Breitling Rewind: Repair as a Heritage Business Model
Can the value of a product increase over time instead of declining?
In this episode, Aurelia Figueroa, Chief Sustainability Officer, and Gianfranco Gentile, Global Head of Heritage at Breitling, discuss how heritage, repair, and brand identity interact to create a circular model where product value appreciates over decades. The episode is co-hosted by Karel J. Golta, Executive Director at Indeed Innovation.
What you’ll hear in this episode:
-How Breitling’s Rewind program sources, restores, certifies, and resells vintage watches, and why the company treats it as a cultural mechanism that reinforces demand for current production
-How Breitling frames circularity as a driver of value creation
-How valuing heritage and product longevity can become business assets
This is the fifth episode in the series Irresistible Circular Business, sponsored by Indeed Innovation, the global design and innovation firm pioneering the circular economy. The series showcases business practices that deliver irresistible commercial and circular results, with examples from different industries across different R-strategies.
Video Impression
People
Aurelia Figueroa, Chief Sustainability Officer
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aurelia-rochelle-figueroa/
Gianfranco Gentile, Global Head of Heritage at Breitling
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gianfranco-g-m-gentile-275805b/
Karel J. Golta, Executive Director at Indeed Innovation
https://www.linkedin.com/in/karelgolta/
Patrick Hypscher, Circular Business Strategist, PaaS Expert
https://www.linkedin.com/in/hypscher/
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
05:32 Circularity in the Watch Industry
09:30 The Role of Heritage and Product Lifetime
10:13 Appreciating Assets: Examples from Breitling’s Icons
14:30 Circularity and Joy Within Breitling’s Processes
18:05 The Rewind Vintage Program
21:28 Sourcing and Restoring Heritage Watches
23:18 Combining Storytelling with Sustainability
27:29 What Makes the Business Side of Circularity Irresistible
31:06 Heritage and Rewind as Brand DNA
36:45 Irresistibility and Takeaways
44:23 Outro
About
Breitling is a Swiss watchmaker founded in 1884 and headquartered in Switzerland. Active in the luxury goods and jewelry industry, the company is known for its technical watches and chronographs, especially designs linked to aviation, land and sea.
On circularity, Breitling frames its strategy as “sustainable luxury,” structured around the pillars Product, Planet, People, Process and Prosperity. Its circular-focused actions include using recycled and responsibly sourced materials where possible, reducing waste and plastics in packaging and operations, and treating long-lasting, repairable watches and heritage-oriented collections as a core sustainability lever by designing products to be maintained, serviced and kept in use.
Further Links
ReCommerce Playbook: https://www.indeed-innovation.com/the-recommerce-playbook-from-returns-to-revenue/
Transcript
[00:00:00] Introduction
Gianfranco Gentile: These products rarely lose value, of course, in overall they increase it. And we have had some specific timepieces that over the last two decades, for example, increased dramatically their value.
Jingle: My name is Patrick Hypscher and this is Circularity.fm, the podcast about understanding, building and managing circular business models.
Patrick Hypscher: Welcome back to Irresistible Circular Businesses, the series that showcases the business practices that deliver irresistible commercial and circular results. We look at examples from different industries across different R-strategies. Sponsoring partner of the series is Indeed Innovation, the global design and innovation firm pioneering the circular economy. In each episode, a member of the Indeed Innovation team joins me as a co-host. The last episode with Philips shed light on the commercial benefits of integrating multiple circular strategies. Today we turn to a different industry in which the product value does not necessarily decline over time, but can actually increase. If you want to get the actionable one-pager about this conversation, sign up for the Circularity.fm newsletter. You can find it at www.circularity.fm.
Patrick Hypscher: With a background in political science and government and international affairs and development, she started her career through a fellowship by the Robert Bosch Foundation. During this time, she worked on climate policy at the German Federal Ministry for Economics and Climate Action, and at Siemens. Afterwards, she was a researcher at the German Institute for Development and Sustainability. In 2020, she joined Breitling, where she’s now the Chief Sustainability Officer. Welcome, Aurelia.
Aurelia Figueroa: Thank you very much.
Patrick Hypscher: After building his academic foundation in history of art and heritage, he spent nearly a decade preserving the legacy of automotive brands. In his current role, he nurtures the heritage of Breitling and shapes the services for owners of historical timepieces. It’s a pleasure to have the Global Head of Heritage at Breitling with us. Welcome, Gianfranco.
Gianfranco Gentile: The pleasure is mine. Thank you so much.
