Get Ready For Greatness Lip!

We left off with Lip and Besançon a few weeks ago and now that the watch makers holidays are over I wanted to finish up sharing my impressions from my most recent visit to Besançon and more specifically Lip itself. And no, gentle reader, this is not the end of the story - we are only getting ready for the bigger story that is coming!

Now about Besançon... 

In many ways it reminds me of La Chaux-de-Fonds. It is not a huge place, but also not small. It is the cradle of French watch making, and at the center of it all, at least in the past 100 years has been Lip. 

And the story of Lip is perhaps even more intricate and fascinating than the story of Besançon itself, full of intrigue, tragedy, and triumph. And there is no way I could ever hope to do it justice in the small space afforded by this blog.

What I will say, is that perhaps the single most important thing that ever happened for Lip (and I predict in turn, Besançon in the future) was the Berard's purchase of the brand, and returning it home to where it all began. After a few "bad relationships" Lip appears to finally be with the right owners. Pierre-Alain Berard has put a great deal of effort and planning into bringing Lip back to its former self, and if what I have seen in my most recent visit is anything to go by, Lip is going to be bigger and better than it ever was before. I can't go into any details here, but let's just say that fans of French watch making are in for some really, really cool things in the not-too-distant future.

I have been reading a very interesting book - American Flannel -

Courtesy of Penguin Random House

It tells the story of how the manufacture of clothing had once been a key industry in the US before  "Heritage Brands" like LL Bean, Woolrich, Levis, Pendleton and others began using less expensive off-shore manufacturers to make their products. It goes further to illuminate the efforts Bayard Withrop (American Giant) and other folks in the clothing industry working to bring textile and clothing manufacturing back to the US. And this, in turn, made me think of Lip and what they are quietly working on. The T18 is only the beginning, stay tuned as I suspect this will be a fascinating story to follow!