An Interview With Bremont's New CEO, Davide Cerrato, And What He Plans On Bringing to the Brand
Over the years writing and blogging about watches, Bremont is a brand that I was familiar with, but did not have a great depth of knowledge about. I knew that the brand was British and had a strong focus on aviation inspired watches. Indeed, when I thought of pilot's watches, I thought of IWC, Breitling and Bremont.
Over the past few years I have become more familiar with Bremont and have really come to appreciate the evolution of the brand at the direction of the founders, brothers Nick and Giles English. Their father, Euan English, was a pilot and instilled the passion for flying in his sons. Tragically, Euan died in a plane crash that saw Nick break multiple bones. But that did stop the brothers from founding Bremont and guiding it to become one of the great British watch brands.
The passion for flying that serves as the foundation for many of Bremont's models can be seen most clearly in the Martin Baker line of watches. Martin Baker, another British brand, is known for making airplane ejection seats. Bremont, in partnership with Martin Baker, created a watch that can only be purchased by pilots that have ejected from a Martin Baker ejection seat. But don't worry, there are variations of the watch that even you and I can purchase.
Beyond the aviation heritage and inspiration, Nick and Giles have guided Bremont in the last 20 years to the point where they manufacture their movement, cases, and assemble their watches all in their state-of-the-art facility in Henley-on-Thames, England, lovingly nicknamed "The Wing". The Wing is outfitted with machines you might normally see in Switzerland, but the English brothers wanted to make sure that Bremont was true to its British heritage.
Last week, Bremont invited me to Henley-on-Thames to tour The Wing, watch the Royal Henley Regatta, and speak with Nick and Giles English, as well as their new CEO, Davide Cerrato. It was quite the experience and the whole team at Bremont were gracious hosts.
And where do I start with Davide Cerrato. Cerrato joined Bremont just over a month ago as the brand's first ever CEO. Prior to his appointment, Nick and Giles had been running the brand since its founding in 2002. But with recent investments from private equity goliaths like Bill Ackman, the brand is poised to grow, even as an independent. And there is perhaps nobody better to lead Bremont in this next stage than Davide Cerrato.
Cerrato, a design-oriented CEO, is perhaps best known for leading Tudor's resurgence, including designing the iconic Black Bay. And after his 10 years at Tudor, Cerrato spent 5 years with Montblanc, refreshing the brand's lineup. Most recently, he was responsible for bringing back HYT from the dead, creating the stunning Moon Runner. Clearly, Cerrato's creativity spans category and price-point.
While in England, I had the chance to sit down with Davide and discuss the reasoning behind his move to Bremont and his plans for the brand. It was an illuminating interview that has me excited to see what's to come in the next year and beyond.
Craig Karger (Wrist Enthusiast): Hi, I'm Craig, founder Wrist Enthusiast, and I'm here in Henley, England, with Bremont watches and I'm lucky to have the chance to speak with Davide Cerrato, the new CEO of Bremont. Hi, Davide.
Davide Ceratto (Bremont) : Hi, Craig. Very nice to invite me.
CK: Well, thank you for this weekend. We went to the Henley Royal Regatta yesterday. We did a factory tour a couple of days ago. And today we went to Williams Racing, which was all provided by Bremont, and it was a really cool experience. So, first off, I just want to know what drew you to Bremont to begin with?
DC: A number of elements, I would say. Watchmaking is a business made of people, and both Nick and Giles and the investors are all incredible people, and we found a very nice fit. So this is already a very important first element. I think what has been achieved in these 20 years with this incredible dream of making up a luxury British watchmaking brand is unique. And it is rare to find unique watches. More and more. The segment in which Bremont is competing is very familiar to me because both my ten years at Tudor and my six years at Montblanc were in the same segment. And I like it very much. What I call the premium segment. Very competitive, but a very interesting one, and where you need to be able to provide very powerful content and bring innovation in creative ways. I like it very much, and it was very interesting after the experience of independence with HYT, to come back somewhere home.
