F or Thierry Stern, the president of the watchmaker Patek Philippe, it’s all about family. The company has the distinction of being the only remaining family-owned watchmaker in Geneva and Thierry is the fourth generation running the company. He observed his grandfather Henri at work, then took over from his father, Philippe.
Being independently owned allows Thierry Stern the freedom to make choices and take “calculated” risks. One is creating Cubitus, its first new timepiece collection in 25 years. It is a line of square watches — 85 per cent of luxury watches sold are typically round.
“First, I want to show that at Patek Philippe we can do something different,” Stern says. “I like to confound expectations — if you expect me here, I like to be there.” He had always wanted to have a square watch in the collections.
“For 10 or 15 years I started thinking about designing one. I like them but never found one that was cool. They were either too traditional or too bulky.
I became president of the company and said ‘we’re doing it.’ ” It’s very much his baby, one he enjoyed conceiving..