Reply With QuoteI'm no expert here, but there are a few big ones are there not:
Rolex
Breitling
Seiko
plus the LVMH Brands:
Tag
Hublot
Bulgari
Zenith
And plenty of smaller brands too:
Bremont
Sinn
etc
was wondering about the choices outside of these two groups, if you just stuck to the brands on not what's inside the watches because i think perhaps 'some' of the in-house manufactories use parts even if they are not full movements from the swatch group of production companies.
brandwise, what's left?
can think of a couple..... Nomos, Zenith, Ullyse Nardin
then i'm struggling to think of other brands outside these two groups!
just thought i'd mention Dreadnought for the brownie points lol!
I'm no expert here, but there are a few big ones are there not:
Rolex
Breitling
Seiko
plus the LVMH Brands:
Tag
Hublot
Bulgari
Zenith
And plenty of smaller brands too:
Bremont
Sinn
etc
Rolex, Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet for a start. Breitling is independent as well... then there's Bremont if you can stand the gimmickry, Vulcain, Sinn, Maurice Lacroix... and many others besides.Originally Posted by cornish
Rolex and Seiko were the first that came to my mind.
LVMH, so no better than Richemont/Swatch.
Rolex, no-brainer.
But let's not forget that many non-Swatch and non-Richemont brands still use Swatch Group movements (even if modified by others). So who doesn't use any Swatch Group parts in their watches?
Citizen
Seiko
Casio
Sea-Gull
err.... lots of others, including in Europe, but which ones? Rolex, Patek Philippe. Who else?
Breitling use ETA (Swatch).
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
Aye, but he's asking about independent brands regardless of movement supplier.
Rolex, Patek Philippe, H. Moser & Cie and Roger Dubuis all produce some watches that don't use Swatch Group (Nivarox or Etachoc) components. Not sure who owns Kif and Incabloc, though, so it could just be Rolex (Paraflex/Parachrom) and Roger Dubuis (make their own hairsprings, not sure about shock protection). I'm almost certain that there are a few smaller European guys I'm overlooking as well.
Why's that, then? Just "association"?
Chucking brickbats at Swatch, I can understand. Arrogant, anti-competitive and a tacit government-approved cartel.
...but what do I know; I don't even like watches!
Zenit is part of LVMH. My question would be, why would you want to boycott groups that include huge names in watchmaking, including the likes of Breguet, for instance? Very odd thread.
Not the Breitling 01 Calibre. That's in house
Fair point, there.
ah! odd you say! it was just a little thought in my head brought on from one of the comments in the boycott richemont thread. the fact that he wouldn't tough a lange purely because it falls under the richemont group. it just got me thinking if you didn't want a lange for that reason, then if you boycotted swatchgroup brands aswell, then what would be left.
before i joined the forum, i thought all of these brands were independant in their own right.... the next new person to join that knows relatively nothing about different brands can see that in fact they are all part of a huge super-group.
correct me if i am wrong, but if you look on the omega watch website, it probably doesn't say anything about it being part of the swatchgroup.
and until this morning, didn't know of LVMH, so there is a little bit of educational awareness brought up by such an odd sounding thread!
I thikn tbh its less about the parts more about the service backing up the brands.. Panerai are great until you have a problem and the useless Service department get their hands on it...
LVMH seems a little less like a big, angry conglomerate with armies of lawyers and marketing MBAs, and more like a looser collection of luxury brands. There is some sort of integrated effort in the much larger and mature champagne business, which was LVMH's original business after all (its stock ticker is "MC", for Moet & Chandon), but TAG Heuer, Hublot and Zenith represent a small part of their business and have little to do with each other. Zenith occasionally punts a few El Primeros over the wall but TAG is doing its own thing with chrono movements these days.
...but what do I know; I don't even like watches!
To be honest I can think of more important things to be worrying about boycotting.
I will only buy from those first 4 brands anyway so Im fine.
Somewhere in my increasingly-unreliable memory is a "fact" about Rolex datewheels being supplied by Omega.
Paul
They seem to have a more hands-off approach than Swatch Group, but as the world's largest luxury conglomerate, they no doubt have some considerable resources in the make-lives-miserable department.
It will save me a lot if money, that's for sure! Honestly you buy a watch because you like it. They may be Lemmon at their after sales service but somehow that will not stop a lot of us.
They have inhouse movements now as well.
Anonimo ofcourse.
Speake-Marin, MB&F, Schofield, Meridian, Kari Voutilainen, Gronefeld, Robert Loomes, Maitres du Temps, HD3, Arnold & Son, De Bethune, Christophe Claret, Sarpaneva...
Why would you want to boycot Swatchgroup?
They are vastly different from Richemont.
Not only is their palet of brands vastly different and covering the market also vertically, the marketing and after sales connected to the various brands cannot be compaired with the Richemont commercialisation of all aspects either.
Have a look at a memberīs experience with the Longines heritage department per example.
Our host; Time Factors!
Are Casio independent?
Perrelet seems an obvious one that we've missed (if we're ignoring movements).
Rolex still uses Nivarox on a majority of their movements.....
U-Boat (though they do use ETAs)
ducks and heads for cover...
A
Oris & Raymond Weil are independent (I think both are family owned)
Rolex, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, Bell & Ross, Rotary, Dreyfuss & Co, Christopher Ward, CWC, Bremont, Orient, Steinhart, Seiko, Citizen, Pulsar
I might be wrong of a couple there, but still plenty of choice.
Tons of great brands. Some have been mentioned before, but even if you ignore Patek/Rolex/Breitling and also the super-high-end boutique manufactures, and also opted to boycott LVMH, some very major brands include:
Girard Perregaux (SoWind) and JeanRichard
Chopard
Parmigiani
Corum
Arnold & Son
Chronoswiss
Ebel
Maurice Lacroix
Note that GP/DJR are 51% owned by PPR, also the owner of Gucci so if you hate groups in general, they're out
Bulgari if you can tolerate LVMH
Question: Has Swatch sold out of Audemars Piguet??
Last edited by spluurfg; 24th January 2013 at 15:02.
Every micro-brand out there.
Only the minority does not use ETA thus Swatch.
Yes, but that's not what the OP was asking about.
Damasko, A35 and H35.
F.T.F.A.
Posting Permissions
