Consistency Vs. Variety In Watch Design (Rolex, Omega, and MB&F)¶
Published on Sun, 3 Jul 2022 12:00:00 +0000
Jack, Danny, and Cole join James to chat about how some watch brands never change and how others are all about change.
Synopsis¶
In this episode of Hodinkee Radio, host James Stacy convenes with Jack Forster, Cole Pennington, and Danny Milton to explore the tension between consistency and innovation in watch design. The conversation centers on how some brands—particularly Rolex—have built empires on remarkably stable, slowly-evolving designs, while others constantly chase novelty. Jack poses the core question: at what point does design consistency become boring rather than reassuring?
The panel examines Rolex's stoic approach, noting how their professional line has remained aesthetically similar for decades while making incremental technical improvements like ceramic bezels. They contrast this with Omega's dual strategy—maintaining the iconic Speedmaster virtually unchanged while proliferating countless variants and entirely different collections. The discussion touches on business realities: brands that don't need to generate excitement don't need dramatic changes, while others must innovate annually to survive trade show cycles and market pressures.
Drawing analogies to cars, music, and movies, the group explores how audience expectations differ between generalists and enthusiasts. They note that most successful watches don't require lengthy explanations—a Submariner, Speedmaster, or Royal Oak is instantly recognizable. The conversation covers Tudor's reinvention as distinct from Rolex, Cartier's century-long commitment to classic designs, and how brands like Zenith and Breitling have successfully evolved under new leadership. Ultimately, they conclude that there's no single correct approach: success depends on understanding your audience, maintaining core identity while allowing appropriate evolution, and recognizing that not every brand needs—or should want—to be the biggest player in the market.
Links¶
Transcript¶
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| James Stacy | This episode of Hodinky Radio is proudly brought to you by Hodinky Insurance. It's the fastest, easiest way to insure the watches you love. Get your quote now at Hodinky.com/slash insurance. Hey, it's me, James Stacy, and for this episode of Hodinky Radio, I've collected Jack, Cole, and Danny to chat about consistency versus variety in watch design. It's a chat about when classic design becomes boring or stale, why some brands take chances and others barely change at all, what it means to evolve an iconic design, and which side of the fence each of us lands when it comes to our own risk. So kick back and enjoy a break from the hustle and bustle of life because this is watches and things move pretty slowly. All right, Jack, Cole, Danny, welcome back to the show. It's been a little while since we've had kind of a hostful episode, if you will, and we're here to chat about the way that watch design really has kind of favored the not bold, typically speaking. This is a topic that that Jack offered up to me a couple of days ago, and I love that because it immediately removes work from my plate. So I leaned into it and we have a a a a note a note file full of very esoteric comments from myself and and the uh collective panelists for today's episode. So Jack, why don't you kind of fill people in on on what you were thinking when this topic kind of hit your dome? Ye |
| Jack Forster | ah, sure. Um I'm not ex I don't remember now exactly what the um you know train of thought was that pulled into the station of this particular subject, but um I've been thinking a lot about uh lately about watch design and about um how, you know, as you say, uh fortune favors the knotbold a lot of the time. Uh the most beloved watches tend to be, or a lot of the time tend to be watches which are have very consistent design that doesn't vary much sometimes over over over over decades. And at what point, I I guess the question was at what point does consistency start to become um boring and start to become a cover for um lack of innovation and um |
| James Stacy | you know just lack of sort of creative imagination. Yep. I think that's an interesting one. And what we've both kind of skirted around even just for the first two minutes of this is the Rolex design language, especially within the guise of the professional series. This is a uh probably the most influential and yet the most kind of stoic, slow-moving, uh often not evolving aesthetic in the watch world, but it's informed so many other watches. There's uh I mean, even though Rolex makes something like a million watches a year, how many watches that look like Rolexes come out every year? You know, millions and millions and millions and millions, right? What what do you guys think? Is this is this boring that they changed so little or is this core to what has made them so impactful in the in in in an already slow moving industry? I mean I would say that the answer to that is yes. Wh |