Patrick Hypscher: And the third person has an education in product design and built a career at the intersection of technology and human-centric design. He gained deep international experience at firms like Thomson Consumer Electronics and Hauser. For the past 15 years, he has been at the helm of Indeed Innovation, the global design innovation firm pioneering the circular economy. He’s a global thought leader in circularity, speaker and innovator, and my co-host for today. Welcome, Karel.
Karel J. Golta: Patrick. Hi everyone else. So happy to be today again on the show.
Patrick Hypscher: As you might know, I always start with a personal question, which is related to our subject of today. What is one of the things you own that increases in value over time? And I give the question first to Karel.
Karel J. Golta: Yes. And how could it be different than it is, a watch? But it’s one of those outstanding watches from Jaeger-LeCoultre Atmos, which was a present to my parents on their wedding day, which I inherited. So it’s something that grows especially more valuable to my heart. Every day I look at it because it is very, very dominantly situated in the hall of my home.
Patrick Hypscher: Wonderful. Aurelia, any item on your side?
Aurelia Figueroa: Yes, absolutely. I mean, one of the most treasured things that I own is the recipe for the birthday cake that my grandmother used to make for me when I was a child. And she wrote this down for me, and it still has the stains from being in the kitchen and on the kitchen counter. So it’s not something that had a financial cost attached to it, but it’s really my most prized possession, and that I keep framed. So this is something that just becomes more and more precious to me every single day.
Patrick Hypscher: Wow. Great story. Gianfranco, what is it on your side?
Gianfranco Gentile: Well, I can provide a fun anecdote. A few months ago I was in Cape Town for my New Year’s holidays. And there I went to visit a very famous art gallery, which was showcasing a beautiful exhibition for Master Adames. I desperately wanted to buy a piece, but they were incredibly, incredibly expensive. So I said goodbye, thank you very much. And with a little bit of regret, I went on and then I went to a furniture shop with the aim to accompany some architect friends that were looking for furniture. And in this furniture shop, I see exactly a piece that looks like one of the ones that I’ve just seen in the art gallery, but much smaller, like one third of the other sizes. And I asked the girl that was there and the piece was indeed from the same artist. But apparently it had been sitting in the shop for two or three years, so it was even better, an early piece from the guy. So of course I bought it on the spot and I bought it for one fiftieth of the price that was asked by the art gallery. So it actually had gained value through time because the furniture shop had bought it as an early work from the artist for peanuts basically. And in the three, four years that the art career developed, it became a major success in the country. So I couldn’t be happier on that day. It was my Christmas gift to myself.
[00:05:32] Circularity in the Watch Industry
Patrick Hypscher: That’s again also a proof point that value is something slightly subjective and requires that you can identify the value. And of course it’s also a personal one as Aurelia mentioned. Let’s zoom in on the watch industry and stick of course to the topic of circularity. When we think about circularity in the watch industry, how does it differ from circularity in other industries?
Aurelia Figueroa: So when we consider circularity in the watch industry, we need to also consider the nature of the materials that we are sourcing. If we think about circularity from a material perspective, first of all, and then I’ll get into some other factors related to circularity. So of course, in our products, in addition to featuring stainless steel, we are also featuring a good amount of gold. And in this case, it is really important to be able to understand the ultimate origin of the gold that we source. And as we know, depending on the nature of the circularity system that is being used, it may not ultimately be possible to always attest to the origin of the materials therein. In the case of gold, where gold mining can include unfortunately serious consequences for societies and for the environment, we knew that at the beginning it was essential that we were able to attest to the traceability of this gold, and of course, reuse, reprocess, bring this high-quality gold back into our system in a segregated manner.
So at Breitling, and I would say within the watch industry more broadly, it’s really important to be able to balance the aim of circularity at a systemic level with other pursuits such as traceability along the way. So for us, one of the first key aspects is to really consider circularity from a systemic perspective, being able to balance the pursuit of circularity with traceability.
And next, I think it’s really circularity along the supply chain. So our industry, like so many industries around the world, is globally integrated and we really need to consider what is the impact across the world, whether it may be at a gold mine in Peru, whether it may be at one of our numerous manufacturers or our own facilities in Switzerland, or at one of our suppliers of lab-grown diamonds in Western India.
Then if we consider the approach to circularity along the supply chain, of course we want to be able to work with our suppliers directly of all materials, whether this may be brass, whether it may be another composite that is used therein, to understand how do we increase the share of material that is circular and do this in a way that is respecting our shared values related to sustainability so that we can ultimately have a net positive at the end. And of course, we consider this as well with regards to all of the processes that we have at Breitling. So take for example our commitment to be free of plastic waste in just a few months’ time. This is also something that matters because this needs to be addressed at all steps of the process to make sure that it’s really holistic and that we’re reflecting our values overall.
