by Ian Skellern
Dear Mr. Babin, I’m speaking as a fan, but you are sure making it difficult. It gives me no pleasure to take shots at you like this, but if you keep standing up and saying insensate things, I’ll keep rebutting you.
Since you have been CEO of Bulgari, my view of the brand’s watches has gone from just another jewelry brand trying to look like a serious watch brand to a serious watch brand with a watch I want to buy.
I dream of owning an Octo Finnissimo and I’m not even a watch collector!
I think that Bulgari’s chief designer Fabrizio Buonamassa is a genius. And I applauded your Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève 2019 speech lambasting the watch industry for being so risk-averse and admonishing it to start being bolder.
Even when you first announced that Geneva Watch Days would go ahead after both Watches & Wonders (SIHH) and Baselworld were canceled, I thought, “great play.” There’s at least a chance, even if small, that the coronavirus crisis is over by late April; the costs are largely sunk whatever happens; and there’s good marketing as the plucky upstart fair that dares go where stodgy traditional fairs don’t. Nothing to lose, everything to gain, and I (first) thought, “a great move, a genius move.”
However, I quickly started to realize the implications of running any type of fair, distributed or not, with the express purpose of encouraging people, prospective clients, collectors, journalists, and retailers from all over the world to mingle and interact with each other and the people of Geneva, was not just poor judgement. It was dangerous and risked people’s lives.
And this at a time when the scale of the health crisis was becoming ever more apparent by the hour.
Your decision to hold the fair (or leave the possibility open) no longer looked so much a genius move as a very irresponsible one. Which motivated me to write Open Letter To Bulgari CEO Jean-Christophe Babin: I’ve Cancelled My Geneva Watch Days 2020, Now It’s Your Turn (But You Should Have Been First) to which you politely replied, making a (misguided to my mind) case for optimism.
And that was that. Despite there being no announcement from you canceling or postponing Geneva Watch Days in late April, most quickly assumed it would be canceled from the day it was announced anyway. (Ulysse Nardin ended up sending out the announcement of postponement to August 2020.)
Now things have ramped up, and the last thing on anyone’s minds for the next 6-12 months is Geneva Watch Days. We all have much more important and urgent matters to consider these days.
You could have said nothing.
You could have “done a Baselworld” and not “canceled” but “postponed” until 2021 (if that happens).
But you didn’t. You doubled down! I simultaneously applauded your audacity while sobbing at the absurdity.
Let’s imagine that a miracle cure is found in the next week, no more new infections at all worldwide. Even in that fantasy scenario, the Geneva hospitals and health care system will require many months to get back to normal.
The state of Swiss hospitals now: tents!
And then there’s the ever-increasing backlog of all the postponed hospital and medical procedures and tests that have been put on hold while the medical profession has been fighting the COVID-19 pandemic as well as preparing for the next outbreak that is sure to come.
And that’s if we wake up tomorrow and it all goes away. But the coronavirus won’t go away like that.
“The postponement will allow not only to be safer, but eventually to have a bigger and more international event as with COVID now receding in countries such as China or Korea, we might eventually attract besides the European major players, also an important Asian clientele,” you are reported as saying. If you are wondering why I’ve got an angry attitude just read your own words again in the context of the fact that the deaths, not just cases but deaths, are still climbing.
And for what? Your Geneva Watch Days usually works because it runs in parallel with the Watches & Wonders (SIHH) fair that attracts international visitors. Without the attraction of a major fair running parallel to Geneva Watch Days in August, who do you expect to come?
I’m addressing this you, Mr. Babin, because you took the role of front man for Geneva Watch Days, but my disappointment is also with all of the “participating brands” for not taking a stand. It’s shameful not one of them has stood up and said, no, this is wrong.
When I first read the news of you announcing Geneva Watch Week for August 2020, I seriously considered calling on my colleagues for a boycott, but I eventually decided that nobody will be taking Geneva Watch Days August 2020 seriously anyway.
It’s not just your own reputation you are dragging down; you are making the Swiss watch industry look irresponsible.
I’m Swiss and I would like nothing more than to get the Swiss and Genevan economies up and running as soon as possible, but nobody will die if we stop having watch fairs for a year (or two).
I wish you all the best in the turbulent times ahead.
Regards, Ian Skellern
P.S. My original title to this article was “Mr. Babin, Geneva Watch Days In August 2020? Are You F*cking Sh*tting Me?”, but I didn’t think I’d get that passed by my editor-in-chief.