I really felt like I was coming back home. I always liked the UK and everything British. I actually recall that when I was in my college exam, I brought English literature as one of the matter and subjects, and I've always liked British passion for motorsport and racing and the style side of masculine formal tailoring. It was, in a way, a perfect match. And with all the people that I met through the process of selection, it was becoming more and more clear that there was really this magical match. Someone said, “like the good key in a door that naturally opens the door”. That's a very good image to represent the matching between my history, my career, and the one of Bremont. And now it's just the right moment for me to push the brand further.
CK: So, I want to go back to the fact that you were at another independent right before this - HYT. How is working for independents different than working for a big group, like Swatch Group or Richemont, for example? Do you have more creative freedom in the process?
DC: Definitely. You have both more creative freedom and more, I would say, political freedom to act, which is a very important competitive advantage if you know how to leverage it in a positive way. Being agile has become one of the rules of the game with everything that has happened in the last three to four years, disrupting any kind of normality that we were used to before. So this is also part of the opportunity-having independent brand that has solid investors that have a long-term vision with funds available and capital available to invest properly. I think it's a one of a kind opportunity in the market. Yeah.
CK: And how would you say HYT and Bremont are different? Because they're both independents but they kind of occupy very different spaces in the market?
DC: Yeah, completely, completely different. HYT is really I would call it an experimental, very niche, high-end, independent. While Bremont is a unique take on independence, but on a much bigger scale, more solid, with a longer history, and really set up to become an industrial reality. To be able of serving a wider and wider public and to be able of scaling up to global. Because now the brand is super strong in the UK. Really the success achieved in UK is incredible. But out of the UK we are a little bit in the US, we are a little bit in Australia and that's it. So really the world is big and there are many, many places where we can be and we should be in a very prominent way.
CK: And I know we've talked over the past couple of days about how you're first and foremost a product guy. What did you like about Bremont watches before you came on and where do you see yourself taking them in terms of design and elements?
DC: I think there is a very rich expression of sporty models that came in following the passion of Nick and Giles. So aviation-inspired models with very nice limited editions, and storied racing ones, inspired by the car that they own to formula one. And to different associations of the military side that has been developed in a unique and amazing way by the company, creating really long term relationship with now more than 500 military corps around the world. So there is already embedded a lot of powerful elements of what they call a tool watch and I think that sharpening a little bit more, that we can really become a unique, one-of-a-kind tool watch brand.
CK: And so you're kind of known for creating “Hero” watches. At Tudor, you created the Black Bay, you were at Panerai when they kind of had their resurgence and as you’ve said, you've been at Montblanc. Can we expect an all new staple or hero watch with Bremont? Or something that's an outgrowth of something that's already been made?
DC: We definitely need to find our hero watch - It’s absolutely fundamental. Somewhere, a brand starts to exist in the mind of customer when they can recall the brand name and immediately associate it with at least one model. And normally this is the iconic model of the brand, but we still don't have it. It is one of the things that Bremont is missing and we are working on it to find some very powerful product expression that can embody all the power and the motions that are already built into the brand.
CK: One of the things that I've noticed, being from the US, is that the United States used to have this fledgling watch manufacturing industry. We had brands like Bulova and Hamilton and Waltham, which all used to be manufactured in the United States. And now Hamilton is made in Switzerland, Bulova is made in Switzerland and Japan, and Waltham doesn't even exist anymore. So this has been very disappointing for me, but on that point, Bremont has done what I wish American watch-manufacturing would do and bring everything here, in-house. Why do you believe this is important for the brand?
DC: It's super important because it gives a unique edge to Bremont. There are other British brands that are trying to rise and to build up things, but at this price level or at this industrial scale I would say that Bremont today is the only real British luxury watchmaking brand. So it's very important then for sure. It's a very interesting point on how much you need to leverage this Britishness and how much this Britishness matches with the narratives that we are bringing and how much of that needs to be embedded in the product themselves. And for sure is a very important element and is really one of the ingredients of the inception of the brand itself, of the creation and development of it. The passion and the vision of Nick and Giles’s very much embedded into it, which is unique. But then how we can take those elements, the Britishness, the special testing culture that is embedded into Bremont?
