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The Geneva Watch Show, where manufacturers of prestige watches gather this week, welcomes six new brands this year, including DeWitt, a small manufacture that proudly claims its Napoleon I heritage.
While major brands often call on film, fashion or sports stars to represent them, this company, founded in 2003 by Count Jérôme de Witt, one of the descendants of the Bonaparte family, prefers the Emperor as its ambassador.
"Twenty years from now, Roger Federer will surely be remembered, but who will remember the other athletes, actors or models?" argued Vivianne de Witt, his wife and the company's managing director, in an interview with AFP. 
"He wasn't just a leader of the armies, he was also the one who created the Civil Code," she stressed, proudly defending the emperor's legacy, which she insisted would always be in the history books.
Jérome de Witt is the son of Princess Marie-Clotilde Bonaparte, a descendant of Jérôme Napoléon Bonaparte, Napoleon's youngest brother.
Based in Meyrin, on the outskirts of Geneva, the company, which employs around 30 people, made a name for itself in 2013 with the launch of a model incorporating Napoleon's DNA, based on hair micro-fragments acquired at auction. The watch costs 13,500 Swiss francs (11,489 euros, at current rates).
DeWitt is one of a number of manufacturers who have decided to stay away from Basel's vast watch fair, believing that small brands were lost among the 1,300 exhibitors at last year's event.
The Salon international de la haute horlogerie (SIHH) in Geneva, with just 35 participants, gives the brand a much higher profile at a time when even luxury brands are approaching the recovery in the watchmaking sector with a degree of caution.
"On the economic front, things are improving, so luxury goods are bound to follow," asserted Ms. de Witt, who is counting "in principle" on a new upward cycle, hoping however that "this won't lead to a return to the kind of madness that leads to everything collapsing again".
Swiss watchmaking experienced a brutal slump in 2015 and 2016 after years of euphoria in the previous five years, before slowly recovering in 2017 with the return of Chinese buyers.
At SIHH, DeWitt presents its new products in the watchmakers' square, the area reserved for small, cutting-edge brands. A stone's throw from its stand, RJ-Romain Jerome unveiled a model in homage to the superhero Spider-man, while Christophe Claret showcased a model inspired by a green mamba, one of Africa's most dangerous snakes.
18/01/2018 18:16:53 - Geneva (AFP) - © 2018 AFP
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