The Jeweller Spring 2022: Sternglas – The One to Watch
01 Mar 2022
Based in Hamburg, Germany, Sternglas is fast becoming the timepiece name to reckon with. We learn how one man’s passion became a watch market winner.
In 2007, when he was just 16, Dustin Fontaine landed himself a student job with the high-end German watch manufacturer MeisterSinger. Until that moment, he had no real interest in watches and certainly no close connection with them. The experience, however, was to change his life. Almost immediately, he developed a passion for timepieces, a passion that took him from one-man-band entrepreneur to head of a Europe-wide business employing 20-plus people.
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That early love for the high-end watches Fontaine was working with sparked a particular ambition. These watches were wonderful... but expensive. Was it not possible to make a watch with a similarly clean design but was affordable? In 2016, he opted to crowdfund and received encouraging support on Facebook for his idea and so produced his first watch. It was a case of trial and error – problems with the glass led to lots of early failures and redesigns. Persistence eventually paid off.
Although the initial thought was to produce just one watch – forming a company was never part of the plan – the following year, he tried crowdfunding again and this time was able to create a collection. This time he used sapphire glass for each watch... a practice that continues today, along with quick-release, no-tools-needed straps as well as screw- back cases for each model where possible. Affordability, however, remains key to the Sternglas ethos, along with the minimal, clean lines.
By the end of 2018, the company was growing, but selling online only. Fontaine and his co-founder, Henning Haberkamp, decided that they needed to follow B2B channels in order to broaden their market and support brand awareness. Sternglas needed to be in jewellers’ windows. Sales reps were established and, within a year, there were 100 accounts in Germany. Then Covid struck... but not before the brand came to the attention of Hans Brandt of watch distributor TickTockDepot based in the UK.
“At the end of 2019, my father sent me a cutting from the local newspaper of my hometown, Hamburg – it was an article regarding the success of the Sternglas start-up,” Brandt explains. “Initially I was attracted to the simplicity of the designs. Then, at the start of 2020 I met the Sternglas management and team (a great young crew) and was convinced of the level of craftsmanship, as well as the reasonable prices (£139 to £399 at retail) of this largely unisex collection.
“I could see that it would make a perfect line extension for our UK distribution of German watches. Now we are covering the vintage, aviator and, with Sternglas, the timeless ‘form follows function’ sector,” he adds. He’s certain that the brand is perfect for the UK market: “the Scandinavian school (Hamburg is just one hour’s drive from the Danish border), combined with German impact, is a popular British lifestyle look,” he explains. “And the good price-performance ratio goes fantastically with the German name. It’s a winner.”
The timing for Brandt, as we now know, was not great. “It couldn’t have been worse – I started as an agent to promote the range a couple of days before the first lockdown,” he says. “However, we ended the year with a handful of new retail partners and a stunning turnover.” The other issue to deal with was Brexit. “In April 2021 TickTockDepot decided to invest in stock to become the Sternglas distributor to make the import and supply process safe and easy for our customers.” It was a good move. “The number of accounts is continually rising and sales are going up, whether online or high street,” he adds.
“The customer feedback is promising. They benefit from the exclusive limited editions that I could get my hands on for the UK contingent. Plus, Sternglas provides first class images and videos and stickers to use on social media.” Customers also appreciate the good-looking, high-quality window display material as well as the packaging – a contemporary style cube made from quality card. The manual for every watch is available by scanning the QR code that comes with the warranty card in the box.
While TickTockDepot welcomes multiples, their numbers are necessarily restricted by the current customer map.
“Our philosophy is to create a long-lasting partnership with independent, family-run jewellers; this way we can guarantee an exclusive sales area,” Brandt says. The partner profile also includes selected online dealers, “but to keep it fair and successful, we don’t want our partners to sell on third-party platforms,” he adds.
So, what in the Sternglas line-up is exciting Brandt right now? “Definitely the new diver’s watch. It still has the brand’s signature design quality...it’s the most Bauhaus-like diver’s watch on the market.”
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Source: The Jeweller