Watches and cars are simpatico bedfellows. Performance, precision, detail and design—all have paramount importance in both industries. And, yet, all too often brands team up to less than sparkling results. In the recent past the iconic British automaker Aston Martin released collaborative watch models with both Jaeger-LeCoultre and Richard Mille—but in each of them, something didn’t seem right.
This is not the case with the Bond-worthy carmaker’s latest stepping-out partner, Girard-Perregaux. Aston Martin signed a partnership agreement with the fabled Swiss watchmaker in 2021 and since then no fewer than five collaborations have been released—each showcasing the kind of natural chemistry that you would expect when two of the oldest brands in both horology and automotive come together.
The latest timepiece—the Girard-Perregaux Neo Bridges Aston Martin Edition—debuted during the recent Dubai Watch Week, showcasing another remarkable embodiment of precision and design collaboration, according to Girard-Perregaux’s Chief Product Marketing Officer, Clémence Dubois, and Stefano Saporetti, Director of Brand Diversification at Aston Martin.
ESQ: The collab seems like a good fit. How do you ensure you avoid falling into easy car-watch collab tropes?
Clémence Dubois: Right at the beginning, we agreed that we didn’t want to make merchandising products. We wanted a collaboration where we could both benefit from each other’s technical knowhow, and push the boundary of where that could go. Aston Marin is the best designer in the automotive industry, and after nearly three years of working together, we trust them when it comes to their interpretation
of Girard-Perregaux’s design language.
Stefano Saporetti: I think when you find common ground based on passion, things tend to work a lot smoother. Both companies see themselves as getting a lot of value from the partnership, and our designers are putting in a lot of effort because the projects push them outside of their comfort zones into a world that they don’t know, but understand.
Clémence Dubois: When you ask an automotive designer to look at your watch mechanics, they look at it from a technical perspective rather than a commercial product, so we immediately start having different conversations. The new Neo Bridges timepiece, is really showing the fruits of the partnership. There is no other partnership where the design team from the automotive team re-designs the movement of the watch itself.
ESQ: What other elements have been led by the conversations between the two brands?
Clémence Dubois: With regards to the Neo Bridges timepiece, we discussed the growing trend in the auto industry about iridescent colours. We explored whether it was possible to recreate that colour effect on a watch.
Stefano Saporetti: It is tricky process to get the type of iridescent green colour that represents Aston Martin, it takes as many as up to 15 layers of paint to achieve —which is quite a challenge when you are not only shrinking it down to the small size of a watch, but also using it on a product that sits on the skin of a person.
ESQ: So why was the Neo-Bridges the piece that was chosen for the latest collab?
Clémence Dubois: The ‘Three Bridges’ is one of the iconic design signatures of Girard-Perregaux—first introduced all the way back in 1867. Back then it was the first timepiece with a tourbillon held in place by a set of ‘flying bridges’, and the architecture was inspired by the automotive industry. We wanted to create a new—or ‘Neo’—design that showcased our heritage, our knowhow and our exclusivity.
Stefano Saporetti: What we have found is that there is a lot of crossover of our customers. The brands share some very foundational values, so the brand experience and knowledge is very similar—we aim to offer that with these collaboration pieces, but it has to feel natural without ever forcing the message.