Chanel
How Baselworld Screwed Itself into Oblivion
Chanel
How Baselworld Screwed Itself into Oblivion
Quite the opposite. I loved Baselworld. I loved the sense of community it created. I loved the after-hours drinking and cigar chomping sessions at the amazing bar installed by my dear friend Marc Hayek at the Blancpain booth, which became a galvanizing place for those of us with a real shared passion for horology.
I remember the pleasure of consuming innumerable Aperol Spritzes and glasses of Swiss Dezaley wine, while engaged in conversation distinguishing tourbillons from carrousels, the beauty of tropical dial vintage Type XX chronographs, and so much more.
I loved the thrill the first morning of the fair, of stepping through the security gates and heading towards Patek Philippe’s shimmering modern booth, my heart invariably doing a John Bonham drum solo when I set eyes on their latest horological marvels. I remember waiting like everyone else for that moment that that Rolex pulled the metaphorical curtain off its newest watches. In particular, I loved the gasps of awe from the assembled crowds when the clearly 6241 inspired ceramic bezel Daytona first saw the light of day.
My issue with Basel was the way it chased greed so unabashedly. The cost of the booths there were outrageous but with no corresponding support, infrastructure of quality. Case in point you are required as a brand to use the Baselworld WIFI. But the problem was the Baselworld WIFI didn’t work.
And all the businesses in Basel were complicit. I remember my friend, the head of one of the big family-owned brands telling me he needed four extra seats at the table he had booked at the three Michelin-starred restaurant at the Three Kings hotel. They replied they could accommodate him, but as the chairs were in the basement, they would have to charge him a transportation fee for each chair.
Each and every hotel increased their rates 500 percent. A room that was normally 200 Swiss Francs a night was 1000. And you had to book it for the complete duration of the fair and pay in advance just to secure a reservation. Everyone got in on the bloodletting. When we finally were able to rent an apartment in Basel each year the landlords would increase the fee by 200 percent and lock the living room so we couldn’t use it.
Similarly, restaurants would raise their prices 300 percent or more. I recall spending fortunes at the world’s most mediocre Italian restaurant Chez Donati only to be told to “get the fuck out,” because they needed to turn the table every 45 minutes. Yes, even as they exploited us, the citizens of Basel weren’t even nice about it. They couldn’t even work up the decency to smile as they screwed us.
At least from the journalistic point of view. Time was before the invention of the Interwebs that collectors got their information from weighty, dry horological tomes. And so, journalists would have to make the trip, lugging along photographic equipment.
When I first went to Basel, almost two decades ago, hotels in the town were an impossibility, such was the demand. So, we had to stay in Zurich and make the trip each day. And we did so willingly.
But it is all very different today. As soon as a watch is shown to one person it is shown to everyone in the world. In the millisecond it takes to post that watch on IG story, every person will know about and a consensus about it will start to take shape. And if this period of isolation has taught us anything, actual in person face-to-face meetings are again – from a purely pragmatic perspective – not necessary. So why do we still have the desire to meet with each other? Well for the very simple reason that people still made the trip to Baselworld: out of “goodwill.”
The definition of goodwill is, “a friendly, helpful and cooperative attitude” shared by people with aligned interest. And it is one of the fundamental principles of social discourse. Never underestimate how important goodwill is. Because speaking from personal experience, if you are nice to people, when times are tough, they look out for you in the future.
For example, during this period where our entire industry has been brutalized, we as journalists need to make the extra effort to serve watch brands. We need to make the extra effort to serve our readers. We need to uplift and edify. In the words of Toni Morrison, “This is the precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.” Basically, we all need to do our bit. There is no excuse to just sit on your ass feeling sorry for yourself. But I digress.
My point is Baselworld even after the exodus of the mighty Swatch Group – and then Breitling, LVMH, Seiko and others – was still being kept alive for one very simple reason. The goodwill imparted upon it by the two colossuses of the watch world: Patek Philippe and Rolex, and also by the goodwill of the wonderful Scheufele family.
The organizers even reached out to me, to see what they could do to change, engender a spirit of conviviality and provide better infrastructure. I was on the way to meet the president of Baselworld Michel-Loris Melikoff to discuss this when COVID-19 hit and derailed those plans. Anyway, my advice was simply going to be, “How about functional WIFI and one free beer and sausage for everyone?” This would at least engender a little goodwill from everyone that made the trip, right?
Then Baselworld did the most inconceivable thing imaginable. It bit that hand that feeds. Now even the craziest, most self-destructive, live-fast, die-young and leave a good-looking corpse rebellious-ass street mongrel understands one basic principle in life. If someone feeds you – I mean gives you the very sustenance to survive and have a life – you never, ever – and I mean ever – fuck with them and piss them off. But that’s exactly what Baselworld did. How did it accomplish this extraordinary act of self-destruction? OK it goes like this.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic Baselworld made the decision to cancel the 2020 fair in April. But instead of saying they were cancelling it they said they were postponing it to January of 2021. Why? Because by using the word “postpone” it gave them the justification to hang on to the fees that brands had paid for the 2020 fair.
