ArtyA has released new BYE BYE EURO for BASELWORLD2015.
You could be forgiven (especially in Europe) for thinking that 15.1.15. is an emergency number.
Not quite – but it is the fateful date on which the Swiss National Bank (SNB) abandoned its cap on the franc/euro exchange rate.
Until then, this had kept the rate at €1 = 1.20 Swiss francs and no less.
Now the wedding is over and the divorce has been pronounced. And to push the analogy still further,
the Swiss franc is behaving alarmingly like a new divorcee: it appears to be revelling in its newfound ‘single’ monetary status,
and showing every sign of wanting to behave badly.
The Swiss economy may be trembling as a result, but some have chosen to see this turn of events as the seed of a unique watchmaking concept.
Indeed, ArtyA has weathered more than its fair share of crises, and this will be neither the first nor, doubtless, the last.
The creative opportunity has not been lost on Yvan Arpa, ArtyA’s indomitable CEO and designer.
If this is the last the Swiss Franc is seeing of the euro, he’s determined to give it a send-off in style!
BASELWORLD2015 new watch Bye Bye Euro by ArtyA
ArtyA – Son of Art BYE BYE EURO
The Bye Bye Euro is a timepiece that uses actual euro banknotes.
Just like the late exchange rate, the bills are history now: worn out, cut into strips, and scattered apparently at random across the dial, as befits a crisis.
The 42 mm timepiece may cause a bit of a stir, but it tells the truth as well as the time.
You can see it as commemorating the end of an era, or as a sign that we’re at the start of a new one.
Wearing it is a way of seizing the moment rather than shying away from it.
We can either behave as victims of circumstances – or take hold of them to make sense out of things, adjust our course as necessary, bounce back, and get going again.
There’s no question about which road ArtyA prefers to take.