“This collections is phenomenal”

THE WATCH HISTORIAN
Pierre-Yves Donzé (1973) is a Professor of Business History at the University of Osaka and a guest lecturer at the University of Freiburg. 
His speciality is industrial history with a focus on the Swiss watch industry.  

Mr Donzé, you just had a look around the Beyer Watch and Clock Museum. Did you discover anything special?
From a historian’s perspective, it’s not about one particular piece, but rather the collection as a whole – and this one is phenomenal. It manages to tell the story of timekeeping, from the beginnings to the present, in a compact space. 

Why did the clock succeed as a timekeeping instrument? After all, time as a unit divided into hours and minutes did not play a role for quite a while.
It’s true that this division was of secondary importance for a long time. By defining the days, seasons and religious festivals, the church exercised control over society. One symbol of this power was the church clock, which dictated the time. In the Middle Ages, the bourgeoisie began installing clocks in town halls, taking control of time and thus securing a bit of power for themselves. 

So watches became a must-have as a symbol of power?
In the 18th century, we started accumulating a certain amount of wealth, especially in Great Britain, resulting in a consumer society. People could afford nice things, including watches. However, this doesn’t mean that they used them to organise their day-to-day lives. Watches were more of an accessory. They first became important as a timepiece in the 19th century as a result of modernisation, mainly thanks to the railways. 

Why is it that Switzerland became known for the best watches and not England?
We don’t know exactly how watchmaking began in Switzerland, but I think two factors were important: First, the effects of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, specifically the ban on wearing jewellery. Jewellers had to come up with an alternative. They knew how to work with silver, gold and precious gems, and they began decorating and producing watches. The second aspect is immigration in the 16th and 17th centuries, in particular from Northern Italy and France. Many of these immigrants brought with them a knowledge of watchmaking, which spread from Geneva throughout the Jura region. At the same time, watchmaking was booming, and craftsmen would move from their villages to Paris to learn the trade before returning home with this knowledge.

Even back then, the delicate individual parts that go into watches weren’t manufactured in the cities, but rather in the countryside. Why is that?
Because it was cheaper. A farmer could work on his farm and also earn a bit extra on the side making watch parts. This wasn’t only the case during the long winters, as is often said. Instead, the work was divided up within the family. The retailers weren’t watch specialists yet, either, because the market was still too small. Many sold all sorts of things: colonial goods like coffee, tea and spices; textiles; and also timepieces. Just like the predecessors of the Beyer family in Feuerthalen.

How important were universal exhibitions for the Swiss watch industry? 
Extremely important. At the first world exhibition, the Great Exhibition in London in 1851, the Swiss demonstrated their greatest skill: that they could manufacture an impressive variety of watches, in every size and shape, out of every material and for every price. However, the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876 changed everything: At this time, the Americans were outperforming the Swiss thanks to mass production of high-quality watches. So, the Swiss travelled to Philadelphia and observed the Americans in order to learn from them. At the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, they came back stronger. They had carefully chosen the best watchmakers and mainly presented the highest quality watches. The goal was to create a luxurious image. And it worked splendidly. 

Pocket watches dominated for a long time. Why were they replaced by the wristwatch? 
When the idea arose at the end of the 1 9th century to manufacture wristwatches, they were a rather unimportant, niche innovation. World War I changed all that. Soldiers wore wristwatches over their sleeves to determine distances. And marketing discovered the wristwatch as a ladies’ accessory: In the 1920s and 1930s, advertisements would feature a pocket watch for men and a wristwatch for women.

Was the wristwatch an overnight success?
It was a gradual shift that took about 20 years. By 1940, the pocket watch had been fully overtaken by the wristwatch. Entrepreneurs like Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf recognised the spirit of the times early on. In contrast, Patek Philippe was more conservative and continued producing high-quality pocket watches for quite some time. This led to difficulties in the 1930s, and eventually to the Stern family’s takeover of the company.

The history of the Swiss watch industry also includes some crises. Which were the most significant, and how did the industry get through them?
Time and again, we have experienced and continue to experience short-term crises like economic recessions that reduce demand for watches and result in one- or two-year slumps. Structural crises that threaten the existence of the entire industry are more severe. The first of these occurred in the 1870s when the Americans began mass producing cheap, high-quality watches. Switzerland reacted by modernising its production. 

The second structural crisis occurred during the interwar period, in the 1920s and 1930s, when production shifted to other countries due to increasing protectionism. Switzerland reacted by doing everything in its power to keep both jobs and knowledge in the country. This resulted in a stronger concentration of the industry. 

The quartz crisis – or rather the quartz shock – took place between 1975 and 1985. It was more than just a technological challenge. Rather, it was about adapting the structure of the Swiss watch industry to global competition. Switzerland’s main competitor was Japan, which had a highly concentrated industry with just a few companies like Seiko and Citizen manufacturing high-quality, mass-produced watches at low prices. The Swiss watch industry had been under pressure since the early 1970s, when the Bretton Woods system and its fixed exchange rates came to an end, the Swiss franc suddenly rose in value, and Swiss watches became extremely expensive compared to Japanese ones. 

Even though Switzerland had developed the first quartz prototype in 1967, it was Seiko that launched the first quartz watch on the market in 1968. Japan used the technology to manufacture cheap watches. Switzerland reacted by restructuring the industry, in particular by founding the Swatch Group. This resulted in a consolidation of production facilities, streamlining of the product range thanks to ETA factories, and outsourcing some of production to Asia. Simultaneously, the focus was on maintaining diversity and traditional craftsmanship as core values.

How important was – and is – the “Swiss made” label?
It has played a decisive role, in particular in the ’80s, when the Swiss watch industry experienced a renaissance. The “Swiss made” ordinance was introduced in 1971 to guarantee quality while still allowing for inexpensive production: At least 50 per cent of the value of a watch’s movement had to be manufactured in Switzerland. During the quartz crisis, the label became less relevant because precision was no longer a question of the place of manufacture. However, in the ’80s, with the return of mechanical luxury watches, “Swiss made” became an important marketing tool. It represents tradition and quality.

A WORLD-FAMOUS COLLECTION 
The Beyer Clock and Watch Museum is home to one of the most important collections in the world. 
Opening hours are Monday to Friday, 2.00–6.00pm.

Clock and Watch Museum