The project
THE PROJECT
ARTICOLO DI AUGUSTO VERONI, GIORNALISTA
Philip Watch has only recently begun to gather the watches produced over its long history. Some might say that the company’s managers could have thought of this sooner, that they were absent-minded, but this is not the case: actually, every watch from a brand with a long tradition (such as Philip Watch) contains its entire history, year after year, model after model.
The concept is simple: at the end of the 19th century, an elderly Philip Watch watchmaker found the time, before retiring, to transmit the secrets and know-how he had acquired over the years;
and in turn, the young worker who received all of this knowledge, now old and near retirement, passed it on to another young worker.
So when the company speaks of the value of tradition it is not just a marketing trick, but a reality, important for defining the character of a watch brand. A character that distinguishes each brand and makes it unique in some way: some may specialise in high-price watches and are unable to make economical ones; others specialise in diving watches, others in sports watches, while others excel in exceptional mechanical complications.
From its founding, Philip Watch has specialised in watches with a fantastic price/quality ratio, and its ability to maintain this character throughout its long history has created what customers call the brand name, which in truth should be called its good name: the positive opinion of generations of customers who have remained faithful to Philip Watch because the company has never exploited its “name”.
The company’s mission is now to gather its historical models and create a museum, a collection that will soon be online to present the brand and its history.