| Jack Forster | ich way? Yes, which way? Well, I mean, um is it boring? Is it boring to uh have a years long waiting list for just about every watch you make? Um is it boring to make um untold billions of dollars with uh you know hewing to a very basic formula of uh high quality and uh consistency in performance i mean maybe. You know, I mean there are there are lots and lots of industries that make a lot of money but that are not are not particularly exciting. I mean, uh you can become a billionaire if you design a um a cardboard box that can be made for two cents less than your comp than your competitor's cardboard box, right? Right. So um it it it might be boring, but there's very little incentive for Rolex to change uh the way they operate and a lot of incentive for them uh you know to continue operating the way they operate. And I mean Rolex used to do a lot more kind of I wouldn't I mean, forget about things like the you know, the princes, which I I I mean I and the Cellinis, which I miss. But you know, they did like ring watches in the past and uh you know, all sorts of other stuff. And, you know, it's we you pretty much know going in when you uh when you have a meeting with Rolex at a trade show. I mean you pretty much know going in what you're going to see basically. You know, there just aren't that many surprises. Rolex brand recognition and product recognition is the envy of just about every other luxury watch brand out there. So is it boring? It it's certainly not boring to own a Rolex. It's not boring to have one on your wrist. That's a good point. But no but but I don't think anybody would say that their design language is is exciting. And it I don't think I don't think that like a sense of um you know novelty and excitement is really what they're looking for at |
| James Stacy | all. Yeah you know the the interesting thing is you you know Cole I I always like to find a car analogy especially as early on as possible uh upset a few folks but like you look at something like Porsche their their best m performing you know they're they're kind of like what they're known for is a model that nearly killed the brand probably the better part of twice, right? And they still have to operate as a generalist, right? This isn't a car company and just like Rolex isn't watch company that can get by on a thousand units a year. And I think that's what works for Rolex because they they do the generalist so well. You can buy any of them and they all operate to the same level. They're all built really nicely. I mean, I shouldn't say you can buy any of them. Most people can buy none of them currently, but whatever you could get your hands on is a well-made watch that befits its reputation as a watch, but also they are the biggest brand, which means they're not they're not niche. They're very general, right? And that goes with a lot of a lot of other products, right? You go you know change Coke too much and people get really upset. Uh and and I think the same thing could be said for uh uh for watches |
| Danny Milton | . I mean I I was gonna just say, I mean, I feel like part of the reason that you would want to evolve or need to evolve drastically is you need a business reason to do so. And I don't think Rolex has a business reason to drastically evolve at all. I think the same goes for honestly what Apple does with the iPhone. I mean, every iPhone from the front looks pretty much the same as every other iPhone that's ever existed. And we're talking about maybe material differences to the rear, to the camera, but when you see an iPhone across the room, it's an iPhone, when you see a Rolex across a room, it's a Rolex because within the Oyster line there's basically two case profiles and they don't change them at all. Maybe they they tweak 'em the same way that to your car analogy a, BMW might tweak the way that their cars look, but again, like you need to be able to keep that DNA. And I think there's a lot of watch brands that for business reasons are making watches that have to change because they need to mix it up. They need to generate excitement. And if you don't need to generate excitement, you don't need to change. Here here's a a thought for you all. |
| Cole Pennington | Um Yes, you're right. Kind of stoic design and so forth, but who else is doing ceramics at the level that that Rolex is? Who else? I mean they even I think it this came from Jack, so but correct me if I'm wrong here, but I remember hearing that they didn't even really need to file a patent on the green crystal because it was just simply impossible to produce for for anyone else. And again, material sciences and engineering are distinct from design per se. But to say that it's kind of like slow moving, it's over the boring, I think it's fascinating. Like the ceramic with platinum inlays. And also like when you take a UV light and you shine it on the the GMT bezel, right? It's all red. It's not just blue and red. So these little things, I don't know. I kind of think that's exciting. Knowing about the material science and the engineering is perhaps exciting enough for me that I don't have to ask for dras |
| Danny Milton | tic design changes. I think you're right. I mean you're talking about a guy who got excited about the the slight case change to the air king this year. You know, like it basically to to me. Oh it's here. Mr. Guy who gets excited about a Rolex Air King. No, but I mean I I think it's the audience did you use the word revolutionary? I might have used the word revolutionary in my article. We'll have to go back and and check it. But I think Cole it's it's like who's the audience? Like of course like I'm with you. You change a bezel from aluminum to ceramic and I'm gonna get psych But to James point about who's a generalist and who's an enthusiast, I think at at its core, a submariner from thirty feet, whether it has a ceramic bezel or an aluminum bezel, is the same submariner. And I think that's what |
| Jack Forster | Yeah, I don't I don't think boring is necessarily the right word. There's a technical change. Right. And I mean, you know, a ceramic bezel is a is uh you know better than an aluminum bezel. It avoids um you know a situation where you have two different metals uh you know sitting next to each other in a potentially corrosive environment like seawater. Um it's uh it doesn't fade, it's much more stable over time. I mean it's uh it's a better material all around. Um, you know, and that's basically the reason that Rolex changes things is because they've decided to change something technically, not because they've decided to change something just for um, you know, design reas |
