VIDEO – Frédérique Constant, Visiting the Manufacture and Understanding the “Affordable Luxury” Concept

Over the last 10 years, Frédérique Constant has grown massively in popularity. And it is justified. Indeed, the brand has created a clever strategy of “affordable luxury“, in which collectors receive a lot for the money they pay. While many other brands would do this by encasing out-sourced movements, Frédérique Constant has chosen the complex path of independence, by developing its own movements, yet with prices that should slightly scare the competition. In order to fully understand this brand’s strategy, as well as its past and its future, we’ve decided to head over Geneva to visit the manufacture. Here is our video report.

There are some stories that sometimes feel too good to be true… With Frédérique Constant, it could have been the case, and so we had to find out for ourselves whether “affordable luxury” was a reality or not (and of course share it with you). To do that, we went to visit the Geneva-based manufacture of the brand and talked with Pim Koeslag, Technical Director for FC and Alpina Watches (as well as CEO of Ateliers DeMonaco). Back in March, with the launch of the Frederique Constant Flyback Chronograph Manufacture, we gave you a glimpse of the brand’s strategy and of the production processes. But we wanted to share more details with you.

By looking at this video, you’ll discover how Frédérique Constant managed to create a complete collection of watches, which covers a wide spectrum with various complications: 3-hand watches, Moon-phase, World-Timer, but also Tourbillon, Flyback Chronograph and Perpetual Calendar. Impressive for a brand that really started its own production only back in 2004, and which is now able to offer extremely well made watches with in-house movements for less than 3,000 Euro, as well as the most affordable perpetual calendar on the market – all in-house – for around 8,000 Euro. The work done, in terms of watchmaking and of strategy, in the past 10 to 15 years, is simply impressive – and even if the Frédérique Constant Group (with its 3 brands) is now owned by Japanese powerhouse Citizen, it will keep its Swiss-Made quality and its creative independence. More details on frederiqueconstant.com.