Simon Brette Raises Chronomètre Artisans Price Days Before Launch
Deposit was paid. Agreement didn't leave room for adjustment. What would you do?
A curious email arrived in the inboxes of certain collectors this week. Simon Brette’s office sent what appeared to be a standard allocation confirmation for the forthcoming stainless steel Chronomètre Artisans, a watch that has been anticipated for over a year by those who placed deposits based on a quoted price of 75,000 Swiss francs. The email began warmly enough, congratulating recipients on their allocation and welcoming them to the family, before delivering news that completely altered the nature of their agreement.
The final price, as the email explains, has been adjusted by 8% to 81,000 francs. The increase of 6,000 francs is presented as a necessary consequence of the bracelet’s development, which apparently required more than two and a half years of research and innovation, with particular care devoted to its 446 components.
The email speaks of uncompromising pursuit of perfection, of concave polished-head screws, and of course, of investment exceeding initial projections. It was all very reasonable-sounding, all very technical, but really… very much beside the point.
The collectors who received this email had been told, when they paid their deposits over a year ago, that they were putting down 25% of the total price. They had also been promised a steel bracelet as part of the original deal, along with the usual leather strap. Several collectors have confirmed these details independently. The bracelet was always part of the deal - part of the 75,000 franc price tag.
Now, in the week before the public launch scheduled for Friday the 19th of December, they are being informed that the price has simply... gone up!
Moving goalposts
When some collectors reached out to enquire about this unexpected development, the brand confirmed that the final invoice from their bracelet supplier had come in substantially higher than anticipated (more than 3x). The costs had escalated, and therefore these costs needed to be passed on to customers. There was a logic to it, but this is the kind of logic that makes sense when you are only looking at your own ledger and trying to make your numbers work. Worth noting from the brand’s perspective, reducing the order quantity would increase the unit cost for each remaining bracelet.
This explanation raises something interesting about how the brand viewed the situation. The supplier’s cost overrun had become the customer’s problem to solve. The brand found itself squeezed between a supplier who couldn’t deliver at the original price and customers who had already committed on different terms, and their solution was… to simply pass that squeeze along the chain? The customers, having already paid their deposits and waited over a year, would surely understand. They would surely accept. They were, after all, buying a 75,000 franc time-only steel watch, so what’s another 6,000, right?
Right?
No. This framing misinterprets what actually happened here. When a supplier fails to deliver at the agreed price, the brand faces a decision about how to proceed. They can absorb the cost themselves. They can negotiate with the supplier. They can return to their customers and explain the situation, and offer them the choice to proceed at a higher price or withdraw their deposits.
What they cannot do, or rather what they should not do, is unilaterally change the terms of an agreement that customers have already committed to, particularly customers who have been waiting patiently for over a year based on specific promises about what they would receive and what they would pay.
Handling supply problems
The alternative approach would have required more courage but would have preserved something more valuable than a single product launch. If the bracelet supplier couldn’t deliver at the original price, the brand should have contacted everyone on the allocation list and presented the situation honestly.
Some customers might have agreed to pay more. Others might have decided to withdraw. For those willing to proceed at the higher price, the brand could have confirmed the order. For those who weren’t, the brand could have returned their deposits with gratitude for their patience, or offered a partial refund for the original (lower) cost of the bracelet.
If the reduced order quantity then pushed the per-unit cost even higher, the brand could have returned to the remaining customers with updated figures. They could decide again. Through this iterative process, the brand would eventually arrive at a group of customers who might be willing to pay the actual cost of producing the watch with the bracelet. Perhaps that group would be large enough to proceed. Perhaps it would be smaller than hoped. Perhaps it would disappear entirely. That would be unfortunate, but it would be honest.
Instead, the brand has chosen to announce the new price to customers who had already committed, forcing them to decide whether to swallow the increase or walk away from deposits paid over a year ago (stated as non-refundable). The email concludes by noting that an automatic mailing would soon announce the stainless steel edition was sold out, advising recipients to disregard that message when it arrived.
This detail is telling, as every single person on the allocation list, perhaps 50-60 collectors, had implicitly been assumed to accept the unilateral change in terms and associated price increase.
In stark contrast, if you needed an example; Petermann Bédat ate a huge cost on their 1967 Deadbeat Seconds due to similar miscalculations, but didn’t charge customers an extra penny. Doing the right thing in this industry is not unprecedented after all!
