Breitling Rewind: Repair as a Heritage Business Model
Irresistible Circular Business
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Show Notes
Can the value of a product increase over time instead of declining?
In this episode, Aurelia Figueroa, Chief Sustainability Officer, and Gianfranco Gentile, Global Head of Heritage at Breitling, discuss how heritage, repair, and brand identity interact to create a circular model where product value appreciates over decades. The episode is co-hosted by Karel J. Golta, Executive Director at Indeed Innovation.
What you'll hear in this episode: -How Breitling's Rewind program sources, restores, certifies, and resells vintage watches, and why the company treats it as a cultural mechanism that reinforces demand for current production -How Breitling frames circularity as a driver of value creation -How valuing heritage and product longevity can become business assets
This is the fifth episode in the series Irresistible Circular Business, sponsored by Indeed Innovation, the global design and innovation firm pioneering the circular economy. The series showcases business practices that deliver irresistible commercial and circular results, with examples from different industries across different R-strategies.
People Aurelia Figueroa, Chief Sustainability Officer https://www.linkedin.com/in/aurelia-rochelle-figueroa/
Gianfranco Gentile, Global Head of Heritage at Breitling https://www.linkedin.com/in/gianfranco-g-m-gentile-275805b/
Karel J. Golta, Executive Director at Indeed Innovation https://www.linkedin.com/in/karelgolta/
Patrick Hypscher, Circular Business Strategist, PaaS Expert https://www.linkedin.com/in/hypscher/
Chapters 00:00 Introduction 05:32 Circularity in the Watch Industry 09:30 The Role of Heritage and Product Lifetime 10:13 Appreciating Assets: Examples from Breitling's Icons 14:30 Circularity and Joy Within Breitling's Processes 18:05 The Rewind Vintage Program 21:28 Sourcing and Restoring Heritage Watches 23:18 Combining Storytelling with Sustainability 27:29 What Makes the Business Side of Circularity Irresistible 31:06 Heritage and Rewind as Brand DNA 36:45 Irresistibility and Takeaways 44:23 Outro
About Breitling is a Swiss watchmaker founded in 1884 and headquartered in Switzerland. Active in the luxury goods and jewelry industry, the company is known for its technical watches and chronographs, especially designs linked to aviation, land and sea.
On circularity, Breitling frames its strategy as “sustainable luxury,” structured around the pillars Product, Planet, People, Process and Prosperity. Its circular-focused actions include using recycled and responsibly sourced materials where possible, reducing waste and plastics in packaging and operations, and treating long-lasting, repairable watches and heritage-oriented collections as a core sustainability lever by designing products to be maintained, serviced and kept in use.
Further Links ReCommerce Playbook: https://www.indeed-innovation.com/the-recommerce-playbook-from-returns-to-revenue/ One-page Summary Sign-up for the Circularity.fm Newsletter and get a summary with the take-aways of this episode. Register here: https://circularity.fm/episode/breitling-rewind-repair-as-a-heritage-business-model/