• Business of Fashion, Monday, March 28, 2016 9:05 AM

Sitting on the top floor of Hublot’s shiny black Baselworld stand, Jean-Claude Biver, the man at the head of LVMH’s watch division, is venting. I’ve asked him why the Swiss watch industry is flagging, and he’s not very happy about it. “The industry is not in trouble, the world is in trouble,” he says, thumping his fist on the table (which is made of pine and heat-stamped with a line drawing of a Hublot watch and what might be edelweiss). ‘And that’s very different. Syria is in trouble; the refugees are in trouble; Putin is in trouble; Ukraine is in trouble; Brexit is in trouble; Europe is in trouble; Al-Qaeda and Islamic State are in trouble; Paris is in trouble; currency is in trouble; the finance market is in trouble; the stock market is in trouble… Goddamn, the whole world is in trouble! And we? We should sell watches like crazy?”

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