And then finally, I think it’s really circularity as a driver of value creation. We know, of course, the immense demand that there is for products that are labeled recycled, circular, or any other aspect of this related nomenclature. And this is really an opportunity for us to meet market demands, to be able to speak in a meaningful way to our overall stakeholder base, and of course to tangibly demonstrate our commitment to sustainability. So I really see it from these three perspectives that I just listed. Circularity from a systemic perspective, circularity along the supply chain, and circularity as a driver of value creation.
[00:09:30] The Role of Heritage and Product Lifetime
Patrick Hypscher: Wonderful and quite holistic. What role does the product lifetime play for you? Because I mean, in general, when we talk about circularity, it’s about preserving value and it seems to me that you’re in a privileged position that this is not a fast consumer good. In what way does it play a role for your circular measures?
Aurelia Figueroa: Yeah, I think that this is really one of the key parts where we can attest to the value of the product and the fact that we are taking responsibility for the product for the long term. And that’s where we’re so delighted to have our colleague Gianfranco with us today to be able to speak about the heritage aspects to this. So Gianfranco, I think here I would hand over to you.
[00:10:13] Appreciating Assets: Examples from Breitling’s Icons
Gianfranco Gentile: Yeah, I mean, we can say that watches, in our case most of all the heritage ones, have a very long timeframe. We recently were very lucky to be able to purchase a pocket watch which dates back from 1905, which is still perfectly functioning. So the beautiful aspect of my work is that it allows us to really retrace the stories that build up the big story of the brand. And with that, of course, also the products that represent the embodiment of these stories. These products rarely lose value, of course, in overall they increase it. And we have had some specific timepieces that over the last two decades, for example, increased dramatically their value.
If I can provide two or three examples, they embody basically our most iconic references. One of them is of course the Navitimer. We should start from the Navitimer because it’s the main icon of the brand. And for example, if you would buy a full gold piece from the Navitimer production of the sixties, for example, 20 years ago, you would pay it around one fifth of what you may pay today. In this case, the reason is the rarity of the use of gold for this specific timepiece. The Navitimer was conceived as a tool watch for pilots, so it was for obvious reasons mostly produced in steel, but then some limited batches of the watch were actually produced in gold, and the rarity of the pairing between the model and the material makes of course the increase in the value of the timepiece itself.
Another concrete case is the SuperOcean, Reference 807. This reference in particular is the first dive chronograph ever produced by a watchmaking brand. The watch dates back to 1957. In this case, the dramatic increase of the value, which increased more or less eight times over the last 20 years, is given by two factors. First of all, the fact that the model represents a milestone in ingenuity and advancement of technical watchmaking. As I said, it pairs a vital complication, the chronograph, with the opportunity to go underwater, which was of course a fundamental advancement for divers. So it is not only a significant milestone in terms of industry advancements, but it is also a very rare timepiece because as you can easily imagine those pieces were expensive back then. And also they tended to be prone to, for example, corrosion because they were the first examples of underwater technology. So it is very difficult to find pieces in excellent conditions as of now. And needless to say, as always, this is a case in luxury where scarcity increases value.
And then I would like to provide a third example, which is also another iconic model in our product line, which is still produced today, and we are talking about the Duograph Premier. In this case, the increase of the value, which is similar to the one of the SuperOcean, is given by the complication. The Duograph is indeed the Breitling watch that pairs the chronograph complication with the split-second one. A function which is more widely known with its French name “rattrapante.” It basically allows to measure different intervals of time elapsed just by pressing a pusher. And this complication, which is one of the most advanced ones of course in the history of watchmaking, made the watch being pretty expensive when it was sold from the 1940s onwards. So even in this case, the rarity of the timepiece itself made this value increase, coupled with I would say a renewed sensibility from the collector community about these specific functions and complications.
I wanted to come to you with concrete examples to make you understand that of course buying a vintage watch can represent a good investment, but please allow me to stress another point. The best investment when buying a vintage watch or whatever product from whatever brand is the joy that it brings you every single day when you look at it on your wrist. And this is something that cannot be measured, but it is definitely the most essential part of what we do.
[00:14:30] Circularity and Joy Within Breitling’s Processes
Karel J. Golta: Now this opens up a quite interesting sphere I would say. And I want to deep dive briefly, Aurelia, with you on the approach Breitling does take towards circularity. Now, I would like to extend the question in an environment of saying you have different departments that probably deal with it, right? But especially, the joy of the matter, is it reflected in your processes, how you approach as a company circularity?
