Olympics-related Omega boutique store opens in Vancouver
Friday, December 4th, 2009 | 7:00 pm
Canwest News Service
Canada's first Omega boutique store officially opened Friday in the lobby of the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver, a four-month Olympic retail venture expected to generate millions of dollars in timepiece sales.
The 500-square-foot Omega Olympic boutique features watches costing as little as $2,000 or as much as $400,000, but Omega brand president Gregory Swift expects the "heart" of the collection will be in the $5,000-to-$10,000 range.
"Based on our experiences at the Torino and Beijing Games, this is certainly a revenue exercise [and not just a marketing exercise]," he said of the Olympic store concept. "It will be the only place to see some of our high-end limited pieces and we expect [sales] per square foot to be one of the top in the world for the time of the Olympics."
The official 2010 Olympic timekeeper has 75 flagship boutique stores throughout the world but none in Canada until now. Its only other North American boutiques are in New York, Beverly Hills and Mexico City.
The new Vancouver store,which closes at the end of March 2010, will maintain a multilingual staff of about six people before the Olympics and then double its staffing levels during the Games. An Omega watchmaker will be on site at all times, with a fully outfitted bench that allows visitors to watch them do their detailed, precision work.
The store will sell limited-edition Vancouver 2010 watches, along with a wide assortment of exclusive timepieces like a $105,000 gold pocket watch that replicates a 1932 design and timing movement.
Swift said a diamond-studded Omega Tourbillon watch in a platinum case will cost about $400,000. A tourbillon timing movement counters the effects of gravity by mounting the escapement and balance wheel in a rotating cage; it can take a watchmaker up to nine months to assemble one.
It took builders about a month to construct the temporary store, Swift said, noting the back portion of the boutique never touches the existing wall of the historic hotel.
The 2010 Games will be Omega's 24th Olympiad as official timekeeper and the Swiss company will have at least 250 timekeepers at Olympic venues, along with a large contingent of workers from its European and North American offices. Omega will use the Hotel Vancouver as its city headquarters during the Games, taking a large block of rooms there and leasing the entire 14th floor for Olympic hospitality. It expects to host about 260 corporate guests during the Games.
The company plans to bring at least three or four international celebrity "ambassadors" to Vancouver during the Games. No names have been announced, but its current roster of ambassadors includes George Clooney, Nicole Kidman, Cindy Crawford, Michael Phelps, Sergio Garcia and Michelle Wie.
http://www.kelowna.com/2009/12/04/olympics-related-omega-boutique-store-opens-in-vancouver/
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