From the lawyer Agnelli, who made more famous than a watch worn in plain sight above the cuff of his shirt, to distributors, designers and retailers, Swiss watchmaking owes a lot to our country. It was once said that 'if a model works in Italy, it will work all over the world' (some still say that). Even if the volume of exports to the East has partially overshadowed the primacy of Italian taste. It is the victory of quantity over quality, against the assumption that it is the latter that counts.
And to think that while we Italians were making the Omega Speedmaster great, Hong Kong was only selling the Constellation, a model that was never very popular in our parts. And without the flair of importer Carlo De Marchi, the Royal Oak would not exist. Not to mention the Reverso, reinvented by Giorgio Corvo, who even had the first watches assembled by collecting a batch of old cases lying forgotten in the Jager-LeCoultre factory. These are the most famous.
But even Piaget's Polo was born from the suggestions of the brand's Italian salesmen. And the steel Rolex Daytona, sought after, desired, unobtainable in Italy but displayed in plain sight in the windows of other countries? Another phenomenon born within our borders and exported all over the world.
And then the TAG Heuer Monaco, back in production thanks to the perseverance of Roberto Beccari, head of the brand in Italy in 1998. I am going by memory, and I know I am forgetting some, if not many. For example, the Swatch phenomenon, created by the inventiveness of Franco Bosisio, turning a black plastic watch into a canvas for artists.
Coming to the present day, Italian flair has not ceased to give life to successful watches, such as Patek Philippe's Twenty-4, designed in 1999 by Biella dealer and designer Roberto Boglietti, or more recently the Bulgari Octo Finissimo, born from the pencil of Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani. Not forgetting Girard-Perregaux, a brand that was taken over in the 1980s by Gino Macaluso and under his leadership rose to the top of haute horlogerie, to the point of competing on the same level as sacred monsters such as Patek Philippe and Breguet.
I wanted to do this roundup, inspired by the return of the Zenith De Luca (by the way, not the only Zenith created at the request of the Italian distributor Descombes), to which Zenith has drawn inspiration for the design of the new Chronomaster Sport. It is nice that manufacturers are bringing the recent past back to life, because history should not be forgotten.
And modern watchmaking speaks Italian.
