Dennison in the neo-vintage era

Stéphane Cheikh :  I felt immense joy at this wonderful award, which will give the Dennison brand great legitimacy, and also great happiness to see the hard work of the last 12 months recognised.

Emmanuel Gueit: I was initially surprised that we were selected and then to be among the finalists. The audience’s reaction when the winner was announced moved me deeply.

Stephane Cheikh: It’s a beautiful brand with a rich heritage: at the time, it manufactured cases for major Swiss brands such as Rolex, Tudor, Jaeger, IWC and Omega. My partner Toby Sutton and I thought it might be interesting to relaunch it. It’s not a new brand, the name already existed, but it wasn’t associated with watches. It was a case manufacturer that had made a few watches but didn’t follow through.

Stéphane Cheikh: Toby’s father is a vintage watch dealer, and when opening old Omega or Rolex timepieces, they often saw the name Dennison. When he was 21, he grew tired of working in a bank and decided to purchase a brand related to watchmaking. He chose Dennison. It had belonged to two heiresses who decided to cease all activity in 1967. The building had been turned into a car park. It now houses flats in Birmingham in a neighbourhood that has become very posh. For 15 years, Toby did nothing with the brand. Then we relaunched it a year ago.

Stephane Cheikh : I don’t come from the watchmaking industry. I have a background in management and used to manage artificial intelligence projects. But I reached a point in my career where I no longer wanted to work for a company. I wanted to start my own business. Living in Geneva, I had the choice between going into chocolate, banking or watchmaking. Then one day, someone introduced me to Toby, and that’s how I ended up in watchmaking.

Emmanuel Gueit: Through social media (laughs)!
Stephane Cheikh: I typed ‘watch designer Geneva’ into Google, and a fellow named Emmanuel Gueit popped up. I sent him a message on LinkedIn and he replied! I was lucky. When I think about it, my life wouldn’t be the same and Dennison wouldn’t be the same brand if we hadn’t worked with him.

Emmanuel Gueit: There was nothing. Stéphane contacted me. We met. We talked for an hour. I felt like I’d known him for 20 years. He told me they were looking for a designer for this brand they wanted to relaunch, that they had pitched other agencies, and asked me to send him some sketches. I told him to get lost (laughs). Since he insisted, I sent him some uninteresting drawings.
Stephane Cheikh: …Which we didn’t use, by the way. My partner told me that we had to do this project with Emmanuel, that he would bring legitimacy to the brand. We were right.
Emmanuel Gueit: The day I met all the partners, I was coming back from Berlin where I had been partying. I hadn’t slept all night, but Stéphane insisted that I meet them. I arrived with my little suitcase and in the end, I got on well with everyone.

Stephane Cheikh : There are two investors who are watch collectors. It was important for them to be there to give their opinion on the person we intended to work with. They are the ones financing the project.

Emmanuel Gueit: I suggested several formats and we agreed on this one. When I studied the history of the brand, I saw that it had stopped in the 1960s. I thought it would be interesting to pick up where it left off. What’s more, the 1960s and 1970s are in my DNA (editor’s note: his father Jean-Claude Gueit designed some of the most beautiful watches of that era), so it was quite easy.
Stephane Cheikh: Initially, he had designed the case vertically, before deciding that it should be turned horizontally.
Emmanuel Gueit: Then I suggested different dials, some of which featured semi-precious stones. It made sense for the era.

Emmanuel Gueit: The audacity! Nowadays, marketing drives product creation, but back then, marketing didn’t exist and we dared to be bold. Designers didn’t have computers: they created with their heads, a pencil and paper.

Emmanuel Gueit: This model is not in line with Gérald Genta’s watches: namely, a sporty-chic piece with an integrated steel bracelet. It is the antithesis of that. At the time, there were Gérald Genta’s pieces on one side and Jean-Claude Gueit’s creations on the other: shaped watches with stone dials, diamonds, leather straps.

Emmanuel Gueit: Yes, of course! And I’m very proud of it. It’s in my blood. We have the same perception of luxury. It may not appeal to everyone, but it’s our vision of beauty. I was born into his style: I watched my father draw from a very young age.
Stephane Cheikh: It’s a beautiful style.
Emmanuel Gueit: Yves G. Piaget, who knew me as a child, invited me to lunch during the Watches & Wonders exhibition. That day, I was wearing a Dennison set watch. He put it on his wrist and said to me, ‘It’s very Jean-Claude.’ I was touched. That was the goal.

Emmanuel Gueit: I love them. We decided to create them that way and we did well because sales exploded immediately.

Emmanuel Gueit: I can’t explain it, and I’m the first to be surprised.
Stephane Cheikh: My daughters, aged 25 and 27, and all their friends wanted to buy one!

Emmanuel Gueit: My intuition. I thought the shape was ideal for creating a Dual Time. It was a way of developing the model. We could have put the two movements in the original case, but the hands were a little too close together, so we stretched the case by 2 mm.
Stephane Cheikh: To my knowledge, there are no other watches on the market with two time zones that are as attractive as this one and cost less than 1,000 Swiss francs.

Stephane Cheikh: It’s true that our watches appeal to both 25-35 year olds and collectors who have amazing watches. We met an American earlier who was wearing an Andersen watch and a Simon Brette and he loves what we do. For him, the price didn’t matter: it was their beauty that counts.
Emmanuel Gueit: When we launched the brand in New York, collectors told us that the fact that it was a quartz watch didn’t have any importance: what mattered was that it was beautiful.

Stéphane Cheikh: It was a surprise! We had no idea.

Stephane Cheikh: No, not at all! Her husband (rapper Swizz Beatz, ed.) had bought several of our watches. On the night of her concert in Osaka, Alicia Keys was wearing a malachite ring and asked her husband if he had a matching watch. He showed her the Dennison, she loved it and wore it. In fact, he filmed her backstage and sent us the footage, which we were able to use

Stephane Cheikh : Online! He found us on Instagram. He’s someone who really likes young brands. And he absolutely loves ours. We gave him two Dual Time watches and he bought five more at once. It was our biggest order ever. He wanted to buy them before they were sold out (laughs).

Stephane Cheikh: We didn’t feel a big impact, it was a one-off. Swizz Beatz is already an ambassador for De Bethune. We would like to consider something more formal…

Stephane Cheikh : No. It’s not part of our strategy for the coming months.

Stephane Cheikh: That of a young Geneva-based company that makes beautiful watches designed by a great designer, sold at a price that is accessible to the younger generation.

Stephane Cheikh: No, we have very few retailers. We sell almost everything directly.

Emmanuel Gueit : We had planned to make 2,000, but we will reach 3,000 this year.

Stephane Cheikh : We are going to try to enjoy it as much as possible because it is a wonderful human adventure.