In conversation – the eclecticum sits down with Zenith CEO Julien Tornare

Thoughts on the future of the brand, the importance of retailers, & a jealous wife!

It is almost exactly two years since Julien Tornare started his dynamic term as CEO of Manufacture Zenith in May 2017. Mr Tornare certainly got one of the most challenging jobs in the industry, guiding a brand which not only was largely resting on the laurels of the (admittedly impressive) past, but also lacked a clear identity which could guide a coherent vision for the future. Under his leadership, Zenith saw a condensation of its collection with a most stringent focus on few, more carefully designed watches, but most prominently a self-assured return to the notion of innovation, exemplified through the new, young Defy collection with its active-lifestyle concept, and really outside-the-box new escapement concerts like the Zenith Oscillator which breaks new grounds in many ways (this shall be the topic for a separate article).

On the occasion of  Julien Tornare’s recent visit to Vienna on the occasion of the Grenier Club events to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the iconic automatic chronograph movement El Primero our own Magnus Bosse had the chance to sit down with Julien for an intensive discussion on his experience so far and his plans for a future of Zenith beyond the as much venerable as the El Primero movement.

Zenith as of June 2019:

1) What is the DNA of Zenith? Technical or Design or both? What, besides the famous El Primero, makes Zenith unique?
There are two main pillars of what makes Zenith: We have a long history of over 150 years, which is our basis from where we could build upon. And then there is authenticity, exemplified by the fact that 100% of our movements are truly in-house.

2) Where does Zenith stand now compared to 2017 when you joined the brand (then the average selling price of a Zenith watch was CHF 7,000, at a production of 16,000 watches)?
I am not authorised to give you the precise numbers, but we are lucky that average selling price went significantly up, but also our sales numbers: we are now at between 20 – 25,000 watches per year, and I am particularly glad that all these have found their way to the end customer, right onto the wrists of watch lovers and collectors.

We have also reduced our retail network from 848 to about 600, and we plan to further cut down to 500, which means that this gives more incentives for our retail network to actively engage with Zenith. This benefits the retailers themselves but also the customers (through a better counsel), and at the end of the day us as well.

3) Who are your market competitors and benchmarks? 
I would say bona fide manufacturers like IWC, JLC or OMEGA.

4) What are your plans for honing and refining their brand image and rationalising your model line? Is there any focus group/market?
I think the core tour  future success lies in a brand’s ability to keep the young people interested in what you are doing. For me, this is a personal lesson from my time at Vacheron Constantin Asia Pacific (Julien served as Managing Director there). There is a new, young generation of millennials with considerable disposable income which are all potential customers. But those have entirely different tastes and preferences than their parent generation, for example. They want a fine watch with credible watchmaking content, but they don’t want the same design as their fathers collected. It has to be modern and reflective of their lifestyle.

This means you cannot rest on the laurels of the past and keep repeating your history. What you need is to infer a ‘startup’ spirit in your traditional watchmaking company. This is the challenge. But here again we at Zenith have a tradition: the spirit of innovation and dynamics which is so deeply ingrained into the essence of Zenith, and was instrumental in the birth of the El Primero.

I’d like to give you an example: I did some homework earlier this year and identified a number of those people who 50 years ago worked hard on the gestation of our famous El Primero movement. I managed to get 8 of them, including the then marketing manager, the son of Charles Vermot, Michel, and others, to join us for a lunch. All of them were born after 1933, the youngest in 1945. Being people from the mountains and watchmakers on top, all were quite shy and private, but a few drinks helped.

And they began telling the stories from the past: Michel Vermot, for example, revealed that his mother one day became suspicious about his father, as he without giving an explanation would return home late in the evenings and also would work on the weekends. But Michel supported his father and said to his mother: “Don’t be suspicious – my father is a honest and hard working man.” Charles Vermot did not tell even his family that he was clandestinely putting away the tools, parts and technical drawings of the El Primero movement and preserving them for the future – a task which would certainly caused him his job had he been caught.

The El Primero was a movement which was considered largely impossible when it was developed, and its history teaches us that we not only have to dare, be dynamic and face challenges, we also have to preserver and get innovations past prototype stadium right into production.

5) How are the Bamford customisation offering received? Any brand particularly successful with this? What do you learn from the commissioned designs?
It was a two-way gain: With the partnership, Bamford got legitimacy for its customisation operations and we we gained control of the process. For the customer, this is a double win as he/she can commission a unique piece with confidence. The customers first came mainly from the UK but now include mostly all of Europe and the US.

On the Importance of Technologies:

(As a reminder, Zenith is not only a pioneer for high frequency escapements, but also in the widespread used of silicon in the escapement, of carbon nanotubes in hairsprings, and also in completely rethinking the escapement system with the Zenith Oscillator. thereby condensing about 30 individual parts into a single large one, which needs no lubrication, regulation or further assembly and promises better accuracy as well. With the presentation of the Defy Inventor, the Oscillator is officially fit for large scale production in 2019. Not only that, Zenith is also working on an updated version of the traditional El Primero calibre.)