GENEVA — “There are many affinities between watches and jewelry and, although we continue to be highly committed to the latter where we have a long way to go, we’re also slowly building our footprint in the former,” said Guido Grassi Damiani.
The president of the Damiani group spoke with WWD about his strategies going forward following the acquisition of Baume & Mercier from Compagnie Financière Richemont last January.
Damiani’s luxury portfolio includes the Damiani, Salvini, Bliss and Calderoni jewelry brands, as well as Venini, the artistic glassmaker based in Murano. The Italian group also operates Rocca, the multibrand watch and jewelry retailer and heritage watchmaker.
That long-mooted acquisition of Baume & Mercier only partially reveals the much broader strategy Damiani is plotting in the watchmaking space at group level, with initiatives at the flagship Damiani brand and at Rocca, for example.
The Damiani brand has offered jewelry timepieces for three decades, unveiling its first watch design in the late 1990s. It has since received accolades and was among the finalists of the 2023 and 2024 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève.
The brand’s watch business is currently a “niche,” the executive said, “but is very appreciated and talked about in the industry. There are not many options for true jewelry watches. Many of the international watch players just offer new releases and classics in bejeweled renditions, with stones and precious metals.”
“The Damiani watches, by contrast, are conceived as design masterpieces,” he claimed, adding that some international peers have been able to build robust and growing watch divisions, sometimes outperforming their primary revenue driver of jewels.
To this end, the Italian jeweler is taking to the Haute Jewels Geneva showcase, held at the InterContinental Hotel at the same time as Watches and Wonders, to present its latest collection.
Lined up amid new renditions of its signature Belle Époque pendant crosses, among other jewels, Damiani is to debut high jewelry watches as part of the same collection.
The watches, which can double up as bracelets, have a rectangular case in white gold and are decked in gemstones, from the all-diamond version with a pavé dial weighing 8.56 carats to the two-colored iterations pairing diamonds with blue sapphires, rubies or emeralds that form the signature alternation of circles and rectangles of the Belle Époque collection.
A Damiani Belle Époque high jewelry watch.
After capitalizing on its hero Mimosa watch series in the more accessible positioning with leather and exotic skin straps, Damiani is following the same playbook with the Margherita collection, which until recently included only high jewelry timepieces, such as the “Margherita Desert Garden” cuff.
The new quartz movement bejeweled watches feature an 18-mm gold case with a diamond pavé bezel framed by protruding daisies in combinations of diamonds and sapphires. They are set on lizard leather straps.
This is one such example of how Damiani sees the flagship brand venturing into watchmaking with more diversification, as part of the broader, group-level strategy.
“It’s a long-term strategy that will eventually see Damiani progressively tap into the more accessible watchmaking space,” Damiani said.
“Although we will continue to cater largely to female customers, watches are becoming increasingly more unisex and the occasions of use blurred. We believe in the female universe because it’s tied with jewelry and is less presided, but if jewelry sales to men are any indicator, they are growing steadily globally and particularly in Asia,” the president said.
A Damiani Margherita jewelry watch.
Damiani touted the perks of being an independent player that can foster new projects over time and forecast watches to account for 30 percent of the Damiani brand’s business in 10 years.
To this end, the acquisition of Baume & Mercier is seen as both a synergistic move and a growth driver on its own.
“Baume & Mercier is a brand we’ve long loved and admired, and we are confident that it can further express its potential. We’re committed to grow its prestige, footprint, notoriety and revenues,” Damiani said, commenting on the acquisition, which is expected to close in the summer of 2026.
As reported, Damiani Group nabbed the storied watchmaker in a private transaction, the terms of which were not disclosed.
At the time of the announcement Damiani said it planned to enhance Baume & Mercier’s visibility and reach by leveraging its own multibrand distribution network and opening select monobrand boutiques in strategic locations over time.
Richemont acknowledged that Baume & Mercier’s long-term potential could be best realized under the new owner, given the brand’s strong footprint in Italy, its predominantly multibrand wholesale distribution model and its accessible positioning in the luxury watch segment.
Baume & Mercier was founded in 1830 and is headquartered in Geneva. Its watches are made in the brand’s Brenets factory in the Swiss Jura.
“The Swiss watchmaker will also help us finetune the strategy for Damiani watches and develop them, by bringing into the group a 200-plus-year know-how, knowledge of the product and the market,” the executive said.
As the group expands its footprint in watches, the proprietary retailer Rocca unveiled the “Pre-Owned” program earlier this year, as it aims to become the go-to destination for collectors and watch enthusiasts alike.
“The second wrist is a consolidated business, valued at 30 billion euros annually, and we’ve just started exploring it, with a lot of prepwork now behind us. We’ve set up a team of experts, there’s a division fully committed to handling and scaling that business,” Damiani explained.
The executive observed that the widespread presence of Rocca stores across Italy, and its growing international network, put the retailer in a good position to lure customers looking for pre-loved watches, by providing a wider assortment of brands and products, as well as more reliability.
“Our consolidated retail network ensures more guarantees than, say, the local corner shop watch dealer or reseller,” he said, adding that customers can trade their secondhand timepieces for both new and pre-loved ones, an option rarely offered by smaller players.
While acknowledging the rollercoaster performance watch sales have experienced in recent months — Swiss watch exports were down 1.7 percent last year, despite a return to growth in December, according to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry — Damiani sees the sector as highly resilient in the mid- to long-term.
“It’s a very consolidating business in the wholesale channel, with increasingly bigger and more widespread players and less independent boutiques. We’re in a great position and are committed to maintain and grow our footprint,” he said.
Guido Grassi Damiani
Courtesy of Damiani
Rocca counts 45 stores — among flagships and branded units it operates for key players including Panerai, Omega, Cartier and Tag Heuer, among others.
New international stores have bowed in the past few years in Tirana, Albania, and in Lugano, Switzerland, as well as in Madrid as corners inside the Canalejas department store.
The retailer is now planning a push in South Korea, a big market for the Damiani Group, where it will open a Rocca multibrand boutique and a monobrand store for a leading watchmaker kept under wraps, both in Seoul. It already operates an H. Moser & Cie. store in the city, which opened in 2025.
