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Luxury Watches Vie For Cultural Cachet

While big watch brands like Omega and Rolex scour the planet for athletes and actors to serve as "ambassadors," limited-production super-luxury watches like Breguet, Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin are positioning themselves as icons of high culture.

For example, Breguet's logo will be projected onto the wavy steel walls of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in two weeks when opera diva Renée Fleming performs in Los Angeles. The brand has paid enough money--neither side will say how much--to be named the official (and exclusive) timepiece of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Though they're unlikely to garner mentions in gossip columns, these high-culture relationships afford the watchmakers entrée into a certain social milieu. Vacheron last March became a sponsor of the Paris National Opera, and it also sponsors the Barbier-Mueller Museum in Geneva. Patek Philippe--a private family-owned company that is the clear sales leader of these watch-making rivals--sponsors Esplanade, an arts center in Singapore.

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