Swiss watchmaker targets openings after Edinburgh launch

The Herald Scotland

4 days ago

His comments came as the watchmaker, which was founded in 1868, opened a boutique on Princes Street in partnership with Scottish jeweller Chisholm Hunter.
Mr Grainger-Herr expressed his excitement in securing the site at 99 Princes Street, overlooking Edinburgh Castle, for the brand's first standalone boutique in Scotland. It builds on the brand's association with the country which has been forged through its long-running status as official timing partner to golf's Alfred Dunhill Links Championship. This year's tournament will take place at the Old Course in St Andrews and Kingsbarns in October.
Mr Grainger-Herr declared the company, which collaborated with Cloister Watch Company for a piece worn by Brad Pitt's character, Sonny Hayes, in current film F1, would 'absolutely' look at similar openings elsewhere in Scotland.
'We are taking the same approach to most of Europe at the moment,' he said. 'We are seeing an increased regionalisation in many parts of Europe when it comes to where the hotspots are for luxury retail. Five, 10 years ago you just used to go to the main centres, being London and Paris and so on. Now we see a new crop of cities that are developing.
'People's changing lifestyles and being more flexible in their working arrangements now means that we are seeing many cities like Edinburgh become a major hotspot for luxury shopping. That's why, across the UK, in England as well as in Scotland, we are looking at opening boutiques in cities beyond the traditional capital cities. We are seeing a good amount of regionalisation, and it is the same in Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, all over the place. We are seeing second cities coming on quite strongly.'
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Mr Grainger-Herr told The Herald that the brand's long association as the official timing partner for the Dunhill Links had opened its eyes to the prospect of having a 'more permanent representation' and offering a 'more complete brand experience to what we had before' in Scotland. He also flagged the attraction of the 'great retail infrastructure' in [[Edinburgh]], as well as in Glasgow.
'We are super pleased to have opened with Chisholm Hunter and having a really nice space here on the corner of Princes Street, looking straight at the castle which us absolutely beautiful,' he said.
Asked how the partnership with Chisholm Hunter works in practice, Mr Grainger-Herr replied that it is 'very much a standard watchmaking model, in the sense that we have a lot of our external boutiques that are operated by our retail partners, who would also have multi-brand stores'.
He explained: 'If you got to Chisholm Hunter in Dundee, for example, you will find a multi-brand store… it is the same established partners that often will co-invest with us into boutiques that we then run on an external basis to just be able to offer [a] more complete brand experience to our customers. There is a more complete collection [and] there are obviously boutique-exclusive pieces which are only available through the mono-brand boutiques. That would mean somebody like Chisholm Hunter would have a more complete collection representation than they would necessarily have in a multi-brand [store]. It is a win-win for both to co-invest into a model like that.'
The new boutique, which is currently displaying the watch with the green dial worn by Brad Pitt in F1, is based close to Chisholm Hunter's 'excellent' multi-brand store in Edinburgh. Mr Grainger-Herr said the reinvigoration of the retail offer on Princes Street was a key part of the attraction.
'It is fantastic to be able to get access to a location like this,' he said. 'It is often the local partners that have the on-the-ground knowledge that helps to secure key locations like that, and their knowledge of what works and what doesn't.
(Image: IWC Schaffhausen) Christoph Grainger-Herr
'We have seen that in many of the cities we have opened boutiques recently – that kind of relationship helps a lot. Reinvigorating the retail scape on Princes Street has been important as well, with multiple shopping points emerging. I think Princes Street, in terms of the watch offering, has been much upgraded in recent times.'
Meanwhile, Mr Grainger-Herr said consumers had generally emerged from the coronavirus pandemic with a 'fantastic knowledge about luxury brands and watches [that we have] never seen before'.
He said: 'We see that multi-brand environments are really a very good offering to the sort of customer who has researched a lot more before they actually physically walk into a shop. You have this really nice combination where obviously the retailer brings an existing customer base.
'We have seen since we opened here that we have a transfer of the partner's customer base who have been introduced from the multi-brand [store] or introduced from other brands and then suddenly come to a boutique like this. But also [there are] obviously walk-ins, both local and tourists. In many places in Scotland, tourism from the US is a major driver of the footfall in luxury retail that we see.
'It has been really encouraging since we opened the boutique here on Princes Street to see the amount of actual new customer walk-in business that are just simply attracted by seeing the brand in this triple A location here and coming in to discover.'