Badollet is a venerable name in watches, going back over 350 years in France. Today, a maker of luxury watches headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland bears this name. There was a disruption in their trade during the French Revolution, and break in continuity of the Badollet as watchmakers from the 1920s to 2006, but the name has returned.
Tourbillions fabricated with exotic materials. Meteorite steel and extraterrestrial olivine (a green semi-precious stone) in the Stellaire, Chronographs with tourbillions, and restatements of watches from a century and a half ago. (Note that the Stellaire was the first Badollet sold in the U.S.) These watches definitely have potential. A Badollet representative refers to this as “Respecting the past and transcending it in order to offer genuinely innovative Instruments of Time.” They take the next step and create a vision of luxury and exclusivity, affiliating the watches with the Ishango Lodge.
The Ishango Lodge is a virtual environment catering to the watch owners’ every whim associated with the Badollet timepiece. Services questions, user instruction, and other support is managed through a website with styling inspired by the site of the first documented measure of time, in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The idea is to provide a degree of exclusive service, distinctive to Badollet, and inspired by the entire span of human time measurement.
This did cause me a little confusion at first. The concept of a luxury spa in DRC is… audacious. I suppose one way to keep a facility exclusive is to make it that hard to get to, but half the operating budget would be security. Caroline, a Badollet representative was very patient with me and clarified that this is a purely virtual environment.
With a very limited number of retailers worldwide, and only six in the U.S., even to see one of these watches is something of a priviledge. My travel and day job didn’t allow me to schedule a viewing, but I’m keeping an eye on the possibilities.
The watches are handsome, the service concept is stylish and inspired, the vision of support for owners is comprehensive. These sound like folks to keep an eye on.
And my special thanks to Caroline and Jay of Badollet, merci beaucoup pour votre assistance!