Consumer response
This “universal acceptance” - if it holds - will put on full display, something very troubling about the current state of collecting. Some of those who received the email are indeed upset about the situation, but they have calculated that they can simply purchase the watch and sell it at auction out of spite, likely making a substantial profit in the process. Others have looked at the total sum and decided that 6,000 francs, while annoying, doesn’t justify the hassle of withdrawing. The absolute amount, they reason, is manageable given that they were already prepared to spend 75,000.
But this reasoning completely misses the principle here. A supplier moving the goalposts on a brand is, absolutely, poor business practice. The brand moving the goalposts on customers who have already committed is equally poor business practice. The supplier’s difficulties are genuinely unfortunate, but they are the brand’s problem to manage. These problems are emphatically not the customer’s problem to solve, unless this possibility was clearly communicated and agreed upon at the time deposits were taken. Many other brands leave this open-ended in their deposit agreements, warning customers that unforeseen supply problems may result in a price increase; this was not the case here.
Independent watchmakers operate in a different world from the major groups. They build their businesses on personal relationships, on trust, and on the sense that you are supporting an individual or a small business; not some corporate entity who treats you like a number. Many collectors become patrons of these makers, following their work over years, attending events to meet them, and even forming something that resembles true friendship. This personal connection is meant to be an advantage for independent makers - a kind of counterweight to their inability to match the marketing budgets and retail networks of the big brands.
The thing is, that personal connection cuts both ways. Would you consider it acceptable to change the terms of a deal with a close friend at the last minute just because your own supplier let you down? At the very least, you would inform your friend of the difficulties you are facing, and then reach a mutually agreeable solution, right? Why should this be any different?
Personal example
Perhaps everything I’m saying sounds a bit sanctimonious; the sort of high-minded principle-taking that disappears when serious money comes into play. So let me tell you about a decision I made that cost me much more than 6,000 francs. When Vacheron Constantin released the Overseas Everest limited edition, I was offered an allocation under dubious circumstances as I was originally promised one, then declined, and then made a huge fuss about it online. It was like ‘hush money’ by the time I got the offer. This was during a period when secondary market prices for such pieces had detached completely from retail, and flipping this thing would have generated six-figure profits with essentially zero risk.
I declined the watch. The reason had nothing to do with the watch itself, which was perfectly nice, and everything to do with the circumstances surrounding its allocation. So I walked away from serious money because I believed accepting it would compromise something more important than short-term profit.
You might think I am a naive fool for making that choice. Maybe I am. But I can tell you with certainty that I would make the same decision again, because some things matter more than money, and your principles are only principles if you are willing to pay a price to maintain them. So when I write that you should stand up for what is right and refuse to accept poor business practices, I am telling you something I would do myself, and have done myself - even when the cost was substantial.
What’s at stake
Let’s talk about what happens if these collectors refuse. Yes, there are probably fifty other people ready and waiting to take these allocations if others decline; so the watch will sell out either way. Simon Brette will deliver his watches and move forward with his business. On the surface, nothing changes.
But… those first 50-odd chosen collectors were his first choice. They were the people who believed in this early enough to put down deposits over a year ago when this watch was still a promise. They were the ones who trusted him with their money based on specific terms. They represent the relationships he built, or the patrons he cultivated. Those people, I believe, deserve better.
Losing them does mean something. Maybe the next fifty buyers pay the 81k and receive the same watch, but they’ll know they were second choice. They’ll know they got in because the first group walked away over a principle. They’ll know that when things got difficult, the brand chose to pass the problem to customers rather than eat the cost or find a more equitable solution. That knowledge changes the nature of the relationship from patron-craftsman to simple commercial transaction. And maybe they’ll just be happy to have the watch or flip it for a profit, and that’s fine.
The real cost Simon Brette faces is not the loss of fifty sales at all; it is the loss of respect from 50 of his first-choice clients. This is the sort of thing I’d expect from a Richemont brand, not an indie.
The right solution
Look, there were (and maybe still are) better options available. The brand could absorb the 6,000 franc increase across 50 pieces - that’s 300,000 francs total. For a watchmaker selling time-only pieces at 75,000 francs, that’s the cost of four watches. Four pieces worth of margin to preserve the relationships with fifty collectors who trusted you.
That’s basically the trade-off here.
Or maybe he could take the nuclear option with the supplier. Tell them their price increase is unacceptable and he will source the bracelet elsewhere or deliver the watch without one. Offer customers a reduction in price reflecting the original bracelet cost. Let them decide if they want to wait for an alternative bracelet solution or take delivery without one.
He could also just sell the bracelet separately to others who own a different model of his watch.
Any of these approaches would maintain the integrity of the original agreement.