Aurelia Figueroa: You know what I love most about circularity? Being a sustainability professional, it really allows for the community and the personal touchpoint because circularity is ultimately implemented at a very human level. And so, for example, myself and the entire Breitling sustainability team is highly engaged with our colleagues across the company who are bringing the targets that we have to life. One of them is to be plastic waste free in just a few months’ time. This is something that is requiring numerous efforts across all different departments. And you may not think of Breitling as a plastic company, but as we know, plastic is pervasive in our lives. I think we’re all deeply committed to this target, to this task, and to bringing it to life. And I have seen repeatedly across Breitling the strong interest that we all hold in circularity. Whether it’s the amazing work being done by Gianfranco and the Heritage team that gives us extraordinary pride in the history of Breitling, whether it is the fact that we are recycling numerous materials or reprocessing them and valorizing them. This gives us a very good feeling that we’re proceeding in a way that is responsible.
And of course, being able to make our own contributions to circularity is something that is incredibly rewarding. So circularity is, for me, a key lever in actually community engagement, and I think that that is really an unsung benefit of circularity, the fact that it can bring us on board to have the same target, to have the same objective, and to have these great feelings of shared accomplishment at the end as well.
Karel J. Golta: May I extend a little bit, or dig deeper, Aurelia, please. How can I imagine that? Let’s say someone from supply chain enters in your journey towards plastic-free. How are they kind of incentivized? And I of course don’t mean their salary. I mean is there a KPI that they personally track that you maybe also celebrate once you’ve achieved it? Maybe some details other companies might even, you know, copy from you, which would be great.
Aurelia Figueroa: Absolutely. So if you can, maybe you’re asking, okay, what is the nature of this plastic actually that we’re producing along the way? I mean, it could be protections for the fingers when you’re assembling equipment. It’s the numerous amount of trays that the components on our watch… Keep in mind, if you have a mechanical watch, it’s over 300 components that are in it typically, that are housing these as they make their way along the supply chain. So within each atelier, as we call them, there are different components that are handled within each of them. So those are something that are tracked. Then really at a, I think we can also say, these are teams, individual teams, and we’re able to see along the way what is the progress that’s been made. So we’re also working on communications to be able to share those achievements in a very meaningful way locally. So those are some of the ways that we really bring those to life. In addition, of course, to our overall target that we’re able to communicate on regularly, and that we work to engage on. Also with regards to the broader topic of circularity and recycling and the whole system related to this, in order to raise awareness among our employees.
[00:18:05] The Rewind Vintage Program
Karel J. Golta: I think this is quite impressive. I would not have thought that a watch brand manufacturer would go to such details, but it perfectly makes sense. I’d like to continue our discussion and journey here with Gianfranco. Because Gianfranco, I’ve not only the topic of heritage that plays of course a huge role in storytelling for your own brand, but I’ve understood there’s also almost like a new R-strategy that Breitling is introducing, which is called Rewind. If I may have this little side note, can you explain a little bit more to our listeners what it is about and where it relates to circularity?
Gianfranco Gentile: With pleasure. It is a project that actually brings us a lot of joy and a lot of pride. And one of the ideas that I’m most proud to have introduced two and a half years ago, in November 2024. So Rewind of course plays on the meaning of the word associated with winding a watch or rewinding it in this case. That’s why we chose this specific name. And it’s a project that allows us to sell a very limited selection of vintage watches that are purchased from our department all over the world, then are restored and certified by our vintage after-sales team, which is a very small but super effective team of watchmakers that are specialized in vintage watches. And then these watches are provided with an international warranty of two years, given by Breitling and valid everywhere in the world, and sold in a different place in the world.
We chose as a strategy to have the special event staged not only in a different country, but actually in a different region every year because we want to provide the highest visibility to the program, but also to the circularity that lies behind it. So the first edition was indeed held in Paris at a very specific trade show which focuses on circularity and upcycling of products in luxury. And then the second edition was held in Mexico City last October. And the third one, well, we cannot announce it yet, but after Europe and the Americas, of course, we’re moving to Asia. This is what I can say at the moment.
The idea behind Rewind is actually double. On the one hand, we wanted to shed a light on pieces that are maybe less known from our collections, but that deserve the attention of the wider public because, as I always have the pleasure to say, the Heritage department is maybe the most cultural one, together with Sustainability, that we have in the company. So for us, even an operation like this, which could look like a commercial operation, is actually an opportunity to spread culture and visibility about our watches and products in general, and to keep doing storytelling, which is actually one of our main tasks.
