IWC answered Mr Mayer

Hodinkee posted IWC's response to John Mayer's letter, several hours ago. Methinks they very courteously told John where he is welcome to go. But I found a troubling aspect to the response. The letter very clearly says the present IWC makes the watches it makes for the Asian market. On Hodinkee there is some discussion about whether or not this was a racist expression. My take was that it certainly could be. Interested to know how others feel after reading the letter.

Here's the link click here.

I have no reason to doubt that the letter is from someone at IWC, but I don't know who that is nor who approved it.

I don't see how that statement could be construed as racist. I read it to mean that they tailored their product to the Far East market because that is a large market for the company. How that can be interpreted as racist is beyond me. It sounds like good business. Mountain, meet mole hill...

My initial reaction to reading the response is that sometimes it's better to take the high road. I think IWC comes across as defensive and the references to the quartz crisis seem misplaced since the developments Mayer was objecting to occurred in the last 5-10 years. But I don't envy the PR person whose job it is to address this situation.

Thomas

Of course it is just me: until today I had never heard of Mr. Mayer, but then, I am more into watches, classical music, go and chess than into pop music. Is he important in a way? A celebrity not connected to IWC?

How referring to a market region could be seen as racist is beyond me. That the taste in a different place on earth differs from that here in Europe is quite obvious to me. That the watches made for that market may not always be liked by "us" is obvious too. And the whole range of watches IWC offers, including those for the Asian market (which ones?), appeals to me enough.

I love this forum sanctuary, without the problems of our ugly part of the world. But it sometimes helps to look at the news to put the problems mentioned here into perspective.

Kind regards,
Paul

I read the open letter by IWC with the greatest interest and even the comments to it on Hodinkee.

Where there should be anything racist in it did not reach my eyes. Sorry but this construction between the lines seems to be quite ridiculous.

In my opinion IWC does not develop watches specifically for the Asian market. And this is not written in their letter, probably interpreted into it by some readers. They produce watches for the world wide market where Asia has developed very strongly the last 13 years. Exactly the period of time all the issues are about. Thanks to Mr. Kern's and everybody else's strong dedication to business success, which is undoubtedly necessary for a watchmaker's company.
That is pointed out and made clear in that letter. Anybody doubting this is necessary, seems to be naive.
But for me IWC have even evolved their connection to their past. They have transformed their heritage and great past into the present and the future. And by no means this process has come to any end. There are so many inhouse movements now and technical specialties now.
And the most interesting models. I live and work in the border triangle of Switzerland (Basel), Germany and France. which in fact is only about 100 km away from Schaffhausen and the factory. There are so many IWC enthusiasts of the current IWC in this area that I doubt that they only satisfy the demands of the Asian market.

Probably IWC has lost and will lose some die hard collectors. That is not what they want and truly regrettable. But on the other hand they won so many new ones from all over the world which is very positive. And they point out one more truth: You cannot appeal with everything to everyone.

Personnally I thing Clepsydra is behind all this fuzz and that he influenced Mr Mayer to write the open letter on Hondinkee. But nice of IWC to respond so quickly to explain that you have to evolve to survive. Hence the relation with the Charles Darwin fundation I presume.

So now we fortunally can all go back to do the work we are best in, be it making watches, making music or whatever our talents are.

And to end the discussion here are a few lines from the song "Who says" by Mr. Mayer and it' s the second part that intriges me the must of course ;-)

Who says I can't get stoned?
Turn off the lights and the telephone
Me in my house, alone
Who says I can't get stoned?

Who says I can't be free
From all of the things that I used to be?
Rewrite my history
Who says I can't be free?

Totally agree.. I didn't realize it was racist to create a product that is attractive to certain regions of the world...

+1

Cheers Chris