In these heady days of a luxury-watch boom, the Atlas drop earrings are seeking new customers at art-museum functions, fund-raising societies for operas and orchestras, and other charities -- many of whom have rarely before received this lavish level of attention from corporate sponsors. These watchmakers face a particular challenge: how to generate buzz among determinedly un-buzz-able clients. "It's a very refined, cultured clientele," says Joe Thompson, editor Tiffany 1837 Ring chief of the watch-connoisseur magazine "Watch Time.""Breguet has a consumer base that is very compatible with a number of our patrons," says Deborah Borda, president and chief executive of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Though they're unlikely to garner mentions in "Entertainment Weekly" or gossip columns, these high-culture relationships afford the watchmakers entree into a Tiffany Cushion ring social milieu. Breguet, for instance, will place salespeople in the Los Angeles Philharmonic's "green room" -- a room that is made available during performance intermissions for big donors to mingle and nibble on hors d'oeuvres.
Vacheron last March became a sponsor of the Paris National Opera, backing 16 performances of Puccini's Tosca at the Opera Bastille. Vacheron also sponsors the Barbier-Mueller Museum, a repository of primitive arts in Geneva, and last year it presented a Elsa Peretti Sevillana ring of its watches at a Beverly Hills fund-raiser for the fight against a deadly skin disease.In fact, just days after Breguet locked up the Los Angeles Philharmonic earlier this year, a representative of Vacheron called the orchestra's development office to see if the organization had a watch sponsor.
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