Should Patek be petrified or Greubel Forsey frightened? Recent years have seen a rush of fashion brands into a market that values not just the design of a watch but the works, with the quality of mechanical movement as desirable as a handsome dial. Montblanc, Dior and Chanel have established themselves in this arena over the past decade and last year saw Hackett and Zegna both unveil their first limited-edition watch lines, both of which sold out. This year sees the global roll-out of Ralph Lauren Timepieces and the first piece from Bottega Veneta.

Such launches might help arrest decline; while sales of watches and jewellery from 2005-09 saw a 12.8% increase to €14.1bn, that amounts to a 0.3% drop in share of the total luxury goods market, according to Mintel. But they certainly represent a quantum leap in quality from the high- margin quartz models with which fashion brands from Emporio Armani to Gucci, DKNY and most recently Versace have become associated. And this has come largely thanks to the establishment of close working relationships with prestige watchmakers. Ralph Lauren’s watches are made by a company jointly owned with luxury goods group Richemont, which is able to supply mechanisms by its top-flight watch brands: the likes of Piaget, IWC and Jaeger-LeCoultre. The mechanisms of both Zegna’s and Bottega Veneta’s new BVX model are made by Girard-Perregaux. Hackett has teamed up with TAG Heuer and the two are planning a second collection of watches for launch next year. “We’d never entertain the idea of making a watch alone precisely because there’s no credibility in it – it would be like TAG Heuer trying to make grey flannel suits. Nobody would believe in it,” says Hackett’s Jeremy Hackett.

Not that customers would necessarily know that mechanisms have moved on: a lack of co-branding (Hackett/TAG Heuer excepted) or explanation through advertising means the onus lies with retail staff to convey this gearing up in standards. And not everyone is convinced that the fashion and watch markets will overlap. Alastair Laidlaw, of online retailer Jura Watches, says the recent proliferation is prompted by “the China effect” – the need to capitalise on growing demand for Western luxury/designer brands in Asia – and expectations of luxury-goods consumers that every quality aspect of the products they purchase from such a brand stands up to scrutiny.

“The watch has to carry the DNA of the brand and such huge brands can leverage their names and market position,” he says. “Such watches will undoubtedly appeal to their customers. But it’s hard to say whether, for enthusiasts, they can match the heritage of brands that have been in the market for generations, or even much newer brands that offer true innovation. Most sales of these fashion- brand watches will be to consumers who already have several watches from the big-name watch brands.”

Drawing such customers in is one reason why the new top-flight designer lines are keen to create their own benchmark pieces with longevity and collectibility. For Chanel it is the J12, for Hermès the rectangular Cape Cod, for Ralph Lauren the Stirrup. “Having an iconic product with a new launch is very important,” says Guy Chatillon, CEO of Ralph Lauren Watch and Jewellery. “You need a product that is immediately recognisable. This is our attempt at it. Every watch brand hopes to have a design become an icon and not many achieve it.”

Yet it may take more than that. While some brands will have good business with their established customer base, others will never find recognition with aficionados, reckons Luc Perramond, CEO of La Montre Hermès, which now owns its own Swiss manufacturer – the first time the company has made any of its products outside of France – and which saw watch sales jump 23% over 2010. “The image remains that fashion brands make fashion watches,” he says. “And some fashion brands are so strong in their own field, that image will be hard to shake.

I think you need to be able to show a mastery in some other artisan craft before a move into the craft of watchmaking can feel like a believable one.”

Perhaps, however, the time is right. With the recession seeing more of the big names in watches retrenching in classic styles, fashion brands could potentially use their design skills to offer the market more interesting models. That is why Justin O'Shea, buyer for luxury fashion online retailer Mytheresa, has bought into the women’s watch line from Balenciaga launched this season.“We’ve avoided buying watches from fashion brands precisely because they have tended not to be ‘the real thing’ – they were not craft-oriented enough to compete with watches from the traditional brands,” he says. “But they appear to be making more effort to create the kind of distinctive, contemporary aesthetics that the better- known, serious watch brands don’t.”

Indeed, Hamdi Chatti, the managing director of Louis Vuitton’s watch business – which recently opened new, dedicated premises in the Swiss watchmaking heartlands of La Chaux-de-Fonds – says this will be essential to their being accepted, over time, by watch enthusiasts. He suggests this has been the case with its Tambour Spin Time model, which displays the hour by rotation over 24 hours of numbered cubes mounted on shafts. “If you have two centuries of watchmaking, that is the kind of heritage a brand can play with,” he says. “If you don’t, you need to come up with a new way of telling the time. Something genuinely new.”