| James Stacy | ons yeah i mean i i think it depends on the era of rolex we're looking at as well i think that uh role roleux of the last twenty years has been at least to my mind about as stoic as the brand's ever been they move pretty slowly. Everything is focused on like what makes the best possible watch? Not the best possible watch for the current trend. Not the best possible watch for the next six months, the last six months of taste. But then if you look back, you know, the uh the y the examples that jump to mind is, you know, that sometimes they do things for short term out of interest, like colorful dial OPs. And sometimes they do things for short term because it doesn't fit Rolex. And and and I'm I'm saying this, they've certainly never said this to me, but you go back to nineteen seventy one with the sixteen fifty five and you had a professional Rolex that didn't look like a professional Rolex, right? It kind of stuck out. And then what did they do when the next version came out? They unified that design. They took a little risk. They took a they made something that I think stands out as being quite a strange, wonderful sort of reference from their history. And the next one, you know, bless their hearts for starting to offer a white dial, but the next one went back to a very Rolexy sort of vibe. And and don't get me wrong, there's stuff outside of of all of these examples and and stuff where they've made minor tweaks. Obviously, you know, we're ten minutes in and and people are gonna be saying like all you guys are talking about is Rolex, but I think like Rolex is the number one example of this. So, like a brand that's been able to have both generalist and enthusiast success, especially with enthusiasts in the last 20 years, highly collectible, uh, etc. Um, but being able to do both without one becoming the extreme detriment of the other. Right? Like uh if you know if you wanted if you wanted to make something uh very tied to an era, that might give you short term success. Whereas it kind of feels like Rolex is saying, well, what's gonna work in a hundred years? Ceramic bezels. All right, we're going with ceramic. |
| Jack Forster | Well, you know, it's uh uh it's it's interesting uh that quite a lot of brands don't actually have that broad a design language. Um, and what they do is they create sort of endless iterations on what's essentially the same basically the same design. So, you know, AP has done this with the Royal Oak, you know, for example. Um, and the the similarity between basic Royal Oak models is extremely high. And unless you I mean for I think for the average person it would be very difficult to tell, you know, a 14,000 series uh mid-size um Royal Oak from you know a 15202. But you know, I think about comp and and uh you blow for instance. I mean, you know, the big the basic big bang design is is is it's always there and it doesn't change very much. I mean those key elements are are always there. But they have rung so many changes on on the basic design and we'll probably continue to do that. And that is, you know, that's that's sort of the opposite strategy to the one that Rolex employs. This is one that's based on the appeal of novelty. And uh and it's a business model that absolutely requires you to come up with something that looks um new and different every year. W |
| Cole Pennington | hat if we didn't have to do that? I wonder. That's what I always wonder. Like what if a watch brand like if we didn't have the novelty cycle? Yeah, exactly. Like if they could just produce a design in perpetuity. Like kinda actually to be honest, this already happens. It's the Speedmaster. That's exactly it, right? Yeah. They just keep producing it year after year without really changing it |
| Danny Milton | every year. Yeah. Is there I mean, Jack, you could you could answer this question, I think. I mean, is the reason that they that didn't hap becausepen at least up until the latest iteration it was still standard issue for NASA? I mean if they're not if they're still gonna produce that watch to spec, does it make sense to also produce that watch commercially? |
| Jack Forster | I think that that has a lot to do with it. I mean um if you want to sell a watch based on the fact that it is uh qualified for man space for crude space flight if it's qualified for crude space flight and um you want to you know kind of connect to the narrative about the Apollo era. Well, you don't you don't change the design language. You can be additive, which is what they've done. I mean there have been um God. Is there a number large enough to express how many Speedmaster variants are. I wish there were more limited editions from from Omega |
