authenticity, but then of course creativity is equally important. When I met those men, 80 years old more or less, during the anniversary of the El Primero, who made the El Primero the first thing, they told me “Julien it’s good to make revival of our creations. We were so super creative but now you should not only do revival, you should continue and make contemporary too”. That’s why I am absolutely sold on having historical pieces and very contemporary watches. We live in the 21st century, so if I don’t create now how can I create an icon of tomorrow. It’s really tradition today. Innovation today is going to be tradition tomorrow. So I think it’s great to do it, it keeps the brand alive because one fear the industry has is how to keep the younger generation interested in mechanical watches and not having them wearing either cellphone on their wrist or no watch at all. 

It is a little plus that we offer for the anniversary for some special watches. It shows the trust we have in our old caliber, our old product, and the fact that we make them ourselves. You could ask me then why don’t you do the collection of 50 years. 50 years is a bit long because a mechanical watch still needs to be maintained at some point and it will have a huge cost on any brand. Now that you mentioned it we will have a new announcement on the global warranty approach soon.

The new DEFY Skyline is basically the evolution of the DEFY Classic that we have with the blue dial and three hands and we wanted to do a few things with it. First of all, we love the development of the case that we had last year on the DEFY Extreme and this is giving so much character and identity and step by step you will see this as a signature of the DEFY collection. We are known for very clean dials, sometimes gradient but super clean dials and beautiful colors. I want to create a pattern so what kind of pattern can we do that’s different from the other ones. Of course we talked about our local star which is a very important strong symbol and we looked at the different stars that we had in years. Looking at the El Primero we see this beautiful star, stylish star that we had in early 70s and we worked on that to create this pattern that you see on the dial. We used the old logo to do that and we loved the result. Last but not the least, El Primero is such an important movement, how do we basically keep the El Primero magic into three hands. We thought let’s covert the chronograph and chrono movement into a three hand movement. If you simply do that then, looking at the watch people may think that it’s an elite movement, so I wanted to have a little hint about the El Primero high frequency power speed. That is why we created the small second at nine which turns at one tenth of the second so people who know about watchmaking realize that this is the high frequency we get from the El Primero. So you get the design, the new dial, and the El Primero three hands which is quite unique and you can feel this little second. And of course we continue to integrate more interchangeable strap system, doubtlessly, the easiest to use in the market and the safest. This is something people love and that is why we launched that watch this year.

That’s a very good point. DEFY initially was quite a big, bulky, sporty watch and we wanted to have, I would say, a more feminine touch. That is why we launched the DEFY Midnight in 2020 here in Dubai. The success has been steady, I would say, with the big kick off last year’s summer we started to sell many more of DEFY Midnight with the starry sky which is a nice expression of the sky. Now of course we want to bring two new expressions of what the sky can be like because we have the blue, and grey which I tend to say when we have a little bit of pollution. We bring two beautiful sunset dials here in Dubai so you know exactly how the sky can look like. The other one is Borealis and this is the one which I can show you exactly where I got the inspiration from.

Our Chronomaster is a big come back in 2021. As you know, we started the year with some novelties in the DEFY line and of course Watches & Wonders is coming in a few weeks and we will have some animation. But the Chronomaster comeback is so recent that you don’t expect many new things. If you think about Chronomaster Sport original I’m happy to say we had so much success that now I need to deliver more. My development team already made a beautiful edition of the Chronomaster Sport, for example with colors, with a different case, different kind of dials – very cool ones.  But I told them to keep them because we don’t need to do now as it’s too soon. What you will see in Chronomaster is some precious metal. I want to have precious metal animation and this is what you will see in the new Chronomaster line as well. If you see Chronomaster there is one specific, that we are very well known for, that is not there yet in the new generation. You know we are known for an opening in the dial. How do we reinterpret this opening to show the magic of El Primero, this is something we have been working on and you will see this nice surprise in a few weeks from now? So we have good animation on the Chronomaster line, maybe one new thing on DEFY. 

