Soviet Watches Winning Hands-Down in Italy

In an era of high-tech electronic gadgets, the Soviet Union’s old-fashioned mechanical watches are conquering fashion-crazy Italy.

Genuine Soviet-made watches are selling in classy Italian jewelry shops as fast as the Soviets can produce them, and the rest of Europe and the United States are the next targets.

Less than 5 months after the first Cyrillic-inscribed “Made in the USSR” timepieces crossed the border, the Soviet watch industry has received the highest of accolades--thousands of fakes are appearing on the streets.

The Soviet Union has long been the world’s third-largest producer of clocks and watches--after Switzerland and the Far East--but until last fall, exports were confined to selling parts and movements to Western makers.

The chunky, 1950s-style wrist-watches, including five models previously made exclusively for the Red Army, are the most successful Soviet consumer products to reach the West under Mikhail Gorbachev’s new era of reform.

Status Symbol

Displayed in high-class Italian shops next to gold Rolexes and diamond-studded bracelets, the utilitarian Paketa and Red Army Boctok watches have become a sought-after status symbol.

“We have convinced jewelers who sell watches worth millions of lire (thousands of dollars) to display side by side these simple Soviet products which cost as little as 100,000 lire ($75),” said Orazio Occhipinti, who last fall clinched the European distribution contract for Paketa.

Occhipinti said that his entire stock of 40,000 Paketa watches was sold out in the 2 months before Christmas and that he that has no doubt that the 150,000 more he plans to import to Italy in 1989 will get a similar reception.

“They are an anti-status status symbol. . . . The Russians seem a bit astonished. They can’t quite understand why they’re in such demand,” Occhipinti said.

His Milan-base Mirabilia firm won the contract against competition from about 50 Italian companies keen to capitalize on the wave of “Gorby fever” sweeping Western Europe.

Eager for Hard Currency

Eager for hard currency, the Russians needed little persuasion to sell, and Italy, whose 6 million watch sales a year make it the third-largest consumer market in the world, was the ideal place for a test launch.

“Once a watch was simply a watch and something you bought for a lifetime. Now it’s a fashion accessory which also tells the time. Men change them like they do ties, and for women they’re like earrings,” said Occhipinti, whose teen-age daughter has a collection of “about 20” cheap and cheerful watches.

“Given the success, we could have asked twice the price, but we decided to market the Paketa as a fashion item aimed at the middle and upper classes,” he said.

Following a major Italian trade fair in Moscow last October, another Italian company, Time Trend, won a 5-year contract to handle the first ever commercial sales of the legendary Boctok wristwatch.

The five distinctive models, bearing the design of either a parachute, submarine or tank for the respective divisions, a plain red star for infantry and a special version for all commanders, are available in the Soviet Union only to the military, importers say.

On sale in Italy since late January for 280,000 lire ($210), they are being snapped up by collectors and the ordinary public despite minimal advertising.