Time is the ultimate luxury

How do you view the Asian market?

I'm handling the China and Hong Kong market, and we are doing very well.

We are growing. If you look at the figures for the last 2 years, some luxury brands went down a lot, by 50% or even 70%. China has cut down on corruption and people don't want to show off their watches. We were not affected by this. Our products are not for people who show off. They have reached a stage in life where they don't need to show off but want to enjoy things. They may have a watch collection and need a safe place to store them.

In our category, we are probably the only player in China. Nobody else makes big masterpieces like we do. It's a small market, and it's very complicated to create the design and make the product. There are lots of innovations inside. We don't fear any competition.

What are your future plans in China?

We have shops based in Beijing and Dalian. We are going to open another one in Xiamen in November.

China is an emerging market and many have just started to appreciate luxury products. What's your take on that?

China is such a big country and has many markets. There is a certain group of people that we target. We sell more of our top items in China than in Germany. The group we target knows how to appreciate high-end products, but this is not the average (population.)

What does luxury mean to you?

To me, luxury is not about money. That's for sure. It's an appreciation of beautiful things. It can be music, art, or watches. It's related to money. The more complicated and rare it gets, the more expensive it is, but it's more about appreciations. It's not about having money to buy things.

In today's busy world, we find it more and more difficult to take time to truly appreciate time. What does time mean to you?

Time is the biggest luxury of them all. In the 1970's, most people bought digital watches. Nobody thought automatic watches would be popular but it's popular again. It has to do with appreciation of time and luxury, and maybe a combination of the two. Users of automatic watches have to spend time to wind and take care of their watches.

If someone has a lot of automatic watches at home, but does not own a watch winder, it will take a lot of time to handle them. If you have 10 watches, and want to wear one that you haven't worn in a long time, you have to take it out, rewind it, and reset the calendar and the moon phases. A watch winder can do all that for you. You can choose any of one of your watches at any time and wear it immediately. The watch winder helps you to save time, and appreciate time, which is the biggest luxury of them all.

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