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But really Ian, do we really now when it`s not even April – even want to imagine that we will be confined to our own countries` borders in the Summer? Surely he is allowed a little optimism? I am not saying it is 100% realistic, but then neither is your view, and do we not need a little ray of sunshine to look forward to? Thor
I don’t not expect/hope that we will be so tightly confined by summer, Thor, but no expert opinion I’ve read is expecting that we will be back to normal in 6 months. We may have learnt how to manage the virus by then, but I think that there is zero chance things will be back to normal by late summer. Better but not normal.
The UK is already talking about their lockdown lasting 6 months, and the USA is likely to fare even worse.
I do sincerely hope to be proved wrong.
One more thing to consider is that the southern hemisphere countries/continents like Australia, South Africa, and South America are presently likely to be experiencing slow transmission due to it being the end of summer. Those regions are likely to experience a boom in their winter, i.e., July/August, and then we will get another round of COVID-19 in the northern hemisphere winter. If summer 2021 is back to normal I’ll be happy.
I prefer the original headline.
Dear Ian,
* # ^ ‘ ! fully agreed. There are decisions, proposals and events where I am speechless, where I can’t think of anything, really nothing at all. The new decision about Geneva Watch Days (GWD) is such. The decision to host the GWD – in August ?!?! – is completely incomprehensible to me. I very much hope that the majority of Quill & Pad readers feel the same. The August event seems uninstinctive, wrong, embarrassing and hard to justify to me. It would identify Geneva and the watch-scene responsible for this event as arrogant, superficial, irresponsible and obsessed with short term turnover and money driven. I also ask myself in a very practical way: who has the money to spend it in Geneva during the crisis, now or in three months. All the stocks are still full because of the shutdown right now. And again I only end up with the same conclusion: uninstinctive, false, embarrassing and hard to justify. In situations like this I would prefer not to be identified with our hobby, timepass, and passion at all. It feels really uncomfortable for me. Regards, Thomas
“What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It is what we know for sure that just ain’t so.” MARK TWAIN.
I hate to say it…as did Ian, I’m sure…but August? Not feasible for any large *commercial* event. For an event inviting travelers…because such an occurrence risks a recovering population being exposed to a population sample from a less-recovered area. Hey, we’re already seeing areas with low infection numbers at least trying to say “STAY THE **** OUT!!!” to people coming in from high-infection-rate areas like NYC.
I’m in the US so I think of our event calendar…and sports. I don’t expect ANY pro sports until 2021. Yes, I fully expect local improvements, but for a country-wide sports league to restart, it’ll need those to be general. Then there’s the timeline issues Ian mentioned. For sports, you can also consider training camp periods…which are big gatherings. An NFL camp has close to 100 players…then coaches, trainers, support staff, maintenance types, cooks, etc. That’s too many, in tight quarters, for a very long time…and the first time anyone tests positive? BOOM!
And, ok, if that’s being overly pessimistic…would YOU go to a sporting event with 50,000+ people around you, unless you KNEW the infections had been basically *stopped*? Look at New Orleans…no appreciable case count, so they went on with Mardi Gras. Boom…the hottest, most rapidly spreading zone in the world, I believe…their infection rate is higher than Switzerland, Italy, or Spain.
It’s irresponsible for anyone to think things will be back to normal by Summer.
I understand it’s the CEOs job to set stretch goals but if he’s putting planning $ into this I
– it’s money down the drain.
Hate to say this, but I’d be pulling ad dollars right now too and use the savings to discount retail prices. This will get even more painful for everyone probably till lateQ4.
Dear ian,
I’m sorry you write these emotional considerations without even bothering calling me and try to understand why we believe end of August is probably right. Reading you, I only feel dark pessimism and apocalyptical fears and views on how Covid will evolve. Insofar Covid has killed 30.000 people and confined 3Bn people on the planet. Following your views, that is wait and see, you’ll kill both hope and the world economy. Are you aware that thousands of Swiss companies ask for Federal subsidies to survive. Are you aware that China is virtually out of it after 10 weeks only and 1/3 or Italian casualties, now exporting masks and respirators to the rest of the world. Your view is just taking us nowhere except collapse of economy and society. Ian we must move on and try. And at worst cancel the Geneva Watch Weeks early August if Covid still ramps in Europe. What’s wrong in trying, building hope as long as we do not harm anyone? We just try to save an industry, its jobs for vanishing father already ten years of suffering since the 2008 GFC. For sure you just carry pessimism for the sake of existing and making buzz. I’m sorry for you
Dear Mr. Babin,
You misunderstand me (and as a writer I accept that’s my fault not yours), I am an optimist. And not just an optimist, I’m also very selfish, arrogant, insensitive, am lacking in both empathy and compassion, and have been called insufferably stubborn once or twice. On top of that, I’d swap visiting all the brands at Baselworld and Watches & Wonders for just the indie brands at Geneva Watch Days any day. The big fairs for me are work, while events like Geneva Watch Days is pleasure.
