ITS ABOUT TIME FOR HISTORY!

So, Who is the hottest watch luxury group in the world? Well, I think in terms of prestige, exclusivity, aesthetics and craftsmanship,I have to give it to the Richemont Group. In case you don't know who they are, you need to wake the hell up! The Richemont Group is owned by South African billionaire Johan Rupert. The groups portfolio includes the likes of Cartier, Mont Blanc. Baume & Mercier, Officine Panerai, IWC, Vacheron Constantine, A lange & Sohne, Alfred Dunhill, Minerva, Purdee Shotguns, Chloé, Lancel, Shanghai Tang, Montegrappa, Van Cleef and Arpels and Piaget.

With the exception of Piaget who lets be honest is only big in Asia, all of the other brands owned by the group are hugely successful on a worldwide scale and are considered best in their class. The history in all these brands spans over a 250 year period with Vacheron Constantine which is the oldest continuous running watch company in existence making superb timepieces since the year 1755.

The Richemont group was formed in 1988 by Mr Johan Rupert. 1996 was the first year that Richemont started collecting serious watch brands. What better way than to start off by aquiring the oldest most respected watch brand in the world without interrupted watchmaking since 1755 that is Vacheron Constanitine! With the acquisition of Panerai in 1997, Richemont was at the forefront of making history with these incredible historic gauged instruments which inspired and entire revolution of how we wear big watches today. Then in the year 2000 Richemont acquired the dream team of the three most exclusive well finished recognizable brands today that are A lange & Sohne, Jaeger Le Coultre and IWC for a retarted amount of money, but with the way they have been growing on a daily basis gaining immense brand recognition, I will say it was one hell of a sound investment.

Finally, Last year in 2007 Richmont had another record breaking year acquiring Minerva Manufacture which has a heritage renowned for their chronograph movements which will be used In Mont Blanc Watches as well as be a huge asset to sister brands Panerai, A Lange & Sohne and JLC for their future development. The other huge announcement made was that Richemont and Polo Ralph Lauren merged in the formation of The Polo Ralph Lauren Watch and Jewellery Company. This comes as no surprise as Ralph Lauren is a huge watch collector especially Panerai. If I was Polo, I would stick to making clothes in third world countries and marking them up a million percent for the masses. I would never wear one of these watches because I don't really like the dirty Polo Logo, but what better way for Ralph Lauren to get a good deal on the watches he loves and partner with the best watch luxury group in the world, to launch his own line of timepieces and jewelery, and to be taken seriously in the watch and jewelery industry and legitimize the brands image further.

I thought it would be really cool to show you the chronology of when all the brands started, so you can see the heritage which has spanned over the last 250 years to give perspective of how timeless and important these brands are today!

1755 Vacheron Constantin Geneva
1814 Purdey London
1830 Baume & Mercier Geneva
1833 Jaeger-LeCoultre Le Sentier
1845 Lange & Söhne Glashütte
1847 Cartier Paris
1858 Minerva
1860 Officine Panerai Florence
1868 IWC Schaffhausen
1874 Piaget Geneva
1876 Lancel Paris
1893 Alfred Dunhill London
1906 Van Cleef & Arpels Paris
1906 Montblanc Hamburg
1912 Montegrappa Bassano del Grappa
1952 Chloé Paris
1994 Shanghai Tang Hong Kong

pic courtesy of www.richemont.com