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A recent article on Worldtem**** begins,
Mao Zedong wore one; Deng Xiaoping and Zhou Enlai, too. Shanghai brand watches were for decades a status symbol among China's Communist Party elites before they were elbowed aside in the 1980s by Swiss and other foreign luxury imports. Now, Shanghai is planning a comeback, with a little help from Hong Kong and Swiss friends.
With a new marketing structure, a new logo by the Hong Kong master designer Tommy Li - the old Chinese characters for Shanghai have been replaced by a stylized triangular representation of the Shanghai skyline - and a new dial, designed by the Swiss watch designer Eric Giroud, Shanghai is readying a bid to reclaim its fame.
Giroud is a rising independent designer who recently worked on the HM1 watch for Maximilian Büsser & Friends. His design for the Harry Winston Tourbillon Glissière won the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève this year in the Technical Watch category.
He has just completed the design for the dial of an enlarged Shanghai watch case, which should be unveiled early next year, and is working on a case and dial for a second new watch for the company.
Rather then get in trouble for posting a link that might have watches on them.........:sneaky2:
Mao Zedong wore one; Deng Xiaoping and Zhou Enlai, too. Shanghai brand watches were for decades a status symbol among China's Communist Party elites before they were elbowed aside in the 1980s by Swiss and other foreign luxury imports. Now, Shanghai is planning a comeback, with a little help from Hong Kong and Swiss friends.
With a new marketing structure, a new logo by the Hong Kong master designer Tommy Li - the old Chinese characters for Shanghai have been replaced by a stylized triangular representation of the Shanghai skyline - and a new dial, designed by the Swiss watch designer Eric Giroud, Shanghai is readying a bid to reclaim its fame.
Giroud is a rising independent designer who recently worked on the HM1 watch for Maximilian Büsser & Friends. His design for the Harry Winston Tourbillon Glissière won the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève this year in the Technical Watch category.
He has just completed the design for the dial of an enlarged Shanghai watch case, which should be unveiled early next year, and is working on a case and dial for a second new watch for the company.
"They are very serious about wanting to make a mark at the international level," said Carson Chan, managing director and watch specialist at Bonhams, Hong Kong. On Nov. 24, Bonhams auctioned Shanghai's first Orbital Tourbillon, which features a twin spring barrel providing up to 72 hours of power reserve, as well as a flying tourbillon - a cantilevered design that is one of the most intricate and difficult to create - with a balance wheel that oscillates at a rate of six times a second. The watch sold for 500,000 Hong Kong dollars, or $64,200, with the proceeds going to the Jackie Chan Charitable Foundation.
Set up in 1955, the state-owned company is credited with developing and producing the first Chinese mechanical watch.
"In the '60s and '70s, people had a real hunger for these watches because of the limited supply. At the time, you couldn't buy a watch without a government-issued coupon, and it was not easy to get one," said Leonora Yung, president of Shanghai Nationwide Treasure Watch, a joint venture incorporated in 2004 and owned by Shanghai Watch and Yung. "Such a watch was a symbol of status. No girl would even marry you if you did not have a watch coupon or a Shanghai watch."
Yung herself was born into that elite, inheriting her love of watches, she said, from her father Yung Hongren - brother of Rong Yiren, dubbed China's first communist tycoon and vice president of China from 1993 to 1998 - who at one point owned a collection of more than 50 of the hard-to-come-by timepieces.
In the 1970s, a Shanghai watch typically cost around 120 yuan - or $272 at the then-official exchange rate that valued a dollar at 2.267 yuan - compared with an average monthly income of 36 yuan. But in the 1980s, the company ramped up production and held down prices to meet broad demand - and in the process, despite technical improvements, lost its exclusive franchise to foreign rivals.
Today, the company, still partly owned by the government, continues to mass-produce inexpensive watches. But Shanghai Nationwide aims, with its high-end line of grand complication models, to set itself apart from other Chinese brands like Rossini, Seagull or Five Star.
According to a recent report in the semiofficial China Business News newspaper, Chinese-branded watches account for 70 percent of the domestic market by volume, but high-end foreign watches account for 70 percent of sales value. Chinese industry data show that domestic factories produced some 870 million watches in 2005, or about 70 percent of annual world output, for sale under Chinese or foreign brand names.
Chinese manufacturers have even been making low-priced tourbillon mechanisms since the 1990s.
"It is a fact that many top-end watches being made today carry some kind of component made in China," Chan of Bonhams said. "This means China's workmanship is rising to international levels. It is just a matter of time before a Chinese brand attains international awareness."
Yung intends that brand to be Shanghai.
"We're planning to concentrate on Tourbillon at first and produce only a few hundred pieces a year, focusing on workmanship and crafts," she said. "Shanghai watch will be in the high-end market segment and become a leading brand in China. The brand will be targeting innovation and technology as the main goal. We believe this will appeal to many watch collectors, who just want a quality product and don't really care where it is being made."