And I do not doubt that in the next couple of months the majority of European and the richer Asian countries will have got through the worst, and by summer we will all be reminiscing (and exaggerating) about our experiences during this crisis. We might be shaking hands and kissing each other less, but it’s more than likely the worst will be over (for us).
However, while everything might seem back to normal by summer because many of the restrictions will have lifted, things will not really be normal. I fully expect that we will have “flattened the curve,” but that just means that most of us will continue catching and spreading SARS-CoV-2 at a slower rate. A rate that’s likely to pick up again with increased mobility and international travel. And by encouraging international travel, Geneva Watch Days will accelerate that rate.
I also do not doubt that you can minimize transmission of the disease during Geneva Watch Days by carefully respecting social distancing protocols and sanitizing watches, door handles, toilets, etc. between visits. But there’s still the fact that many hundreds of journalists and retailers coming from all over the world, from regions at various stages of controlling the virus, many in seemingly good health but carrying the virus, will be boarding planes, trains, trams, and packing hotel bars.
And then after a few days of light contamination (nothing to overwhelm Geneva), some of those visiting Geneva Watch Days will take the virus home to countries with far fewer health resources and potentially causing economic and health havoc there.
Yes, Wuhan and China are opening up for business again after 3 months, but they are far from back to normal. As soon as they started international flights again, the virus started flying in.
If you had prefaced your announcement of Geneva Watch Days with, “In consultation with and the support of the Genevan health minister and mayor . . .” I would have applauded you, done all I can to promote the event, and booked accommodation.
I believe you have good intentions in trying to get the watch industry back to normal operation as soon as possible. I just think it would be more sensible to wait.
While I have many flaws, I try to be fair, and if I lash out, I fully expect to get hit back. I invite you to send us your side of the story and we will publish and promote it.
“What’s wrong in trying, building hope as long as we do not harm anyone?” Nothing at all. And I do not even expect the aim should be to hurt nobody: I’m really not bothered with hurting a few (ideally excluding myself) for the benefit of the many, but the risk with Geneva Watch Days is hurting many for the benefit of a few.
If history proves me wrong (and it won’t be the first time), I will happily be photographed on my knees in supplication offering you a bottle of champagne and begging forgiveness for my rash rage. But if you do have to cancel August, perhaps drop me a line before rescheduling for January 2021. 😉
I wish you the best of health.
Regards, Ian
Well said, Mr. Babin. I’d like to ask you something: these federal subsidies – are they de facto loans with initial or eventual interest? It’s just I always have that pesky voice in my head asking, “Cui bono?”
Ian, can you ask him for me? He seems to like responding to you.
No, Gav, it’s not the place.
I was kind of joking but now I’m spooked.
*backs away, hands raised*
Mr. Skellern,
When you wrote your first open letter I replied admonishing Mr. Babin for his irresponsible leadership, arrogance, and without any care for people’s lives. His reply to you was so devoid of reality and his rationale and justification so wrong that it made me sick, and I felt you gave him leeway in your response to him. I was wondering if you would re-visit his absurd and dangerous attitude. I am boycotting buying anything with the bulgari name on it, until babin is either fired or no longer a part of that company. He and those like him is what gives the watch industry a bad reputation. He is an embarrassment.
Since the event hasn’t been held yet & it’s still months away, Mr Babin offering a little optimism for normalcy isn’t a bad thing. No one’s life is in danger. If things don’t improve the event will certainly be canceled. With all your histrionics & virtue signaling, hopefully they will boycott you & you can go write about something other than watches. You already admitted you’re not a collector. You might want to Google Farr’s Law.
Touche Ian… from lede to PS, sound facts & logic. We should all live to be happy we have what we do and read. Shows will return, as I hope we all do!
another sensationalist, panic mongering, hysteria inducing pseudo-article from one of the worst “journalists” in this niche. pathetic.
you and people like you will make the world a miserable place to live for the next DECADES. we’ll live in a time where 2009 will feel like a time of prosperity and “the great depression” will be renamed to “the mild sadness” all thanks to people like YOU. the death and destruction brought upon us by the behaviour of fearmongering panic promoters like you will be ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE worse than the worst of the worst case scenarios of the virus… and all for what?
Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment Patrik.
At least I’m only one of the worst and not the worst “journalists” you know, I’ll take that as a compliment 🙂
Stay healthy.
Regards, Ian