| James Stacy | . You wish there were more limited editions. I really do. Don't don't we all. Don't we all? It's a funny brand to consider because the the the the Speedmaster is, like Cole said, like it's almost identical to where they started now. And and really like if you go back to what the what was the the the 1450022 of the nineties is basically aesthetically identical to the watch that they make today. They've made some technical changes. Maybe the bracelets have been tweaked a bit. Maybe they changed a material here or there. But from the same company, we got a lot of wild stuff, right? And it dig your speedies, uh speedies in every possible color, speedies that have uh uh rocket ships on the dial and Snoopy on the dial and uh uh planets on the dial and Snoopies that are speedies that are made out of uh a plastic of of some sort. And then you get into flight masters, ploprofs, dive watches with skeleton hands, like the bark two. Central Central Turbillons. Central Turbions. It's it's a wild company. Now we're talking about the number the one and two largest companies and an entirely different approach. The Speedmaster is very Rolex in its in its general in its generalness. But then as soon as you zoom out, you realize, oh wait, just because they preserved the thread of the 3570 or or the the O four five or whatever, but then it branches off in every direction, whereas a Samarna has only a few branches, a GMT master only a few branches, right? Right. I mean, um I I think it |
| Jack Forster | I always think that it's important for a a company with any heritage um that's not almost entirely based on innovation and novelty to have at least a few models that do stay stable over time and give people a chance to sort of have a direct tangible connection with the past. And you know, for a lot of brands it's me you know, it's one maybe two models or they do a limited edition that's based on a design that they had from the you know the forties, fifties, sixties or what have you. Um and Rolex is kind of the only company I I can think of where that's kind of like their entire product strategy. I mean, you know, leaving aside a few exceptions. The whole novelty thing is really interesting. For most of the time that I was writing about that that I've been writing about watches for a living, you know, you you kind of built your gear around the SIHH and around Basel World. And there was a tremendous amount of pressure, this instance I I think it's less now because the trade show cycle's been broken a little bit, but there was a tremendous amount of pressure to just like you had to have something new and you had to have something new every year. And um, you know, the market was getting increasingly crowded, increasingly competitive, and um you ended up seeing stuff that was new just for the sake of having something new. And um, you know, I don't think that's going on quite as much as it used to, but you know, it still goes on. And like y I mean the the basic problem I think is that a one year product development cycle is not like that's not how good watches get made. Right. It takes five to ten years to uh design, um homologate, um, and uh you know thorough |
| James Stacy | ly test uh a new a new automatic movement. And then I I I would say automatic movement and and but then if we get back to the aesthetic side of it, like you also have to take some time to describe the product to the people who might buy it. 'Cause th don't get me wrong, there's always there's a few people definitely among the hodinky audience who just see something and they're in the position to be able to buy it and enjoy it and and it doesn't but like for most people not having to l have a lesson about what they're buying is kind of core to the comfort zone of buying something they believe in. And Danny, you you used BMW previously, and BMW went for like 50 years without messing with their formula. Yeah. And it's just now lighting that on fire. Yeah. They're uh, you know, very quickly learning that like if you if you make a big change, one that threatens the core, especially the enthusiast core. And and I'm sure an omega, I'm I'm sure everybody's ha learned this lesson one way or another, but you do have to you do have to make sure that whatever you make can be explained in in a fiscal s uh timeline to the people who might actually want to buy it, right? I wish they would make their kidney grills bigger. Oh big |
| Danny Milton | ger. Oh yeah. Well Yeah. The the thing about what separates a watch from a car, obviously, there's a lot of things, but one is that you wear it. And when you get a case design a certain way and it works and it looks good, there's really very little reason to mess with that. And when you when you do, we see things like, and I I love this watch off the wrist, just dislike it on my own wrist. The Speedmaster Mark II is a good example. And I think another example is um whatever the prototype that the Tudor P01 was based off of. It's like watch brands endeavoring to make a different version of an object that works. I guess in one case it's either a tutor submariner, and then the other case a speedmaster. And look what you end up with. It's a very interesting product. However, it's messing with a good thing for the sake of trying to innovate, and it doesn't always work. It's really a difficult, difficult thing, especially for a watch |
| James Stacy | . Okay, it's time for our ad break. And anyone who has ever bought themselves a nice watch and then tried to add it to an insurance policy will know just how big a hassle it can be to get your watch insured. You need receipts, an appraisal, a pile of photos, and lots of patience just to get your watch properly protected. Frankly, it sucks. So we decided to make something better. Hodinky Insurance is the fastest, easiest way to insure the watches you love. Get your quote now at hodinky.com/slash insurance. Yeah, I I think the other thing to consider is sometimes the the people behind the product they change, right? Uh the company changes hands, the the people in charge change hands, or that you've got a new leader. And and look look at that how many times that's been good for various brands. Look what look what Zenith, the arc Zenith's been on. Yeah. Under a leadership change from several years ago. Look at where Brightling's come in the last five to six years, right? Like I think it can be a