14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this week, Swiss company DeWitt announced that, having acquired several locks of Emperor Napoleon's hair, it was to slice them up and include teeny tiny strands in about 400 watches. The company expects that these limited edition timepieces will sell for about $11,000 (€9,000) each.
The hair was bought at an auction held earlier this month by DeWitt CEO Viviane de Witt, who paid $36,900 (about €29,600) for it. This might sound like a whole lot of money to pay for a few locks, but given the watches' price tag, it's safe to say that this was one really smart business decision.
Are they even sure it's Napoleon's hair?
The thing about Napoleon is that, being the gifted military and political leader that he was, he was quite popular in France in his days, and especially between 1804 and 1814, when he ruled as Emperor.
Otherwise put, he had a pretty impressive fanbase in his heydays. Apparently, some of the people that looked up to him went as far as to hold on to locks of his hair. Admittedly, that's pretty creepy, but then again, it's not like we don't sell and buy famous people's hair in this day and age as well.
“Napoleon was already quite idolized while he was alive,” DeWitt CEO Viviane de Witt told the press in an interview. “When he got his hair cut people picked it up and kept it,” she went on to detail, as cited by The Local.
So, yes, the DeWitt company is sure that the hair it wants to put in its limited edition watches used to adorn Napoleon's head centuries ago. Mind you, these luxury watchmakers even have a certificate of authenticity to prove it.
“The hairs were certified on 25 November at the Meyrin Geneva Manufacture by the President of the Judicial Officers of Geneva, Maître Gérard Reymond,” the company explains in a statement issued this past November 27.
In case anyone was wondering, the locks acquired by the DeWitt company come from the private collection of His Royal Highness Prince Louis II of Monaco, the great-grandfather of His Royal Highness Prince Albert of Monaco. They were sold at an auction in Fontainebleau on November 16.
Putting Napoleon's DNA in watches
The trouble with these watches is that, mind-boggling price tag aside, the folks buying them will not be get to braid the locks, dye them or anything of the sorts. Thus, the watches will carry the hair in a sealed furnace coated with a special varnish and attached to an effigy of Napoleon right under the glass.
Besides, each watch will get a hair strand measuring just half a millimeter (that's 0.019 inches) in length. Still, the Swiss company does not expect this to be a problem. In fact, the whole point of this project is to offer people a sample of Napoleon's DNA and not his hair per se.
The limited edition watches are to be included in the company's two steel collections Glorious Knight and Academia Steel. Those ready and willing to splurge on one such limited edition timepiece need only visit or contact the company's manufacturing center in Meyrin, Switzerland.
Just for the record, it need be said that Jérôme de Witt, the founder of the DeWitt watch company in Geneva, is one of the direct descendants of Emperor Napoleon.
