Longines has landed in SoHo, opening its second New York City boutique.
“In a sense it’s a pioneering space,” Longines chief executive officer Matthias Breschan told WWD. “If you want to discover things that you have not seen elsewhere — new brands, new products, new ideas, new concepts, new everything — you would go to SoHo in New York.”
The new location at 128 Spring Street is the brand’s third U.S. location, but, the CEO explained, is not a signal of a larger boutique roll out. “We do not have a strategy to move all our point of sales into corporate stores, but there are some key locations in the U.S. where we need either in a multibrand environment or a monobrand environment, to really show the full scope and richness of the heritage and history of the brand.” The brand’s other NYC boutique is in Westfield World Trade Center.
At 193 years old, Longines has a vast amount of heritage to pull from and the new boutique speaks to it in a bigger way. Customers will discover iconic references from the brand’s long-standing passion for equestrian sports to its involvement as a pioneer in aviation as well as its contribution to timekeeping in Alpine ski racing.
Inside Longines new SoHo store at 128 Spring Street.
Courtesy Longines
“The brand history and heritage is very much linked to pioneers in the history, Breschan said, naming Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart and Howard Hughes. “When you think of all the pilots that contacted brands because they were using already launching navigation instruments in airplanes. They came in the 1920s to Longines. I think that’s what made the brand very unique and always avant garde, because innovation was always a leading part of the DNA of the brand.”
Breschan comes with more than 20 years of industry experience, but even he admits he didn’t fully understand the scope of the brand heritage when he joined in 2020, first taking in the Longines museum in Switzerland. “I didn’t know that Longines invented the fly back movement. I didn’t know that Longines invented the GMT movement.” Adding, “the precision of time, keeping of sport events. We were the first brand in 1914 being able to measure these events. If I don’t know this, then there’s a good chance that many other people also don’t know about it.”
Heritage is key to Longines and also embraced in the new boutique design, incorporating local-inspired materials such as brick walls, reclaimed wood flooring, cast iron preexisting elements and design pieces, all part of SoHo’s architectural spirit. “It has to fit into the environment,” the ceo said of the uniqueness of the space. “We do not want to destroy the beauty of SoHo. We need to enhance it. So, it’s logic that Longines has to adapt to SoHo.”
The downtown store features the full assortment of the heritage brand including the Master, Conquest, Spirit, Heritage, Elegan collections. The CEO reported that a younger customer has been discovering the brand, brought on by the influence of a newfound interest in mechanical watches. “It’s not only a question of watch collectors or watch passionate people, anymore. I think, young people, they discover mechanical watches as truly sustainable consumer products. Because nobody buys a mechanical watch and throws it away six months later. You buy it for your lifetime or next generation,” he said.
Inside the Longines new SoHo store at 128 Spring Street.
Courtesy Longines
Many of Longines styles, the CEO reported, sell equally to both men and women, a point of difference he sees from other timepieces in the category. “There is not a clear line anymore. Women buy a lot of big watches, very rugged watches. Men buy small, thin watches.” In fact, the term men and women is only used at Longines for Google ranking. “If you don’t use keywords on your website, you lose a lot of ground,” he said.
Looking ahead, the CEO sees their “authentic” history helping to drive the brand forward. Later this year it will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first dual-time zone wristwatch. “We don’t make up anything. Everything is written in our history, and there still are so many things that people don’t know.”
“Just recently a brand signed a big contract in Formula One,” he said. “Not many people know that Longines was for more than 30 years the timekeeper of Formula One.”
