At the beginning of March, I participated for L'OROLOGIO in a round table on design organised by Girard-Perregaux in collaboration with Pininfarina. Among the most interesting things that emerged there was the following reflection by Luigi Macaluso, President of Girard-Perregaux, on watch design: 'The watch sector is a very strange sector, especially for design. I would say that, in terms of design, it is a rather stagnant sector. There are great successes that date back to 1931 or 1940 and are being repurposed, replicated over time.
In the field of automobiles, a similar situation is unimaginable: it would be like taking a Bugatti from 1930 and offering it with today's technology, new materials, new electronics, safety laws and so on. It is unthinkable. In the field of watches, however, this phenomenon exists and is, moreover, quite substantial. And that is why it is difficult, especially for manufacturing brands, to be really innovative. Sometimes I look for inspiration and ideas precisely by taking inspiration from very simple watches, even plastic ones. And it's interesting to see the creative solutions that are adopted, which are really fantastic, remarkable; the difficulty, however, is to be able to adapt them to a manufacturing discourse."
In the photo, Luigi Macaluso during the round table, pictured between Alex Coles (critic of the Design Museum in London) and Andrea Pininfarina (CEO of the Pininfarina Group).