Your decision
So maybe you’re reading this, and it’s you who is re-reading this email in your inbox right now. You’ve been waiting over a year, and you’ve paid a deposit that’s supposedly non-refundable1. You’ve built a relationship with an independent watchmaker you believed operated differently from the big brands. And now you’re being told the price has changed, take it or leave it… and by the way we’re assuming you’ll take it because we’ve already told everyone the watch is sold out.
What do you do?
You can pay. You can decide the principle isn’t worth the fight, and that 6,000 francs doesn’t matter compared to getting the awesome watch you’ve been waiting for. You can reason that walking away means (maybe) losing your deposit (unlikely), missing out on a watch that will probably appreciate, and giving up your allocation for someone else to take. You might even be wondering how much you will kick yourself when you see this new piece plastered all over Instagram, knowing you gave up an allocation over a “silly principle.” All of this is a very rational calculation, and nobody could blame you for making it.
But just be clear about what you’re buying. You’re not buying a better bracelet or great finishing. You’re giving permission for this to happen again. You’re agreeing with a precedent that doing a deal will not lock in terms. You’re supporting a business practice where indies can just move the goalposts the same as big corporates, and collectors should accept it.
And when it happens next time (and it will happen next time, because behaviour that is supported gets repeated) you won’t have any ground to stand on. You’ll have already shown that you’ll pay whatever is asked rather than walk away on principle. This brand will know it. Other brands will know it. And the only person you’ll have to blame is yourself.
This is about you and therefore, only you know what kind of principles you wish to uphold and stand for.
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
Postscript
I sent the above to Simon Brette last night and asked if I made any errors, or misrepresented anything from his side. This morning we spoke on the phone.
The bracelet supplier, it turns out, delivered his prototype only in November, behind schedule and accompanied by an invoice that was dramatically different from what he expected. The 3,000 franc bracelet was now going to cost more than 3x that amount. The delayed prototype also brought with it the realisation that delivery would need to be pushed to Watches and Wonders 2026. In his world, this created a cascade of complications that placed him in a difficult position between his supplier’s demands and his customers’ expectations.
During our conversation, Brette acknowledged without hesitation that failing to immediately share this development with his patrons was an error in judgement. The decision to simply announce the increased price instead of engaging in dialogue about the predicament had altered what could have been a shared problem into a unilateral imposition.
Fair enough.
We discussed the possibility of making the bracelet entirely optional, which would allow each collector to decide whether they valued it enough to accept the price increase - or preferred to take delivery of the watch without it. His hesitation to do this centres on the risk of finding himself with a safe full of expensive bracelets that nobody wants to purchase. To him, betting (incorrectly) on customer demand for the bracelet would have severe financial consequences for his business.
But I argued that collectors primarily want to feel respected, and that offering them the choice would be sufficient - even if the practical outcome was unchanged. My prediction to him was that most people would opt for the bracelet at the higher price simply because the gesture of being consulted would shift their experience from coercion to basic agency.
Having seen the bracelet myself, I believe it has sufficient merit to justify interest, independent of these circumstances. People evaluating the bracelet on its own terms would find it compelling in my opinion. But Brette’s counterpoint is still valid: a small business owner cannot simply gamble on the hypothesis that his customers will appreciate being given a choice they might actually exercise. 😂
So the resolution, as it currently stands, offers two paths forward - buy the watch at 81k CHF including the bracelet, or request a complete refund of your deposits.
The third option I advocated (buy the watch for 72k CHF without the bracelet) is currently unavailable, because it introduces the inventory risk that Brette considers too substantial for his operation to absorb.
That being said, conversations have a way of revealing possibilities that contracts don’t accommodate. If sufficient collectors make their interest in the bracelet known, the uncertainty about demand can be replaced with concrete commitments. In this case, if the risk of unsold inventory can be shown to affect maybe ten pieces rather than fifty, then the situation becomes navigable in ways it currently isn’t.
What next
For those who are unsure about whether the bracelet justifies the additional cost, I would suggest direct engagement with Brette himself. Request to see it, and consider whether it represents value commensurate with the price being asked. Make your position known to him.
If the response to this indicates that only a small minority would decline the bracelet option, Brette suggested he might be able to absorb a smaller return rate, which would make the third path viable for everyone. Those who don’t wish to pay the premium wouldn’t be compelled to do so, and those keen to receive the bracelet would proceed with their orders - secure in the knowledge that they made an active choice rather than just accepting an ultimatum out of the blue.
—
I guess it’s now in the hands of those who received the original email… You now have an explanation of what happened, an acknowledgement of the communication failure, and a legit option to withdraw without penalty if the revised terms prove unacceptable.
Good luck!
I actually know at least one customer who paid in full, which is even worse.