On the other hand, it is an opportunity to showcase the savoir-faire of our people, as I said, of watchmakers that are specialized in sourcing vintage parts for the watches and restoring them.
And as a third opportunity, it allows us to raise the value of vintage watches because of course, in this case, the company is committed to bring these pieces back to life and to allow a wider knowledge of these products in particular, which of course reflects itself into a systematic increase of these pieces in the market.
[00:21:28] Sourcing and Restoring Heritage Watches
Karel J. Golta: To deep dive here as well a little bit. So where are these watches, these Rewind watches, if I understood it correctly, coming from? Not where they originate, because they originate of course from you, from the atelier in the first place. But where are they coming from?
Gianfranco Gentile: Well, we purchase watches wherever we have the opportunity to do so. So it might be a network of collectors and watch dealers that we are constantly in contact with. We may scout some pieces in auctions all over the world. And also let’s not forget, we have owners of vintage watches that reach out to us. A very specific mailbox, which is clearly heritage@breitling.com, to which everyone who is in love with the brand and with its history can reach out. And so among the hundreds of emails and requests that we receive every month, sometimes we have some interesting offers from people that want to sell their watches and they thought about selling it to the mother company. And so we happily buy back some of these watches and then as I said, we restore them and then certify them before reselling them.
Karel J. Golta: Now, I imagine that probably the watches coming back, they’re not all in perfect condition, so you’re probably going to recondition them to some point. Can I imagine that you have a huge warehouse full of small little pieces and parts that you fix it up with? Or do you produce them on a historic technical drawing, or how does that work?
Gianfranco Gentile: Well, in most of the cases, we actually, as you said, have the opportunity to leverage on the stock of pieces that is still in the company. So of course we tend to purchase models that we are sure we are able to restore internally from some specific cases of spare parts. We also request support of specialized suppliers that already work with our after-sales department, and that can manufacture specific spare parts when needed. But most of the time we actually leverage on our internal stock.
[00:23:18] Combining Storytelling with Sustainability
Karel J. Golta: Now, I’d like to link, if it’s possible, and it’s up to you to decide who’s going to answer on that, but I’m genuinely intrigued, especially since I’m a business romantic myself, by your storytelling and the heritage that comes with your original brand story. But I would like to extend it, or I’m thinking myself, that the person that wore the watch, they are imposing their own stories on the pieces. And I wonder, are they somehow reflected in almost like the traceability, not of a gold piece, but of the watch itself? And if so, if there is such a linkage to it, you know, because you could say it’s a used watch, but it’s a Rewind, it’s a heritage watch. Does that play a role in your sustainability narrative? Because you know how much, how sexy is that, question mark?
Gianfranco Gentile: Well, I can answer maybe the romantic part of it and then leave the sustainability one to Aurelia for obvious reasons. But yes, indeed. I always say that every single watch carries usually at least three stories in itself. One is the story of the brand. I’m talking about vintage watches. One is the story of the brand, which means of course models that have been produced for some specific functions or that were destined to a specific type of public. We mentioned before the Navitimer, for example, which was born as a watch for pilots. Then we have the story of the previous owner or owners, stories that somehow and sometimes are literally engraved on the watch itself. Let’s think about, for example, all the dedications that you get on the caseback. And also that usually come with the watch when the watch arrives to us. So we have the opportunity to learn about, I don’t know, the heirs of the owner, about how their dad or mom used the watch all over the world by traveling, or in which specific photographs of the family albums the watch is featured, and so on and so forth. And then there’s the new story that we are giving to the watch with its new life. And this is the story that we are about to write with a new owner.
So every time that we actually sell one of these vintage watches to the new owner, we provide them with a gift. The gift is the book we wrote in 2024 for the anniversary of Breitling, called “140 Years in 140 Stories.” And the idea is always that by giving the collection of our best stories to every single new owner of a vintage watch, we invite them to write their own story, which would become a consequence of the stories that they will read in the book.
So we are very romantic, as you can say. I mean, I’m Italian. What can I do about it? There’s an inherent romanticism that always comes up. I hope I answered your question.
Karel J. Golta: Perfectly. Thank you. It totally makes sense. I could deep dive for hours, but let’s look at the sustainability metrics part, or the story on that side.
Aurelia Figueroa: It’s hard to follow up on what Gianfranco just said. I just want to say that he knocked it out of the park. And I think really the core message for us is really being able to convey the message in a tangible manner that Breitling is a company that takes responsibility for its products for the long term.