To be clear, the feedback from the majority of the brands still in attendance was, they were not consulted in any way before this announcement was made. So of course, brands freaked out and were mighty pissed, because for many of them they badly needed the money they invested in the 2020 fair, back in order to shore up the bleeding that’s happened as a result of the global shut down right now. Which you would think would be reasonable, right? But when the idea of refunds was broached, this is what Baselworld came up with:
Option A:
– 85% of the amount for Baselworld 2020 carried over to cover fees for Baselworld 2021
– The balance 15% retained by the organisers to help cover the out-of-pocket costs of Baselworld 2020Option B:
– 30% of the amount reimbursed
– 40% of the amount carried over to Baselworld 2021
– 30% of the amount used to help cover the costs incurred by Baselworld 2020
I should also mention that Mr. du Plessix has a day job and that is as the head of investments and logistics at Rolex. Which is not to say his dissatisfaction with Baselworld had anything to do with Rolex’s financial vulnerability. Because Rolex is invulnerable. As fellow journalist SJX aptly put in his article on the subject, “In fact, it is imaginable that Rolex could freeze production for a year, pay all salaries, and not blink an eye. A refund from Baselworld will not make an iota of difference to the company’s finances – but it will to almost everyone else in an industry that is foundering badly.” No one knows the actual capital reserves of Rolex, but the common belief is that it is greater than the sovereign wealth funds of many countries. Says one watch retailer, “No one would be surprised if they were sitting on a trillion francs in cash.”
But du Plessix by this time had written a response to Baselworld regarding their asinine refund scheme pointing out that MCH Group, which owns Baselworld has “abundant liquidity.” The rest of du Plessix letter expresses the profound collective dissatisfaction with the proposed refund scheme and the date of the exhibition. The whole idea of having Baselworld in April in 2020 was to align it with the Richemont Group-driven Watches & Wonders Geneva fair. Now Baselworld had gone back to splitting the fairs apart again.
Du Plessix stated that full refunds would be the elegant and simple solution to encourage exhibitors to participate in Baselworld in 2021, and he finished off his letter with the simple statement, “Otherwise, we fear that this will be the end, pure and simple, of Baselworld, especially since the dates chosen in January 2021 are not suitable for the jewellery, gemstones and pearls sector, and that coordination with Watches & Wonders (SIHH) no longer exists.”
Then as of 2PM Swiss time, on April 14th – a date that I don’t think anyone at the MCH Group will ever forget – in a joint statement Rolex, Patek Philippe, Chopard, Chanel and Tudor announced that they would be pulling out of Baselworld and host their own fair in April 2021, in alignment with the dates of Watches & Wonders Geneva, at the Palexpo exhibition center.
You can read our story on that announcement here.
And reactions from our friends from brands and retail, here.
As it happens, I have the good fortune to understand the characters of Mr. Stern, Mr. Dufour and Mr. Scheufele, rather well and I can tell you unequivocally that they have all been trying to save Baselworld rather than harm it.
Indeed, each time over the past year I’ve tried to push them to see the practicality of leaving, “Look you are Genevois nothing would make more sense that you to exhibit in Geneva.” The response would invariably be, “Wei, we are going to stand by Basel Fair.” To the extent I even foresaw a day where the entire exhibition center would be empty with the exception of Patek, Rolex and Chopard, such was their unwavering loyalty.
But the fact that he never understood the deep love and affection that these men and their brands had for the fair and that they would have stood by it to the end if not for a situation regarding refunds – that was profoundly unethical – is perhaps the biggest shame of all. Do you really think it was difficult for them to pick up the phone ring the Foundation de La Haute Horlogerie that organizes Watches & Wonders and say we would like to stage a fair adjacent to yours and get it set up in a day? Do you not think the immediate response would have been an emphatic yes followed by “halleluiah” and much dancing?
In a conversation I had with Jean-Claude Biver, which you can watch here, he explained that the problem with the third millennium is that it is still being run by old men who grew up in the 20th century and were applying 20th century rules to it. One of the largest fallacies – of which is that “greed is good” – and that to be a good businessman you must generate maximum profit no matter the cost to human beings or to the world. That very philosophy has placed us in the pandemic we now find ourselves in.
I leave you with the words that end the joint statement about the new fair from my friend Jérôme Lambert CEO of Richemont Group, on behalf of the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie Council,: “The Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie is delighted to welcome a new salon which will strengthen the historical Watch & Wonders event in Geneva next year in early April.”
Mic drop, Baselworld. That’s it. You’re done. And you did it to yourself.