SimplyAbuDhabi XII

1 3 9 S I M P LY A B U DH A B I Carlo Lamprecht – President of the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève “First of all Geneva is the place where all the watchmaking art was born, this is the birth place of this art and it began in Geneva in the 1600s – and then it moved to all of Switzerland. It’s a fantastic history but of course it’s a very long story.” “The Grand Prix started in 2000, it was two journalists who initiated that project… at that time I was President of the Government and gave my full support for the Grand Prix because it was a promotion for Geneva, for Switzerland, and also the art which was born in this country.” “In 2010 there were some complications, people were protesting about the members of the jury and there was some commercial interest in that Grand Prix, so the idea of a neutral foundation was formed, it had to be neutral and I was the president of that Foundation. It was born in the state and the city of Geneva and supported by the state and the city of Geneva and the International Museum of Watchmaking, one of the main things that they needed to do, is that everything had to be made in Switzerland with Geneva being the centre of that. Promoting again and again the country and the City.” “When I was in charge of that foundation I discovered there was no roadshow, so those watches stayed in Geneva and were are not exposed to the world. With the media influence that was taking place and getting bigger and bigger at that time, I recognised that the watches needed to be shown to the world, and from that day I had the idea of the roadshow to take the watches to the biggest cities of the world to promote new brands and stimulate watchmakers into always doing something better.” “In the exhibition you see 70 watches that are classified into 10 categories, the categories go with the functions of the watches or follow the specialties of the watches. The Jury is formed from 22 members from 14 different countries and the members of the Jury change or are modified, with 30-40 per cent of the Jury changed on a yearly basis. In the roadshow here in Dubai the watches available to view are the 70 watches, pre-selected by those members of the Jury.” “The roadshow travels to different countries, what we look for in the countries is facilities, everything has to be within easy access and one of the major issues is security because we have to travel with 70 watches and they are extremely precious. In the past three years we have been to Hong Kong, Shanghai, Moscow and Paris and in this year alone we have already been to Beijing, Macau and now Dubai. After the winning watches are chosen, the 15 watches go and do an exhibition in a different country, this year it will be held in Singapore.” “We had a great ambition and we have made this ambition a reality when we acclaimed watchmaking as an art. It is an art; it could be in a technological way, innovative way or through design. Which is why we have chosen to display the watches in a place where art is promoted, we also get requests from fashion houses to display the watches, as fashion is also an art.” Arnie S Hira – CEO & Founder Simply Abu Dhabi with Jordana Imogen Lynch Managing Director & Co-Founder Simply Abu Dhabi