And the fact, for example, that we have watches that are well over 50 years old that are repaired in-house using components in many cases that have always been in the possession of the company, for me just shows an absolutely extraordinary foresight, level of care, and respect for the products that have been created and for the resources, including the natural resources, that have contributed to them. And for me, this story is just outrageously inspiring, especially in the world that we’re living in today, where there may be instances of fast fashion, which is the complete opposite of this.
And I just find it incredibly inspiring because it can also raise the question, you know, how do we care for other products in this way? What else do we put out into the world and what would it look like if we knew that we needed to continue to care for it for 100, 140 years?
[00:27:29] What Makes the Business Side of Circularity Irresistible
Patrick Hypscher: So let’s, after the romantic part and sustainability part, there’s also of course a business part that has to make it irresistible. Gianfranco, it may look obvious, but what’s the business logic behind? How does it work in commercial terms?
Gianfranco Gentile: Well, I would say of course there is a business part which is taken into consideration because we are not a non-profit company. We usually have the purchase price of the watch, which we negotiate at a convenient price so that then we can consider the value and the cost of the restoration that we do on the watch. Which, allow me to stress another time, is always done with the most attentive and conservative approach. We avoid replacing pieces as much as possible. We prefer to recondition existing pieces when possible. We most of all avoid polishing, for example, the cases, because the beauty of a vintage watch lies in its patina and in the life that it had lived over the decades.
And third, so as I said, we need to cover the cost of the restoration. And then of course we have margin for the market that in the end sells the watch. Because the logic is that headquarters sells the stock of vintage watches to the market that is going to host the edition of Rewind in a specific year. And then it’s the market selling them to the final customers. So of course there is a certain level of profitability in the operation itself.
But as I said before, the main aim of Rewind is actually to once again tell stories. So we have the opportunity to reinforce the storytelling behind our icons, the most significant models in the product range, which of course reverberates to the current collection because basically I would say around 90% of the current Breitling product offer is strongly inspired by products of the past. So by telling the story of the SuperOcean, of the Chronomat, of the Navitimer, and presenting a vintage timepiece, we also strengthen the message that the timepiece that we produce today is strongly inspired by that specific timepiece that we are now reselling through Rewind.
Allow me to say, for example, that the Navitimer has been for sale for over 70 years. I mean, it had been launched in 1952. It is one of the most long-lasting watches in the history of watchmaking. So by presenting once again a vintage timepiece, we have the opportunity to make the final collector aware also of the current production.
And third, there is, as I said earlier, an opportunity to shed light on collections that are not anymore produced. A very concrete case is, for example, the Sprint. So this is a watch that was launched in the early 1970s for the younger generations basically, and is characterized by a very vibrant selection of colors for the dials. This watch is currently not produced anymore, even though it inspired another collection of current production. But we found it so iconic that we decided to put it on the cover of the famous book that I was referring to earlier, the “140 Years in 140 Stories.” And we usually sell one Sprint in every edition of Rewind so far because people just love it. I mean, you get this watch with this vibrant orange dial or electric blue or bright green and so on, and people are crazy about it. So every time that we bring one, they’re like, yes, yes, please let us find another color next year. So there will be a Sprint also in the upcoming edition in summer 2026.
[00:31:06] Heritage and Rewind as Brand DNA
Patrick Hypscher: Wonderful. We need to go on. Maybe in half an hour we know the specific location in Asia then. So, Gianfranco, one follow-up question. It’s super refreshing when I listen to both of you and you lay out the meaningful level of your activities and the identity it brings to you and to your customers. In what respect is Rewind a, let’s say, a business, or is it more serving the brand? Is it taking care of their heritage? Of course it’s all three of this, but is there a leading motivation? How do you balance that?
Gianfranco Gentile: I guess it is very embedded in the brand identity. I always say, when I mention the activity of our department, I always say that we are the historians, but we don’t look at history in a dusty way, which is for me fundamental. And it also, it’s reflected in the average age of my team members. I mean, out of five people, three of them are under 35. And I would love to say that I’m under 35 myself, but I’m barely over 35, let’s say.
So what I mean is that we really look at history with, I would say, a fresh and youthful approach, and most of all that we do not consider the history of Breitling as a dusty topic. We are the custodians of the brand DNA. And the fact that we have, luckily, a brand whose contemporary production is so strongly inspired by the products and the figures that made Breitling great in the past allows us basically to go from, as we said, a cultural approach to a business-oriented one very smoothly.