We’ve been communicating it all the while as well as the fact that we have this historical heritage. But the Pilot has not changed much but for one small animation. First we launched DEFY and DEFY gave me time as a main pillar to rework on Chronomaster. Chronomaster had a big comeback last year, now if you want another strategic product line, the big engine of the company, then you have two more tactical product lines, namely, the Pilot that you mentioned and Elite. But I don’t want Pilot to be vintage like the automobile. We need to have Pilot that always gives an inspiration from the past. We need to come back with Pilot but with a more contemporary approach because then you have contemporary watches, you have the revival which is reediting watches from the past, and then you have the Zenith icons where we buy back authentic pieces from the past and restore them. We started with Chronomaster, now with DEFY and of course the Pilot will be the same. You can expect to have a new Pilot probably by the end of the year or maybe early 2023. Much more contemporary than the classic.

Dubai is getting more and more prominent, it’s been the nerve hub of the Middle 

East for a long time, and I would say one of the few hubs in the world in terms of luxury business definitely. When you visit the city and its malls like Dubai Mall or Mall of the Emirates, you can feel that you have the latest store concepts, and the latest products. You have such a big luxury industry that you need to be here and you need to be strong here, and that is basically why I did choose to make this boutique as the number one in the world. And believe me, we are performing very well in other boutiques but here it’s growing faster and faster. A month ago in January, we did a record ever in terms of number of pieces and value and this month we are close to be in that track. The biggest move we are going to make this year, and it’s important for us to go step by step, involves taking over Dubai boutique and making it successful. That is the first milestone I want to have. Of course, we are expanding in different countries and one of the big moves for this year is opening a boutique in Kingdom Mall in Riyadh which is going to happen in spring. That’s a big move because we have seen in our after sale service  as well as CRM database that we have a lot of clients in Saudi Arabia and we are not officially present there. So now it’s going to be a big move and that’s so important even if we are growing in Kuwait, Qatar and in many places in a region like Oman. It’s very clear that Dubai and Saudi and the two main growth engines.  

Simple. You know Zenith is about the future of Swiss watchmaking which means we cannot be turned towards the past with a product that you can only see on a wrist. It’s clear that we are a contemporary brand. The new stores and the website are becoming very contemporary, always respecting the past but living up to this day. If we have to live up to this world and build the future of Swiss watchmaking it’s not only with the product within the store but has to be with the feel of the brand. That’s why we been thinking about men and women categorization. I always give this example that when I was a kid, I remember my father who has always been respectful towards women. I remember so well having a small car when men had big sporty ones, now it’s totally nonsense. I used to drive a mini cooper when I was in Hong Kong. You would never go to a car showroom and ask for a women’s section or a men’s section, and I always wonder why one will do that for watches, it’s very much from the past. I want mine to be the first brand to totally delete gender category on the website. You can go for different sizes and styles but not specify for men and women. I don’t want to be the brand that is deciding the watches for you. It’s not complicated it’s just part of being a model company.  

Talking about sustainability and social responsibility, this is also something we started to kick-off basically four years ago. When I came in I asked we should do internally to move on the right track if we want to be a 21st century.  It’s not only the product, the store, or being unisex that can achieve this. We started internally to take a lot of measures that we did not publicize much and it ranges from going paper-free to electric company cars, and many small initiatives in between. Now I’m working on using solar panel on the roof of the factory, and soon everywhere it’s going to be solar. We expect to sell probably 40 to 50% of the electricity we generate within the next two years. A lot more initiatives are on the anvil. And how do we integrate it into our actions? The first clear example is the Extreme E-race collaboration. When we terminated our collaboration with Land Rover I received couple of proposals from another car company. I didn’t want to go for a regular car-watch deal, I wanted to do something that will dovetail with the values that we uphold. And that’s why we partnered with Extreme E which is all about sustainability.  Shifting from fossil fuels to preserve the planet and promoting gender equality are both important social values for us. 

Of course, coming back to your question about Blockchain, we are working on how we can benefit and contribute to the community and what can do to link the new technology to our business model. This is a very important topic. Thank you for the questions because we could not claim to be a 21st century company without considering those.