One Swiss luxury watchmaker plans to «make Swiss-made great again» with a timepiece produced entirely in Switzerland – sending up money-laundering Swiss bankers along the way.
H. Moser is a tiny luxury watchmaker in Schaffhausen which cultivates extreme exclusivity: only about 1,000 timepieces are produced every year by the firm's 50-odd employees – Swiss-made production at its finest.
The definition of made in Switzerland has been at the center of a contentious debate over product labels. This year saw the introduction of rules that timepieces using the lucrative «Swiss-made» must have at least 60 percent of its parts made in the country.
This law doesn't go far enough for some watchmakers like H. Moser, which prides itself that 95 percent of manufacturing for its $50,000 to $75,000 watches occurs in Switzerland.
«Oh-So-Clean Swiss Bankers»
CEO Edouard Meylan dresses up in Swiss folk clothing and sports a crossbow as he slams the 60 percent rule in a hilarious send-up released on the firm's YouTube channel. The law makes magicians out of Swiss people, he argues: «We can turn anything into something Swiss!»
Cash, for example, says Meylan as he flourishes a handful of Swiss francs: «We take any currency – dollars, euros, whatever. We hide it, we clean it, and we turn it into our oh-so-clean Swiss francs, thanks to our immaculate Swiss bankers.»
The larger point of Meylan's swipe against Swiss bankers is that the new Swiss-made label dilutes true Swiss «manufactures» like Moser, a 199-year-old firm whose prospects were revived when the wealthy Meylan family bought the watchmaker nearly five years ago.
«This label is too lenient, providing no guarantee, creating confusion and encouraging abuses of the system», H. Moser said in a statement. The firm will remove the «Swiss-made» label from all new watches, effective immediately.
Cheesy Watch
To underscore H. Moser's point, CEO Meylan (pictured below) unveils a watch made entirely in Switzerland – not just H. Moser's usual 95 percent standard. The «Swiss Mad» watch has a Swiss cheese casing with a cowhide strap, and a red fumé dial in homage to the Swiss flag.
It will retail at 1,081,291 Swiss francs – reference to when the Swiss federation's charter was first signed on August 1, 1291.
«All proceeds from the sale of this watch will be used to create a fund to support independent Swiss watchmaking suppliers currently suffering under the difficult economic situation and outsourcing to Asia. These are the very artisans who keep traditional Swiss watchmaking alive and who help it to continually evolve,» H. Moser said.