Not only am I in charge of, for example, dealing with museums, exhibitions, and other cultural opportunities, but I also work hand in hand with the product department to make sure that the new products that are launched do respect the identity of the brand and of their ancestors of the past. Then I work, for example, with sales to make sure that our trade marketing always embodies vintage pictures, or pictures of vintage watches in general, so that we show the continuity that goes through our product portfolio.
So I would say Heritage, in the company organization my department sits within marketing, but is indeed embedded with basically all other departments, because we work a lot even with ICT, for example, because we’re setting up databases of information about the history of the brand. So we really are basically everywhere. And this allows us, as I said, to transition smoothly from culture to business without sounding incoherent.
Patrick Hypscher: Wonderful. I have two final questions. The first one is to Aurelia. We talked a lot about the past, about awesome pieces, 50, 80, 100 years old. How does it translate into your circularity and sustainability discussions of today? Because one might think that today you’re shaping the circularity of the company and the pieces 50, 100 years from now into the future. So does it translate like that?
Aurelia Figueroa: I think that’s absolutely the case. You know, this perspective that’s been with the company for 142 years now is something that is really still staying and defining the future as we move forward. And so the work of Gianfranco, the work of the Heritage team, is something that needs to continue to inspire us today, and it’s something that is really core to our work in sustainability.
It’s an incredible opportunity to work for a heritage brand like Breitling in the role of sustainability because you get to be at a point in time to look back on an incredible history of 140 years, but also to look that far into the future. And from that perspective, it allows us to consider with the sustainability values that we have, how are these being integrated into our products today? How will they be received by the owner or future owner of a product in, let’s say, 2066? And what is the value of the work that we’re doing today to integrate sustainability in those? How does it stand the test of time and how does it contribute to the meaning as well?
If I think of the products that we’ve been releasing in the last several years with the Origins Label, having launched this in 2022 with traceable gold and traceable lab-grown diamonds, I wonder how they will be received in Breitling Rewind many, many years down the road. Perhaps this will be marketed as, you know, imagine this is the very first traceable watch that Breitling has put out, and imagine what will be the value of that watch in that time. And I think that’s something that’s really important for us to keep in mind because, as Gianfranco said, being custodians of the brand and contributing to this custodianship of the brand is really key.
And being able to reflect the values that we hold as a company, but we know that our broader stakeholder group holds as well. We’re obviously regularly engaging on the topic of sustainability. Our suppliers, our customers, the watch industry, media, experts, the list goes on and on, to really be able to understand what are our shared values within sustainability and how do we bring those practically to life.
So sustainability and heritage, they are natural companions on this mission. They have the chance to really inform each other’s work in an extraordinary and really powerful way.
[00:36:45] Irresistibility and Takeaways
Patrick Hypscher: Fantastic. Gianfranco, my last question goes to you, and this is about the topic of our series, which is about irresistibility. What makes Rewind irresistible for Breitling?
Gianfranco Gentile: Well, I think it offers the opportunity also for the brand and for the people that make the brand to reflect on their own history and to take inspiration from it. Whenever we present the watches, we always, for example, present them with vintage advertisements or scans of vintage catalogs. So basically it becomes, once again, it’s a kind of an exhibition in the end. I mean, the fact that these pieces are indeed sold at the end of the event doesn’t make it less cultural. Imagine, I don’t know, a major auction house presenting a show before the sale takes place. It’s more or less the same idea.
It makes it irresistible because it gives the product people, the marketing people, the opportunity to see icons of their past and to get inspiration for what they’re going to be doing in the future. And it makes it irresistible, I would say, also as a corporate dimension because it shows how the brand pragmatically takes care of its past, not only by highlighting its icons in communication, but literally by restoring them and putting them back at the wrist of new customers, by basically giving them a new life.
Patrick Hypscher: Fantastic. Karel, we talked about this whole series and especially the briefing beforehand, and this is a wonderful example as we mentioned at the beginning, where value doesn’t decrease, it increases over time. When is that the case?
Karel J. Golta: That’s an excellent question, and I think I got some answers out of the session today because, on multiple levels, first of all, it is when you consider it on a systemic level. This is very key, it seems like, and it originates because sustainability is obviously here not seen as a departmental add-on to anything. It’s core to doing business because it is more like the people doing in the 18th, 19th century forest agriculture than accountability, right? Because it’s connected to almost cathedral thinking and next generation. It’s all systemically bound together.