International Herald Tribune / Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop / www.iht.com
Mao Zedong wore one; Deng Xiaoping and Zhou Enlai, too. Shanghai brand watches were for decades a status symbol among China's Communist Party elites before they were elbowed aside in the 1980s by Swiss and other foreign luxury imports. Now, Shanghai is planning a comeback, with a little help from Hong Kong and Swiss friends.
With a new marketing structure, a new logo by the Hong Kong master designer Tommy Li - the old Chinese characters for Shanghai have been replaced by a stylized triangular representation of the Shanghai skyline - and a new dial, designed by the Swiss watch designer Eric Giroud, Shanghai is readying a bid to reclaim its fame.
Giroud is a rising independent designer who recently worked on the HM1 watch for Maximilian Büsser & Friends. His design for the Harry Winston Tourbillon Glissière won the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève this year in the Technical Watch category.
He has just completed the design for the dial of an enlarged Shanghai watch case, which should be unveiled early next year, and is working on a case and dial for a second new watch for the company.
Rather then get in trouble for posting a link that might have watches on them.........:sneaky2:
Mao Zedong wore one; Deng Xiaoping and Zhou Enlai, too. Shanghai brand watches were for decades a status symbol among China's Communist Party elites before they were elbowed aside in the 1980s by Swiss and other foreign luxury imports. Now, Shanghai is planning a comeback, with a little help from Hong Kong and Swiss friends.
With a new marketing structure, a new logo by the Hong Kong master designer Tommy Li - the old Chinese characters for Shanghai have been replaced by a stylized triangular representation of the Shanghai skyline - and a new dial, designed by the Swiss watch designer Eric Giroud, Shanghai is readying a bid to reclaim its fame.
Giroud is a rising independent designer who recently worked on the HM1 watch for Maximilian Büsser & Friends. His design for the Harry Winston Tourbillon Glissière won the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève this year in the Technical Watch category.
He has just completed the design for the dial of an enlarged Shanghai watch case, which should be unveiled early next year, and is working on a case and dial for a second new watch for the company.
"They are very serious about wanting to make a mark at the international level," said Carson Chan, managing director and watch specialist at Bonhams, Hong Kong. On Nov. 24, Bonhams auctioned Shanghai's first Orbital Tourbillon, which features a twin spring barrel providing up to 72 hours of power reserve, as well as a flying tourbillon - a cantilevered design that is one of the most intricate and difficult to create - with a balance wheel that oscillates at a rate of six times a second. The watch sold for 500,000 Hong Kong dollars, or $64,200, with the proceeds going to the Jackie Chan Charitable Foundation.
Set up in 1955, the state-owned company is credited with developing and producing the first Chinese mechanical watch.
"In the '60s and '70s, people had a real hunger for these watches because of the limited supply. At the time, you couldn't buy a watch without a government-issued coupon, and it was not easy to get one," said Leonora Yung, president of Shanghai Nationwide Treasure Watch, a joint venture incorporated in 2004 and owned by Shanghai Watch and Yung. "Such a watch was a symbol of status. No girl would even marry you if you did not have a watch coupon or a Shanghai watch."
Yung herself was born into that elite, inheriting her love of watches, she said, from her father Yung Hongren - brother of Rong Yiren, dubbed China's first communist tycoon and vice president of China from 1993 to 1998 - who at one point owned a collection of more than 50 of the hard-to-come-by timepieces.
In the 1970s, a Shanghai watch typically cost around 120 yuan - or $272 at the then-official exchange rate that valued a dollar at 2.267 yuan - compared with an average monthly income of 36 yuan. But in the 1980s, the company ramped up production and held down prices to meet broad demand - and in the process, despite technical improvements, lost its exclusive franchise to foreign rivals.
Today, the company, still partly owned by the government, continues to mass-produce inexpensive watches. But Shanghai Nationwide aims, with its high-end line of grand complication models, to set itself apart from other Chinese brands like Rossini, Seagull or Five Star.
According to a recent report in the semiofficial China Business News newspaper, Chinese-branded watches account for 70 percent of the domestic market by volume, but high-end foreign watches account for 70 percent of sales value. Chinese industry data show that domestic factories produced some 870 million watches in 2005, or about 70 percent of annual world output, for sale under Chinese or foreign brand names.
Chinese manufacturers have even been making low-priced tourbillon mechanisms since the 1990s.
"It is a fact that many top-end watches being made today carry some kind of component made in China," Chan of Bonhams said. "This means China's workmanship is rising to international levels. It is just a matter of time before a Chinese brand attains international awareness."
Yung intends that brand to be Shanghai.
"We're planning to concentrate on Tourbillon at first and produce only a few hundred pieces a year, focusing on workmanship and crafts," she said. "Shanghai watch will be in the high-end market segment and become a leading brand in China. The brand will be targeting innovation and technology as the main goal. We believe this will appeal to many watch collectors, who just want a quality product and don't really care where it is being made."
International Herald Tribune / Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop / www.iht.com
