Struggling to Understand - the Favre Leuba Zombie

Now before we go any further, I will admit a few failings that I have as a member of Watch Town's Fourth and Fifth Estates. When I first launched The Blog Formerly Known As Tempus Fugit, I had a desperate need to be liked by brand owners, to fawn and praise, often without any real belief in what they were churning out. 

I was there to cover Favre Leuba 2.0 when Thomas Morf puffed up the brand with what turned out to be some unrealistic expectations as to what Favre Leuba could (or in the end would) be.

So now the curtain has raised, not insignificant amounts of money have been channeled to PR firms and media outlets to promote "Favre Leuba III - The Revenge of the Value Proposition!" Oh, and apparently it is also now, among other things, a heritage brand... and in all honesty, gentle reader? I am now left in a quandery as to just what Favre Leuba is now.

Courtesy of Favre Leuba

In fairness, the new pieces look nice enough. They utilize movements from La Joux-Perret. While they make a very respectable movement, I don't know if that alone correlates to the somewhat ambitious prices that are being proposed.

So who has their hands on the tiller of the good ship Favre Leuba? One Patrik Hoffmann. I have read an interview published in Monochrome, and well... let's just leave it at that. 

In a secondary splashy video interview with Revolution, it would seem that the basis of Favre Leuba is a "value proposition"  (I thought that Hodinkee had copyrighted that phrase), which I heard so frequently I ran out of fingers to count on. I found this descriptor somewhat curious as (if the Monochrome interview is to be taken as gospel) a tourbillon is planned for next year... "A value proposition Tourbillon..."

The price points (if I am being brutally honest) are not what I would call value proposition based. I suspect the folks at The Solist and Joma Shop have already raised their collective antenna. 

So ultimately the market will inform us as to what it will bear. But the sad truth is that Watch Town is currently over populated. There are already a shit-ton of brands, and those with the history (Longines) will likely come out ahead. 

But let's see how this develops.