Frédérique Constant: ‘That Beautiful Swiss Watch You Love is Now Also Smart’

Peter Stas and his wife Aletta Stas-Bax are the founders of watch company Frédérique Constant, which created the Accessible Luxury positioning that enabled it to grab significant market during the economic crisis. Here, Peter Stas talks to OPEN about how his strategy clicked and his plans for the Horological Smartwatch

You were a qualified business econo mist, with a good job at Royal Philips Electronics. You could have been a high- flying corporate executive. What made you want to start making watches?

What was, and is, your core philosophy when it comes to your products?

Fashion trends come and go, but the classics are timeless. What is your design philosophy?

Your watches were seen as affordable, high quality, classic timepieces. How would you like your brand and products to be perceived today?

Tell us a little about what prompted you to launch the Horological Smartwatch? What was the objective and has it been achieved?

We started an extremely intense collaboration where we further devel- oped the possibilities to mostly work on solutions displaying information via the hands of the watch. Fullpower also worked more on the firmware side to port their technology to wristwatches. We now have the watch and move- ment-building expertise, and our part- ner brings in the technological aspects. That combination allows us to go faster than the rest of the industry.

The first generation Horological Smartwatches have a high accuracy ac- celerometer and advanced circuitry to enable ultra-long battery life and accurate analysis of sleep and activ- ity, leveraging the advanced MotionX sensor-fusion engine.

How does the smart watch fit into your brand story?

Are there any smarter ideas up your sleeve?

From making watches to writing about them, how were the two experiences? What made you write Live your Passion, Building a Watch Manufacture?

Will your children join the family profession?

How do you see the watch industry evolving?

We are not in the business of arguing what share other brands will have. What we know is that with six billion humans, there will be tens of millions that will want a beautiful Horological Smartwatch that never needs to be recharged, and that has “eternal beauty and value”. We are focused on the tremendous growth opportunity of this brand and on making Alpina and Frédérique Constant great successes. It’s a very exciting, high- growth opportunity.