Watch News: Bremont opens Hong Kong store

Following the opening of its standalone flagship store in London, English luxury watch brand Bremont now has its first overseas boutique, located in Hong Kong.

Michelle Graff michelle.graff@nationaljeweler.com

Bremont’s new store in Hong Kong will be similar in design to its London flagship but will make more use of technology to tell the stories behind the brand’s watches, Bremont said.New York--Following the opening of its standalone flagship store in London, English luxury watch brand Bremont now has its first overseas boutique, located in Hong Kong.

The store is on Lyndhurst Terrace in Central Hong Kong and is more than 2,000 square feet in size. The brand, which was co-founded by brothers Nick and Giles English in 2002, said the store will serve as a showcase for the brand in Asia, a growing region for Bremont.

The store will have a design similar to that of the brand’s London space, which won U.K. Retail Store of the Year at the Retail Jeweller awards in July.

“As with our London boutique, Hong Kong will be more than just a traditional watch store. It will be a place for watch collectors to come and meet to talk about watches over a coffee or a Chivas whiskey,” Nick English said. “We will also be expanding our explorers’ club from the U.K. to Hong Kong where we will have monthly events.”

‘Noemia’ grows up
Raymond Weil has overhauled its Noemia collection for women, introducing an all-gold PVD watch and a 24 mm size to the collection, which first was introduced in 2009 and is named after the founder’s granddaughter.

Watches in the Noemia collection have a quartz movement and are available in 32 mm or 24 mm sizes. On the new Noemia watches, the cases are longer, the white mother-of-pearl dial is brighter and there are Roman numerals at 6 and 12 o’clock.

The new stainless steel Noemia retails for $2,750 while the all-gold PVD timepiece is $1,350.

Ebel feeling blue, green
Ebel recently introduced two new 36 mm Onde watches with dials crafted of semi-precious gemstones.

The new Onde models are available with a dial of either lapis lazuli, a stone known of intense blue color sometimes called Moroccan blue, or of malachite, a stone that echoes Pantone’s color of the year for 2013, emerald green.

They are stainless steel quartz watches powered by the ETA 955.102 movement. The crowns are set with VS clarity diamonds totaling 0.039 carats, and the malachite model has green gold on the case and crown.

The malachite watch retails for $4,950 while

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the lapis luzuli timepiece is $2,950.

A premier partnership announced for Bulova
Manchester United, one of the teams in the English Premier League football club, has a new official timekeeper and global partner, New York-based watch brand Bulova.

Bulova signed a three-year sponsorship agreement with the popular soccer club. Its branding will be prominent on the club’s scoreboards at Old Trafford, the team’s stadium, on the digital advertising boards there during all Premier League home matches and seen daily on MUTV, the club’s station.

In addition, the watch company will produce co-branded timepieces featuring the Manchester United crest and have specially crafted Bulova timepieces displayed around the stadium, including in the players’ locker rooms, at its training complex and at its offices in London and Hong Kong.

Urwerk introduces its own smart watch
Move over, smartwatches. Swiss brand Urwerk has introduced a new mechanical watch with “artificial intelligence,” called EMC.

EMC stands for Electro Mechanical Control and is the world’s first precision mechanical wristwatch in which the timing can be monitored and adjusted by the wearer to suit their lifestyle, Urwerk said.

The watch has four separate indicators on the dial: an on-demand precision indicator that ranges from -20 to +20 seconds per day, a seconds dial, hours and minutes and an 80-hour power reserve indicator. It is a manual-wind 43 mm watch crafted of titanium and steel.

The wearer can tell from the precision indicator dial when the timing of the watch is off, and can use the timing adjustment screw on the back to make very fine adjustments to the balance rate regulator by changing the active length of the balance spring.

The EMC watch has an in-house movement conceived, developed and crafted in the Urwerk ateliers in Zurich and calibrated by Urwerk in Geneva. The EMC is limited to 55 pieces and retails for $125,000.

Michelle Graffis the editor-in-chief at National Jeweler, directing the publication’s coverage both online and in print.