Last summer, Tourneau, a watch retailer with 31 stores, was acquired by Bucherer, the Lucerne, Switzerland-based watchmaker and retailer founded in 1888. A transition then began for the brand, which has since been known as Tourneau Bucherer and is expected to part the rest of the way with the “Tourneau” name soon, according to coverage then provided online by JCK Magazine.
“It’s akin to giving up your maiden name,” Ira Melnitsky, CEO of Bucherer USA, told JCK. “But when people learn about Bucherer, and learn that it’s been around since 1888, and it’s still a family-owned business, which is very rare, it feels like a natural fit.… It gives us something new and great to talk about, the Swiss heritage of the brand, its Swiss expertise.”
The Tourneau stores, JCK reported, would begin to carry Bucherer watches and fine jewelry but would remain multi-brand retailers.
The ultimate destiny of Las Vegas’s Tourneau store, located in the Forum Shops at Caesars, is unknown for the moment. But one clue has revealed itself: permit paperwork was recently submitted to Clark County for work in unit F-05 at the Forum Shops with an estimated budget of $1.5 million. The project is referred to simply, and perhaps tellingly, as “Bucherer.”
No Bucherer or Caesars representative was immediately available for comment on Friday. The picture is perhaps complicated by the fact that the Tourneau store is currently located in unit F-07. There are any number of possible explanations for this small discrepancy, but one thing is clear: something big is happening with watches and jewelry at the Forum Shops.