And to put it simply or in very basic words, and Gianfranco alluded to it, the value is happening when patina has a physical embodiment of its story because it’s directly related to the material, but it’s also a proof point, almost like a part of the traceability story that Aurelia was starting off the conversation with.
So I really have to put it together that it increases when, and I could be a little bit ironic, but I mean it in a humorous way, it is when you do have a heritage department. That’s what you need. When you do have that in a company, you could say, you know, then you will produce things that increase value over time. So to make it really bold, I think everyone should be thinking about having a heritage department, maybe even broader than a sustainability department.
Patrick Hypscher: I can think of a couple of brands that still would need to go a long way, even if they had a heritage department. Yeah. I’m pretty sure many listeners are inspired. What are some steps to take towards being eligible to have this department and build the basis for long-lasting product value?
Karel J. Golta: So again, let’s be a little bit technical about what I understood, and I very much resonate with that. It’s again viewing it systemically. I think if you only departmentalize it, it’s going to be very difficult. And we’ve seen that today. So it’s a recurring theme we heard of: hey, you have to see it as a system because only when you sell new stuff, also have a little bit of the vintage, of the story, of your own story into it. Embed the story of the product as it grows over time and so forth. So it’s always interconnected.
It seems like we heard stories from the departments, even on such a point of how can we become plastic-free. It goes through every department, obviously, because we have it maybe in the shipping or logistics department, but we obviously have it also in the atelier where they have some finger covers so that they probably don’t scratch the surface of a new watch and things like that. So this is what, unfortunately Patrick, I rarely hear, that companies are truly systemic. I got the sense today that Breitling is using that as one of their biggest assets on a cultural and procedural way.
Patrick Hypscher: And then as a follow-up question, what are the barriers you need to overcome to get to this systemic approach?
Karel J. Golta: Wow. Now here it becomes much more difficult, I would say. I think, and this is probably easier for a company that produces timepieces, because it probably just takes time. And I’m literally talking about compounding effects, where the nature, the mathematical part about compounding effects, is time. So you have to give it time. And this is probably something that eases the barrier, that people are too stressed, too much focused on today, and they don’t value the compounding effect that your business could have if you treated certain metrics differently. If you kept parts for 80 years, I mean, go and find that, right? A company that produces stuff that has somewhere stocks that have been sitting there for 80 years idle, that probably doesn’t happen because we’re so focused on a fiscal year and things like that. So maybe it’s just to have a little bit more time for contemplation.
Patrick Hypscher: Yeah. Ultimately, and this is my last question, what’s, if I want to go down that road, what’s the benefit towards business success?
Karel J. Golta: So here again, what I understood from both sides, from Aurelia and from Gianfranco, is that you have to have a solid piece of communication. It needs to be systemic. But if you do that, then you can really repeat yourself. You know, it’s basically beating the same drum over and over in a certain way, but in a very positive way.
So this is what I feel. What I heard today is that there was no juxtaposing of things that don’t match. It was very much intertwined. And this is probably, I assume, not only for the Rewind and heritage models and vintage models, it probably goes as part of the DNA through and through.
Honestly, this is something I think a lot of people can get aspiration from. Of course most companies don’t run luxury businesses, but hey, it’s always the question, where do we draw inspiration? And we all remember 20 years ago, or 15 years ago, when everyone was citing Apple and Steve Jobs, how great they are, you know? And here we find a company, a brand, that exists since 140 years and probably there are many more brands that have this heritage but are maybe not capitalizing, literally capitalizing, on the opportunity their heritage department, their story, the threefold stories can deliver.
Patrick Hypscher: Well, please take that as an invitation, dear listeners. Thanks Karel, thanks Aurelia, thanks Gianfranco for sharing your experience.
Aurelia Figueroa: Thank you.
Karel J. Golta: Thank you everyone.
Gianfranco Gentile: Pleasure to be with you.
[00:44:23] Outro
Patrick Hypscher: This marked our fifth episode in the series Irresistible Circular Businesses, in sponsoring partnership with Indeed Innovation, the global design and innovation firm pioneering the circular economy. If you want to get the actionable one-pager about this conversation, sign up for the Circularity.fm newsletter. You can find it at www.circularity.fm. Do you want to learn more about how leading brands are turning returns into revenue? Then download the Recommerce Playbook by Indeed Innovation. You will find the link to it in the show notes. In the next episode, we will hear from Airbus how they improve their cash flow by sharing resources internally. Let’s drive a profitable circular economy. And please don’t forget, the most abundant renewable resource is your imagination.
Jingle: My name is Patrick Hypscher and this is Circularity.fm, the podcast about understanding, building and managing circular business models.