Bright shine that may be short lived - Financial Times

FINANCIALTIMES SATURDAYSEPTEMBER 11 2010 ★ 15
Inventor
turns his
attention to
time eating
Extreme horology
Maria Doulton talks
to John C Taylor,
who wants to make
every second count
You have to move fast to
catch the septuagenarian
John C Taylor,
inventor, horologist and
artist.
This reporter had an hour’s
notice to catch him between
Waterloo Station and Fairoaks
Airport, Woking, from where he
was to take the controls of his
TVM850 turbo prop aeroplane to
fly home to the Isle of Man.
Clapham Junction’s Costa coffee
bar was the most efficient
point of intersection.
With Mr Taylor’s small briefcase
and compact suitcase dangling
a light blue “crew” tag
safely stowed, his burgundy cravat
neatly tucked into his blue
shirt and a mozzarella melt
before him, he recounted his
journey from inventor to creator
of monumental clocks.
More art installation than
clock, each highly complex
mechanical creation features a
four-foot rippled golden dial that
has no hands but pulsates with
rings of blue light.
Atop the tooth-edged dial
walks relentlessly a menacing
rottweiler-sized time eating
insect or “chronophage”.
The blinking, blood-mottled,
barbed-limbed, time-gobbling,
clanking automaton resembles a
creature from Armageddon.
The chronophage’s mouth
opens slowly and snaps shut
every 60 seconds to devour the
minute just passed and every
quarter hour the forked tail
quivers and slowly sinks.
You may not have seen one of
Mr Taylor’s clocks, but a more
discreet creation of his is likely
to be sitting on your kitchen
counter.
As the inventor of a thermostat
control found in 1bn kettles,
he has been quietly regulating
tea-making in 75 per cent of
households around the world.
We also have him to thank for
the cordless kettle and a cut-out
device that stops plastic kettles
from melting.
His are achievements that
would most certainly entitle
anyone to switch off, brew up a
pot of tea and cruise into a comfortable
retirement.
“By the time I was in my 70s I
felt time was racing away. I
wanted to make a visual representation
of this, but the art
world is closed and you can’t be
famous until you are dead.
“So I decided to create a work
of art that is fun, accessible and
actually does something,” he
says.
A pilot since the age of 16, Mr
Taylor’s interest in watches
came from the link between flying
and navigation.
His knowledge of the works of
the great clockmakers led him
to Harrison’s 19th century chronometers.
Harrison called his
escapement a grasshopper.
“Harrison’s grasshopper is so
beautiful that I wanted to turn
the clock inside out and dress
up the grasshopper so that everyone
can see him at work.”
The clock is completely
mechanical, although the spring
remontoir that stores the energy
Digital age spells an end
to American pen pushing
Montblanc in US
Timothy Barber on
a new world
marketing strategy
In its 2010 annual report,
Richemont, the Swiss luxury
powerhouse, still categorised
Montblanc, one of
its highest profile subsidiaries,
as a “writing instrument
maison”. This was
despite the fact that in 2008,
for the first time in its 102year
history, Montblanc had
accounted for fewer than
half of its sales.
In the US, the company’s
biggest market, watches are
now being pushed as its
core product.
“Americans have a much
closer relationship to the
timepieces than they do to a
writing culture,” says Jan-
Patrick Schmitz, chief executive
of Montblanc’s US
operation, which sells more
“convenience” pens – roller
balls and ballpoints – than
fine fountain pens.
“They’re enjoyed more as
a status accessory than
they are for their perfection
as a writing experience,” he
says.
Montblanc remains the
market leader in luxury
pens in the US, partly
because competition has
dwindled so sharply. With
the encroachment of electronic
communications on a
writing culture far less
developed than that of
Europe or Asia, it is not a
sector that generates excitement
for the future.
The company realised in
the early 1990s that it would
need to diversify into other
products to mitigate the
growing impact of the digital
age on the market for
fine pens.
Leather products, desk
accessories and fine jewellery
have all become part of
its offering. But from the
start, the company saw the
watch business as a natural
fit with the values of craftsmanship,
precision and heritage
it espoused in its pens.
Try telling that to the
watch world.
Having launched its
handmade watches in 1997,
Montblanc struggled for a
long time to gain credibility
from either industry insiders
or consumers.
The company found itself
a minnow in the horological
market, where longevity
and sustained quality are
driving imperatives.
In recent years, it has
made an Olympian effort to
redress this. With the
launch of its first movement
in 2008, the MB-001,
Montblanc’s dedicated
watchmaking facility in
LeLocle, Switzerland,
achieved full manufacture
status – producing entire
watches, movement and all,
inhouse.
