"You only desire what you cannot get," says Jean-Claude Biver who is the saviour of several Swiss watchmakers. "People want exclusivity, so you must always keep the customer hungry and frustrated. At the best of times, he freely admits, it is hard to justify spending $100,000 on a watch. But the fact that they keep time well, he hopes, will continue to serve as the "little bit of rationality that lets you sell the irrational."
