Nicholas Biebuyck, Heritage Director of TAG Heuer, believes “consumer interest is improving in quartz”

Zach Blass

Dubai Watch Week’s 10th edition of its travelling Horology Forum is currently underway in Hong Kong, hosting a variety of insightful panel discussions and masterclasses on all things watchmaking and beyond. One panel I found particularly interesting was Is the Age of Mechanical Innovation Over? – moderated by respected journalist and author Robin Swithinbank, who tapped into experts Jiaxian Su (Founder of SJX), Nicholas Biebuyck (Heritage Director of TAG Heuer), and Pim Koeslag (Owner & CEO, Christiaan van der Klaauw).

As a part of this discussion, which explored the hypothesis that there is less emphasis today in the contemporary watch market on the internals of watches and more towards their external designs, the topic of quartz watchmaking arose. If a marketplace is more captivated by external design and more attractive pricing, is the once taboo quartz now a great source of potential?

Swithinbank kicked off this portion of the discussion, asking Biebuyck, “We haven’t mentioned it yet, but I want to come to one of the industry’s old foes, which may perhaps be one of the industry’s new friends: quartz. And the [TAG Heuer Formula 1], of course, was relaunched with quartz movements. How much do you think the contemporary audience cares about what’s actually inside the watch, and how did that motivate TAG Heuer’s decision to put a quartz movement in that watch?”

“Consumer interest is clearly improving in quartz and I think it had been much maligned for years by so-called hardcore enthusiasts, but the fact is you can do massive amounts of innovation in it, you can offer watches at a price point that you could never do with mechanical watches,” Biebuyck explained. “The days of using off-the-shelf movements from Sellita are not nearly as interesting as consumer education improves. We’re seeing more and more people walking into boutiques and coming on factory visits who are much more educated than they were historically, and I think all of this leans into a kind of revival of quartz.”

In the same manner in which rising watch knowledge amongst enthusiasts and consumers has reinforced a distinction between mass-produced movements from the likes of ETA and Sellita and in-house movements – and the value assigned to them – Biebuyck believes such a distinction will rise within the world of quartz. In some respects, this is already happening: for example, the watch community has become very aware and appreciative of the strides manufacturers like Citizen and Grand Seiko have made within quartz watchmaking – offering a much more elevated interpretation of quartz technology where the craft behind it has become less feared or scoffed at and instead respected.

“Buying an off-the-shelf movement from the likes of Ronda is not going to serve you in a way because you need to change the battery every two to three years. It’s not convenient. But when we look at something like Solargraph, that, you know, we’ve been very fortunate to be able to work with La Joux-Perret and Citizen Group who have decades and decades of experience in high-precision quartz movements,” Biebuyck continued.

“Honestly, the Solargraph is one of the most exciting watches that TAG Heuer is producing right now and, of course, we’ve got some great ideas for what we can do with that movement in the future. I’m looking forward to next year when we’ve got something very interesting to show that is also now by Solargraph, and I think we’ll genuinely get people excited at a price point that, as you say, has been slightly neglected.”

The irony, however, as Jiaxian Su would later point out, is that for quartz to get a full seal of approval from the entire spectrum of watch collectors, it will need to entice not only those looking for more cost-approachable watches but also consumers who are more fixated on the higher end.

“I think with the right level of innovation or technical sophistication, yes, and I also think such inventions will gain greater traction and legitimacy if a very big successful brand launches something like this and markets it strongly,” Su responded when asked if his publication’s audience could get behind quartz watches from luxury brands. “If, say, Rolex launched a quartz and solar-powered Yacht-Master that charges when you go sailing, and that became a new big thing that everybody talks about, I think that incidentally would give quartz and solar-powered watches a kind of cachet that they do not have today.”

Again, this is already starting to happen. At the higher end of the market, watches like F.P. Journe’s Élégante have proven such interest and demand can be generated for a luxury quartz watch. Patek Philippe has also recently entered the high-end quartz arena with a quartz-driven Aquanaut Travel Time – although the hardcore watch community seemed less forgiving and interested in a quartz Patek that is priced even higher than many luxury mechanical watches at US$35,350 in rose gold. That being said, it is nearly half the price of the mechanical white gold Aquanaut Travel Time 5164G, which is priced at US$63,040…

The way I see it? With the rising stature of design-driven brands like Cartier, and a watch community becoming less fixated on luxury mechanical steel sports watches, luxury brands have an opportunity to convince consumers to value a watch’s external design, finishing, shape and form more than its internals. They then can almost pass the burden of the cost of that external design on, in a sense: if at the higher end it is the hours spent finishing a calibre by hand that results in a very expensive product, a less decorated quartz calibre hidden beneath a solid caseback would free up more time or money for high-end decoration to be applied to the externals of a watch. In essence, if they can make quartz watches externally pretty enough, collectors might be more likely to embrace premium quartz, as it might represent a sort of value proposition.

Also, a position our creative director Marcus and I share is that, in certain respects, two-handed watches driven by a mechanical movement can be a bit pointless. With a more static dial (for instance, one that does not have a running deadbeat seconds hand to reveal its internal nature), a quartz calibre would likely allow watches to be more explorative in design, thinner, and less expensive than a mechanical version of the same watch. With a compelling external design that does not overtly remind watch snobs that a quartz calibre rests within it, pinky-up watch buyers stand to look past the lack of romance a mechanical movement-powered watch has.

To watch the full live stream of the panel discussion, you can head to this link here.