Swiss luxurious watchmaker Biver is opening its first world lounge in Hong Kong at The Higher Home. The model, which was based by trade veteran Jean-Claude Biver and his son Pierre Biver again in 2022, is increasing its worldwide presence, working in partnership with Shoyo Kawamura to create a retail expertise that embodies the values of neoclassical watchmaking. Kawamura is the director and co-founder of the lounge and now leads the model’s operations in Hong Kong.
Opening the model’s first world lounge in Hong Kong’s prestigious The Higher Home resort was a strategic and calculated transfer for Biver. Hypebeast was invited by the Jean-Claude and Pierre to tour the brand new area and to sit down down for a dialog with the trade legend. When requested about his visits to Hong Kong, Jean-Claude was fast to share enthusiastically, “I’ve been right here 100 occasions in 50 years…about 4 or 5 occasions a 12 months.” When company enter the lounge, they’re greeted by heat pure wooden and expansive home windows that flood the area with pure gentle and body the unimaginable views of the Hong Kong harbour. A particular viewing desk is put in with a microscope to get a better have a look at the distinctive actions of Biver’s signature timepieces, together with the Carillon Tourbillon and Automatique fashions.
In a press release, Jean-Claude mentioned of the area, “We wish our clients to really feel ‘at residence,’ reasonably than in a retailer. As a household enterprise, this can be very essential for our purchasers to really feel like an prolonged a part of the household. For this reason our bodily areas are so essential – they assist us create this heat, welcoming environment and foster real connections.” That is true to Biver’s manner of enterprise and a spotlight to element that they hope to instill into their clients to set them aside from different luxurious watch manufacturers. Kawamura remarks on the “deep sense of household on the coronary heart of Biver” and the way it’s a testomony to the model’s authenticity. Hypebeast sat down with Jean-Claude and Pierre Biver to debate the model’s legacy and future.
Biver
Biver
Hypebeast: Biver has introduced its first world lounge to Hong Kong. What does Hong Kong imply to the watch market and why was it essential to decide on this metropolis in your debut?
JCB: Hong Kong has had a improvement within the 50 years that’s huge…huge. It’s an infinite privilege to have the ability to do that with my son [Pierre]. There may be 51 years between us…he could be my grandson… ha! However it’s essential to deliver the worldwide lounge right here as a result of Hong Kong is a vital place. It’s misplaced a little bit of its significance worldwide, however for the area and for rich individuals, Hong Kong remains to be Hong Kong and Hong Kong will stay Hong Kong.
The town has remained an essential place for us, and particularly for watches. You’ve gotten an unimaginable variety of connoisseurs, you’ve an enormous variety of collectors. There’s a pure development to know watches. Persons are understanding. Hong Kong is a vital strategic level for the event of the model and we’ve got began our partnership as a result of we simply imagine in Hong Kong.
Pierre: Including to what my father has to say, I believe Hong Kong as a metropolis with its vitality, its historical past, its tradition — it’s actually the right place for a model like ours, which relies round emotion and human interplay. I believe Hong Kong is an ideal match between the town and what we’re making an attempt to create, as a result of it has this soul. I really like Singapore too and it has a variety of qualities, however one factor is that it misses that vitality, it misses that sacred fireplace that Hong Kong has and I believe it matches completely with what we’re making an attempt to create.
Hong Kong possibly have has been a bit appeared away from, but it surely’ nonetheless has a stronghold. However due to the truth that individuals could be eager to look away from the town, that’s the time to activate and to benefit from this example. When persons are wanting away from one thing, that’s once we need to are available in and seize the chance becaus we see one thing right here.
Jean-Claude, you’re identified in your disruptive methods and it’s protected to say that a part of your successes Are you able to describe a time if you took a calculated danger and what have been the important thing elements to sustaining that success?
JCB: The most important danger I took was to launch a mechanical watch when everybody was giving up on when everyone was giving up mechanical watches to exchange their assortment with quartz watches. Quartz was presupposed to be the longer term as a result of it has a unprecedented accuracy. It’s extraordinary low cost to provide, however you may nonetheless promote it expensively as a result of it doesn’t want watchmakers. Quartz was consuming the entire trade and it was making the entire trade quaint. However on the time, I assumed that’s not doable. There have to be a market. If everyone goes into quarts, there have to be a marketplace for going again…again to the longer term.
We have been saying we return to the longer term, which suggests mechanical watches that make that you may hear. We determined that we must always return to mechanical and by going again, we have been totally different, we have been distinctive, and we have been the one ones.i In case you are first to be totally different and distinctive, you’ve a winner in your palms…And, when you have a winner in your palms, it’s best to play poker, as a result of everyone is aware of you’re gonna win. That’s a superb recommendation.
You’ve famously resurrected manufacturers like Blancpain and Hublot. Trying again, what single piece of recommendation would you give to somebody taking over an identical problem – revitalizing a struggling model in a aggressive market – that may shock them or go in opposition to typical knowledge?
JCB: I imagine in human beings and having a relationship with what you purchase.
Pierre: If I could leap in — my father is simply too humble to say or possibly he doesn’t need to reveal his tips. For individuals who could be in an identical place to him serving to a model restructure itself, I believe that one among my father’s principal qualities is his capacity to flip conditions and to essentially take care of the percentages that you simply’re given. You can not management something that comes your manner. The one factor can management is the way you react. I believe that’s actually one thing that folks ought to study to take care of. We are inclined to freeze in conditions once we are in concern and possibly caught ready. I believe most individuals that’s the place they see their restrict. However for my father he’s somebody who faces adversity.
JCB: I all the time attempt to be the contrarian. When everybody goes in a single course, I am going the opposite one.
After spending many years within the trade, you’ve presumably seen hundreds of watches. In a market the place we’re overwhelmed with totally different manufacturers, what options does a watch must have so that you can have an interest?
JCB: A watch should give me an emotion. I’m hungry for feelings, and generally I believe we don’t have sufficient feelings. We now have a scarcity of emotion. We now have a scarcity of affection, we’ve got a scarcity of happiness, we’ve got a scarcity of safety. In 1967, The Beatles launched a track known as “All You Want Is Love.” That’s it. That’s the conclusion. Love means I respect you. Love means I share with you. So that you see, love is a normal definition.
All through your profession, you be sure that the artwork of watchmaking is rarely misplaced. You began the Biver model together with your son Pierre, how do you keep true to that mix of traditional horology with what the up to date watch market calls for?
JCB: I name this neoclassic. On one aspect it’s modernity, on the opposite it’s custom. Modernity and custom are fused collectively as a result of it has inspiration from yesterday and visions of tomorrow. I’m the proprietor of yesterday and of tomorrow. It means I’m alive to see tomorrow and have seen yesterday. Neoclassic additionally combines our two passions — the eagerness of design and the eagerness of approach. There’s additionally the design of motion and discovering the sweetness in it.
Are you able to share your predictions on what you suppose the watch market will seem like sooner or later?
JCB: The longer term is typically very sudden and it means you have to be prepared. You have to be prepared for the sudden as a result of the sudden will occur in the end. You have to be prepared and have the flexibleness to adapt. Only a few if not most can not adapt. They’ve their habits. So adaptation is essential and understanding that tomorrow won’t be like as we speak.
Pierre: Immediately, the secondary watch market have modified the best way we promote watches. With social media too, society as an entire is shifting very quick with a lot info, altering traits and every part shifting at a quicker tempo. So I believe manufacturers as we speak must take that into consideration, to have a clean transition into the following part and to restabilize and provides their customers a private expertise. That may set them aside.
The Biver Lounge
The Higher Home
88 Queensway
Admiralty, Hong Kong
