Sincere Debuts SHH Concept Store at MBS Singapore
Fine watchmaking gets a new home at the SHH concept store, itself rebranded and remade for a new era in watch collecting.
Watch collecting is not only about buying watches, but also about community and finding spaces to enjoy your watches, and those of your friends. This is hardly a new phenomenon, driven by market realities, and Sincere Fine Watches has been providing just such a space for collectors and their friends since 2005 at Sincere Haute Horlogerie (SHH) concept store in the Hilton (now Voco). A new chapter began recently with the opening of a new SHH dedicated space and concept store at Marina Bay Sands. This represents a new beginning for SHH, because it is now branded as such.
Sincere Fine Watches CEO Ong Ban tells us that the re-branding was a practical matter as SHH is simply easier on the tongue, or “a mouthful,” as he put it. He explained further that the new logo for SHH, designed by Theseus Chan of Work Pte Ltd, is based on the look of a mechanical watch as seen through the caseback. The idea for this came from Sincere Watch Limited General Manager Kate Lim Hui Ying. We will be bringing you the interview with Ong Ban soon, but first, an introduction about what SHH is.
The name-change is probably for the best since the independent watchmakers exclusive to SHH themselves sport tongue-twisting names such as Czapek & Cie and Louis Moinet. These two brands are actually exclusively with SHH, along with a mix of brands, some of which have been with SHH for some time. These are Angelus, Armin Strom, Arnold and Son, Chopard L.U.C, Corum, Cvstos, Ferdinand Berthoud, Greubel Forsey, Grönefeld, H. Moser & Cie., HYT, Jacob & Co., Lang & Heyne, Laurent Ferrier, Montblanc, Moritz Grossmann, and Parmigiani Fleurier. The 19 brands share an impressive and quite democratic space that includes a VIP area with its own bar. Interior Designer Peter Tay designed the whole thing, with an eye towards making it feel a little like a museum, rather than a typical watch store.
At the official launch of the SHH space, Sincere Fine Watches revealed three exclusive SHH timepieces from Lang & Heyne, Greubel Forsey and Laurent Ferrier. These are the Laurent Ferrier Classic Origin, limited to 10 pieces, the Lang & Heyne Georg, limited to 12 pieces, and the Greubel Forsey Double Balancier Convexe, limited to six pieces. The Double Balancier Convexe is dressed in never-before-seen purple hues, including the tips of the hour and minute hands, the running seconds subdial, and the entire baseplate, besides the rubber strap. With the Classic Origin, Laurent Ferrier is presenting a unique opaline green dial with numerals in deep forest green. Lang & Heyne is going with a unique ceramic dial atop a royal blue givree-finished silvered baseplate. This dial adds contemporary flavour to what is otherwise a very fine classical work of horological finesse.
We conclude for now with Ong’s own words from the press release on the launch of the SHH: “As a premier watch specialist, we understand well the art of fine-watchmaking since it is something that is deeply entrenched in our DNA. Because of this, we are proud to unveil the concept of SHH to watch collectors, since it is the highest expression of watch retail as it should be and as what we have always aspired to. With this new boutique concept, we hope to deliver to the sophisticated watch collector, an even higher level of enjoyment for the craft, passion and creativity of independent watchmaking.
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