The co-creator of the Apple Watch says contemporary luxury watch design is “underwhelming” and “slightly troubling”. Marc Newson, who on Thursday will announce his first high-end luxury mechanical wristwatch in more than a decade, said watchmakers were too “isolated” and that the industry was prone to getting “carried away with the technicality of things” at the expense of what he called the “aesthetic fundamentals”.
The prolific UK-based Australian designer has previously collaborated with Jaeger-LeCoultre on its Atmos clock series, as well as projects for Louis Vuitton, Hermès, Montblanc and Dom Pérignon. In 2015 one of his famous early works, the Lockheed Lounge chair, broke records at auction when it sold for $3.7 million, the most that had ever been paid for a design object.
He spoke to The Business of Fashion ahead of the release of the Ressence TYPE 3 Marc Newson, a collaboration with a high-end Belgian independent watchmaker popular among watch collectors.
“I was on a watch prize jury a couple of years ago, and it’s not that there was a lack of design, but a lack of design I could respond to,” continued Newson, who co-founded the creative collective LoveFrom with Sir Jony Ive in 2019. “We’re in a moment where the industry is a little slow and sluggish. But I’d like to think it will change.”
Ressence was founded in 2010 by Benoît Mintiens, who, like Newson, is an industrial designer. Before he turned to designing watches, Mintiens had worked in a number of sectors, including transport and medical equipment. With a design studio in Antwerp, Ressence has a cult following but remains niche, making around 700 watches a year in Switzerland against revenues of €8 million, according to the company.
Design is a key driver behind watch buying decisions. According to the Deloitte Swiss Watch Industry Study 2025, it’s the most important consideration behind a watch purchase alongside price and brand.
But Mintiens, who is not a qualified watchmaker, countered the finding. “Design is not what watchmaking is looking for,” he said. “Mainstream watchmaking is about marketing and that’s fine. People buy brands. And then when it comes to smaller brands like mine, 90 percent of them are created by watchmakers, so for them the value is in the movement and the finishing, and not so much the design, the shape and the style. That’s logical, they’re watchmakers. But when it comes to design, in the 21st century there aren’t many brands that have our approach, which is user-centred.”
Newson and Mintiens met a number of years ago, having been aware of each others’ work long beforehand. “I became aware of Ressence immediately after they launched their first watch,” said Newson. “It was a sensation and one of the most interesting developments in the industry for years.”
Ressence’s core collection watches display the time via a series of rotating discs that sit underneath a dome-like crystal filled with oil, making them look more like screens than conventional watches.
Newson’s first move into watches was with Ikepod, a cult watch brand known for its conceptual designs. He stepped away from the brand over a decade ago after financial difficulties left it bankrupt. It was relaunched in 2017 by the entrepreneur Christian-Louis Col, and now operates at the more accessible end of the luxury watch market.
“I look back on the Ikepod days fondly, in terms of the work, but it was a bittersweet exercise because of what happened to the company,“said Newson. ”Had it been my principle focus, things may have been a little different.”
He said working with Ressence, whose watches he said followed similar design principles to Ikepod, had reawakened his appetite for high-end watch design. “It was kind of an itch,” he said.
After Ikepod and while still acting as creative director for Qantas Airways, Newson was invited by Ive to work on Apple Watch and joined the US tech giant as designer for special projects. Since it was introduced in 2015, the Apple Watch and the smartwatch category have decimated entry-level Swiss watchmaking. Over the past decade, volumes of watches with an export value of under 500 Swiss francs – roughly half the typical retail price – have almost halved, with 8 million fewer units exported last year compared to 2015.
“The demise of the watch industry was somewhat inevitable,” said Newson. “I remember when we began working on the Apple Watch, a surprising number of people couldn’t tell the time [on an analogue watch]. Kids were not wearing watches and there are a couple of generations of people who, had it not been for the Apple Watch, their wrists would have been empty. The success of the Apple Watch is staggering. I never imagined it would be so profound.”
Even so, Newson described the mechanical watch industry as being “absolutely fine”. While Swiss watch export volumes have slumped, revenues reached record levels in the aftermath of the pandemic, only slowing last year as global consumer appetite for hard luxury cooled. “Apple Watch has permeated the world,” said Newson. “And we know the world of mechanical watches is intact.”
Newson said the luxury watch industry needed to broaden its design horizons. “You get a real sense that a lot of these people, although technically brilliant, are isolated,” he said of traditional watchmakers. “The opportunities to be exposed to design culture exist more than ever and you can’t not be aware of everything that’s happening. Yet somehow, particular industries are very myopic in the way they approach their problems.”
Ressence, he said, was an exception to the rule: “There always has been a difference between the world of design in general and watch design. They’ve always lived in a different space. Ressence is one of the only brands that has successfully lived in both worlds. Some of the younger designers need to be more adventurous. Some are, but I don’t see them striking a chord outside the industry.”
The collaboration began 18 months ago. Both Newson and Mintiens said the process behind the TYPE 3 Marc Newson had been effortless and efficient.
The bulbous 45mm watch retains Ressence cues, including the rotating discs and oil-filled dome, combining them with Newson signatures, such as a streamlined, elliptical case shape and a yellow and grey colourway he described as a “a favourite” from his Ikepod days.
“It felt like it was meant to be,” said Newson, adding that the design had arrived in his mind formed “in its entirety” once the collaboration had been signed off. “It was a bolt of lightening,” he added. ”It was like it existed before and just need pulling into the world.”
The Ressence TYPE 3 Marc Newson will cost 46,000 Swiss francs ($59,800). “I’m accused of designing things which end up being very expensive, but unfortunately when you manufacture things in Europe, they tend to cost a lot of money,” said Newson. “But designing things that won’t end up in landfill is really important.”
Now 62, Newson said he wanted to return to watch design and that he hoped to do further collaborations with Ressence. He hinted at another watch project currently in the pipeline, and said that next year, he would reveal an as-yet-unannounced automotive project. “I want to work on projects that touch a part of you you can’t explain,” he said.