We use this tagline in the past “Tested Beyond Endurance”, which I think is very nice. It's not very clear if beyond the endurance of the person who wears it or beyond the endurance of any mechanical object, but anyway, both of them are very interesting. This Martin Baker ejection seat test, I think is the perfect supporting evidence of this dedication to build up robust, reliable, everyday watches and somewhere is really a manifesto to create the best tool watches ever. And I think we are going to work alot on these components of robustness, quality, reliability and really all that I mentioned in term of design. They can serve this purpose for sure. Precision, but waterproofness, perfect visibility in low visibility conditions, facility to maneuver and activate and set and twist the watch.
The bracelet… we are missing a big time strong bracelet. The market of the segment is very much done on bracelet and we are already working on that some. We have to come with something very strong and to bring innovation that fits with this innovation of material, innovation of complications. There's really a lot to do. I think that the vintage wave that has been distilled is going and for which I think I'm quite responsible, can now be transcripted in a way with a more technological forward-looking approach, with new materials, with new technical solutions. And I think that this is very interesting.
Bremont Manufacturing & Technology Centre, aka 'The Wing'
CK: So do you think that people that have been producing these vintage-inspired watches have been kind of adhering too much to the vintage materials and making it really an homage, and haven't been incorporating modern technical innovation in them?
DC: I'm just saying that because the focus and interest on vintage watches, also the kind of complications that were used at the time have been very much re-transcripted and reused. And in that sense, I think that quoting or referring to codes of beautiful old watches is still very relevant. But then if you can match it with new complication, new material, new technical solution, then I think you can refresh and upgrade the strength of these same components and give it a second spin, a second life.
And I think that probably now, this is the shift overall through the market that is happening fostered by some micro brands but by some independents. But all the creative push that is brought by independent, which is very valuable for the market I think, is shaking up a little bit of the classical marketing and it needed to be shaken up. So, yeah, we try to surf this wave.
CK: So one of the other things I want to go back to, is Bremont being made in England. I know that when a lot of collectors aren't really into the industry yet, when they look at watches, they look for “Swiss Made”. And so there's become this stigma that luxury brand should be made in Switzerland. How do you break out of that kind of consumer mindset? As opposed to here in England or anywhere else, even Lange in Germany. How do you break the stigma that everything should be made in Switzerland at this point, and get that new collector that comes in and sees “Made in England”, tell them that you're at the same quality or even above some of the Swiss brands?
DC: I don't think we need to break that stigma. I think more that we need to find a new and a little bit more creative way. Still, many very good suppliers are there and we will work with them. And there is a full ecosystem in Switzerland that is very powerful for the market and we are going to play that game for sure. And then it's more of finding our own way, finding our own take. I'm learning big time during these first weeks the deep components of British culture, and I think that Henley Regatta is a fantastic example of this. And British culture has a dimension that is very linked to originality, making things different. And I think this is very much embedded in how Bremont has been grown for 20 years.
So, yeah, it’s leveraging all the positive side of Switzerland and complementing it with a little bit of a different take. I think that's a good way to go. What we want to do is provide the most qualitative product ever and really some reliable watches that you can wear every day without any problem, that can be serviced at any moment, and that are really tough field watches somewhere. So, yeah, we are working in this direction and trying to apply the British touch, the British spirit. to the market and to this particular kind of product. And I think everyone kind of really wants the sun to come out, so it's a sign that what I just stated is well received.
CK: Everyone. You heard it here first. I think everyone was excited when you joined Bremont. And I'm excited about knowing when the first Davide Cerrato influenced watches will kind of hit the market. Are we going to see some those smaller influences from you at the beginning and then like, a whole new watch? Or how is this going to play out and what's kind of the time frame for that?
DC: I'm going to take a big responsibility over my shoulders. I'm engaging to present a first new strong line at the end of March, beginning of April. And we are already working on some novelties that were in the plan for October to twist them a little bit, to add a little bit of salt and pepper, a little bit of sexiness into them. So, yeah, that's a little bit of the timeline and is a very, how do you say, tough one. We're going to get some kind of sneak peek of the way of Bremont and then we'll see in March, April something new. Overall, it will be a year of relaunch, re-boost, reinvigoration. We take the opportunity of myself joining with a kind of fresh vision on it to really boost the brand and make a strong statement. That's exciting.
CK: Well, thank you for coming on and we're excited to see what you have to do and I'm sure I'm going to be posting about all the new stuff that you're releasing in the coming months. So thank you so much.
DC: Thank you.
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