In 2007 it acquired Fabrique
d’Horlogerie Minerva,
a venerable specialist in
mechanical movements,
and with it an entire watchmaking
history and pedigree
it could market. While
LeLocle churns out more
than 100,000 watches a year,
Minerva produces Montblanc’s
Collection Villeret
1858, a range of just 250
ultra-expensive connoisseur
pieces.
If Europe is still fully to
embrace Montblanc Montre,
the need for credibility
through established reputation
is less of an impediment
in the US.
“Having some good history
is merely icing on the
cake here,” says Ariel
Adams, a US watch industry
consultant. “Americans
are much more concerned
with style, quality and performance.
Luckily Montblanc
have some very good
designs.”
Mr Schmitz acknowledges
‘We’re successful
because of our
writing instruments
and the quality and
history associated
with them’
this difference. Nevertheless,
it is through the
notion of historical cachet –
based on both the hallowed
reputation of its pen manufacturing,
the assimilated
heritage of the Minerva
watch business and a canny
play on the history of the
chronograph – that Montblanc
is launching a US
marketing push.
Montblanc’sRieussecwatchwithequestrianconnections
Watch displays in its 34
North American boutiques
are being ramped up, with
select stores installing
zones dedicated to horological
history and craftsmanship.
An advertising campaign
using the slogan
“Timewriters” – a thematic
linking of the company’s
two primary strands –
includes internet, iPad and
iPhone tie-ins.
The slogan also references
a literal translation of
the word “chronograph”.
Montblanc named its flagship
chronograph, the Nicolas
Rieussec, after the 19th
century inventor of the first
such timepiece, a contraption
that timed horse races
by linking rotating second
and minute discs with an
ink-filled marker – thereby
“writing” time.
The Nicolas Rieussec
watch incorporates those
rotating discs in its design.
It is an image he wants to
“burn on to people’s minds,
so that when they think of
Montblanc they picture this
watch. If they imagine just
a pen, we’re not succeeding”.
Rieussec’s equestrian connection
informs the final
plank of Montblanc’s strategy:
sponsoring horse races,
such as The Breeders’ Cup
and the Belmont Stakes,
two of the US’s most
exalted racing events.
It is a serious departure
for a company that has
always concentrated its
support in the arts.
“It’s sport, but it’s not
Americans sitting eating
hot dogs,” Mr Schmitz says.
“The people who enjoy it
are very much in the demographic
we speak to.”
For all the reference to
the seriously high-end – the
Rieussec watches sell for
about $20,000 – it is its midrange
luxury watches, in
the $3,000-$5,000 range, that
are the engine room of
Montblanc’s US watch business.
The emphasis on
craftsmanship and heritage,
however, remains a constant.
“We’re not stepping away
from our roots. We believe
we’re successful because of
our writing instruments
and the quality and history
associated with them.”
Watches&Jewellery
Meanmachine:the‘chronophage’
ondisplayoutsideCorpusChristi
College,Cambridge Chris Radburn
to drive the mechanism is
wound from the mains as are
the LED lights.
Mr Taylor efficiently channels
the energy from the rocking of
the insect’s feet to power the
mechanism that opens and
closes its eyes.
Playing with our notions of
time, the clock randomly slows
down, speeds up and then stops
completely.
To compensate for these
antics, the entire mechanism is
regulated every fifth minute by
the Rugby Time Signal to be
precise to 100th of a second.
Mr Taylor searched the internet
to find a Dutch company
that specialises in underwater
explosive formation.
The “waves of time” on the
dial were formed using rings of
cordite detonated underwater
that make the ripple shapes in
the metal.
As for the intimidating look of
‘I wanted a visual
representation of time
racing away but the
art world is closed and
you can’t be famous
until you’re dead’
the insects – and so far there are
two equally vicious mutant variants
– Mr Taylor says: “I wanted
to make him look scary because
if you think about time, it really
is quite frightening.”
The first “chronophage” has
been on display outside Corpus
Christi College, Cambridge,
since 2008. The second version,
valued at £2m, was unveiled at
the Masterpiece fair of fine and
decorative arts in London this
year. It is yet to find an owner.
Who does Mr Taylor think
might be interested in his time
eaters?
“Organisations where there
are people at a slightly loose
end, such as airports, museums
or hotels, and of course art collectors.
If I can sell 1bn kettle
controls, I can sell 15 clocks,” he
says.
The time is 1pm on his Breitling
aviator’s watch and he
briskly heads off to his private
jet at a pace in keeping with his
philosophy: “You have to make
use of each minute, because
once the chronophage eats it,
it’s gone!”