Popeye, Blake and Mortimer, Snoopy… Watchmaking in the age of the ninth art

The phenomenon is not new. The first time that a cartoon character was reproduced on the dial of a watch was in 1933 for Disney: the Ingersoll brand then distributed models with the effigy of Mickey Mouse. The famous little mouse continued to inspire watchmakers, notably Gérald Genta. In 1984, the Swiss watch designer dared to launch his brand using three retrograde minute jumping hour watches representing Mickey, Minnie and Scrooge. The fusion between comics and fine watchmaking was born, it no longer surprises anyone.

“We can see the disruptive nature of this mix between the highest precision of watchmaking, the age of this craft, the ostentatious side of luxury, opposed to the popular side (in both senses of the term) and relatively recent super- hero”, deciphers Thierry Rogel, teacher in economics and social sciences, author of the books sociology of superheroes (Hermann editions) and The economy according to Scrooge, which has just been published by L’Etudiant. The professor recalls: “There is not one, but audiences of superheroes who do not necessarily overlap”. In the first place, fans of films of the genre, teenagers or young adults. Then, comic book readers of all ages. Without forgetting children, for whom the first Disney watches were intended and who remain the preferred target of brands such as Flik Flak or IceWatch. He notes that “some amateurs or buyers of these watch references seem to highlight the fact that they would have remained ‘big children'”.

“It’s also a way of being a bit offbeat,” remarks Laurent Piccioto, founder of the Chronopassion boutique. He remembers having sold a client’s wife an all-gold watch with a set bezel, bearing the image of Minnie: “She was sensitive to this second degree and found it much more amusing than any standard of the time”. The Parisian retailer concedes that it did not initially believe in the success of timepieces associated with cartoon characters. It was Gérald Genta himself who convinced him to list them in his point of sale.

Consoling figures

To what extent is this type of object symptomatic of a society in crisis? “These figures are probably consoling in today’s world”, replies Thierry Rogel. He recalls that Superman and Captain America appeared in 1939, at the time of the rise of the Nazi threat. Conversely, during the glorious thirty, these characters also experienced a peak in popularity in the United States, while their success was relative to the beginning of the crisis of the 1970s.

It was also from this period that changes took place. In his work The distinction, published in 1979 by Editions de Minuit, the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu underlined the gulf between so-called legitimate culture – literature, theater, classical music – and pop culture, around rock & roll or comic strips, before the latter be qualified as the ninth art. Nowadays, references to Disney or Marvel have become classics. So much so that Audemars Piguet dares to display the figure of Black Panther on a limited edition Royal Oak Concept equipped with a flying tourbillon. There have also been some famous precedents, such as the Omega Speedmaster Snoopy models, in reference to the mascot chosen in the 1960s by NASA to bring good luck to the crews of manned space missions.

This year, Reservoir is releasing the Blake et Mortimer watch, equipped with an automatic movement with retrograde minute and jumping hour, where the time is read according to the position of Captain Francis Blake’s arms. And while Franck Muller joins forces with Bamford Watch Department for a special Popeye edition, his muscular arms as hands, TAG Heuer favors the world of video games through its collaboration with Nintendo: Super Mario and the game Mario Kart, staged on a chronograph and a tourbillon chronograph. For its part, Swatch pays tribute to the Japanese animated series Dragon Ball Z, which popularized the manga in France with a collection dedicated to these characters.

By extension, some figures, who do not belong to the universe of comics or cartoons, sometimes take on the features of heroes, like Gabrielle Chanel, whose silhouette is stylized on the limited edition Mademoiselle J12 or like Vivienne, the mascot imagined by Louis Vuitton which appears on its Haute Horlogerie pieces. As for Richard Mille, it is the fiftieth anniversary of Franklin Loufrani’s Smiley that he has chosen to celebrate, by imagining a limited edition around this emoticon synonymous with joie de vivre. “Some Chronopassion customers already own all the watches that seem essential to them. They expect me to surprise them, says Laurent Piccioto. This is also what excites me in my job and explains why I am always looking for this type somewhat daring models.”