Guillaume Laidet.
My name is Guillaume Laidet. I’m 39 years old, originally from Cognac in Charente, France, the father of two daughters, and have been an entrepreneur in the watchmaking industry for about a decade now. I began my career in marketing at Zenith, followed by digital marketing at Jaeger-LeCoultre. I then created my first brand, William L 1985, which I sold five years ago, just before relaunching Nivada Grenchen and Vulcain and creating Spaceone with Théo Auffret.
The brand’s history, popularity, and rich historical catalog inspired me. Nivada was established in 1926 in Grenchen and quickly gained worldwide popularity, akin to brands like Heuer or Breitling.
We didn’t acquire the brand; we obtained the license to operate it. It took us just under a year to get the ball rolling and launch the first pre-order.
The simplest and most iconic model: the Chronomaster Aviator Sea Diver Broad Arrow.
The first Chronomaster released with the rebirth were the Broad Arrow in black or white “panda”.
Yes, absolutely. We acquired a few vintage pieces to study them in detail and ensure we had the exact dimensions. We started from scratch, as we had no archives or plans and had to rebuild everything. Chronomaster Only became my bible and a great source of inspiration! In fact, it was thanks to your book that I had the idea to revive the brand.
The Chronomaster Only book, by Grégoire Rossier and Anthony Marquié.
The Antarctic, Depthmaster, F77, and Chronosport are other pillars of the collection. For now, we haven’t created new collections because Nivada’s back catalog is absolutely exceptional and incredibly rich, covering nearly all needs. We’re also working on a women’s collection inspired by Nivada’s historical Colorama line.
In addition to the Chronomaster, four collections are available: Antarctic, Depthmaster, F77 and Chronosport.
We use Soprod, Landeron, and ETA movements, as well as vintage movements like the Valjoux 23 from time to time.
We sold over 6,000 watches last year, with sales evenly distributed across the collections. At this stage, we’ve relaunched enough collections, so we’ll now focus on introducing variations within these existing lines.
As mentioned earlier, the women’s collection is a key project we’re working on. We’re also planning to expand our distribution network, which already includes around 60 points of sale worldwide and currently accounts for half of our sales.
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