great thing to have that change up as long as the the new folks, the new whether it's a leader thing or or a group of people still understand what the core necessarily is. Because again, we're we're naming big brands. Brightling was like fourth or fifth brand. Right. The last time I saw the like COSC production numbers and that sort of thing. And that's a brand that that I think has has struggled with evolving their lineage to be of the moment and then to now reflect their past again. And and But the the other one, and and we we can we can depart from the car analogies, but like you know, you think of your favorite band, right? Do you like every album? Do you like every era? Right? You you think about the different phases of a band like Pink Floyd, a band I like quite a bit, or uh or you know, I I I remember uh loving in through university like Coldplay, and then they kind of changed their whole scene from one album to another. They went from a band I kind of recognized to a band that was at the Super Bowl. And and that's fine. Do you like I got old, right? Or they got old. I don't know. Or or both. I remember you you want another great example? Think like Green Day. Green Day's been like four bands in the course of their time, and each one had |
| Danny Milton | a different audience. I like this analogy a lot because it also reminds me of the movie analogy. Like as a huge Star Wars nerd, I love the original trilogy and maybe some other ones, but everything that's sort of happened in the last 10 years, I'm kind of out on for various reasons. However, what's what's different again is I still have those movies, for example. They live on. The your favorite album lives on. What I think is interesting about what why I appreciate some brands not changing is the ability to keep something that lives on in the same mold as the original album, still being there, so that new customers can still buy it. Because I would it the unfortunate thing with watches, especially, you know, we're not gonna get into market stuff, but once a model gets discontinued, no matter how popular the brand is, the price becomes that much more unattainable. You know, that could spike, |
| James Stacy | yeah. Sometimes a huge spike. Right. But I do I do see exactly what you mean in the Speedmaster. Right? The fact that that they they they relatively held a fair price point along with everything else that was going on in the market. There were no giant jumps. Right. I mean, and then you have to do keep in mind that like Omega themselves did make a jump giant market when they went to Coaxial. They stepped up a level, right? And Rolex had progressively stepped up a level in terms of pricing and all that kind of changes your audience a little bit. And I think it's fascinating to consider the like it it's it's's easy to sit back as an audience or as somebody in in our case which uh certainly part of the watch audience and and s say that it's oh it's about what this brand does or that brand or this brand but a lot of it can come down to like timing and how it hits the audience. It's not always a right or a wrong. Sometimes this decisions just have to be made. But like it is crazy. Imagine a brand that wasn't omega having a speedy and then also having a dark side of the moon and then within a couple years a fully white ceramic on white leather dark side of the moon. Like that's a real stretch for a watch that is I mean, in contrast very similar. You |
| Jack Forster | know, I keep going back to uh um the whole idea of not having to explain a product to consumers. Um I was talking to somebody else on the team uh earlier today about you know sort of the evolution of American watch culture and um the the I mean what gr the great thing about a speed master is that uh you know at this point it doesn't really require an explanation. The great thing about a submariner is it doesn't require an explanation. The great thing about a royal oak is it doesn't require an explanation. You know, I mean um you you look at it and you know immediately what you are in the presence of. And um I mean, I love complicated watches, but I mean a lot of them require a lot of explanation, you know, and it's just not something that it's it's uh something that works for a small a relatively small number of watches that are addressed to a relatively small number of people. But if you're if you're really trying to have a business, um you need something that uh uh doesn't necessarily have to have a lot of backstory behind it. And um I think that that's something that a lot of brands struggle with. You know, I mean it's really easy to sort of talk yourself into thinking that something makes sense internally. I mean you've been working on a project uh uh say you're working on a design project five years, six years, seven years, and I mean it becomes second nature to everybody internally, but it just doesn't make any sense at all to consumers when you introduce it. And it's really I think it's really easy for that divide to kind of come up. I mean, code 1159 was a launch platform for, you know, half a dozen new movements. There was a lot of stuff really interesting going on there from a technical standpoint. And that I think that it's it it was something that made obviously a tremendous amount of sense to AP internally, but it was jarring for the audience because they hadn't, you know, they hadn't been inside AP for six years, you know, five years, six years, seven years while those products were being developed. You know, they just they saw the end result. And then what they didn't see was the um the seemingly logical pathway by which AP had arrived at that des |
| James Stacy | ign. Yeah, and I mean it that I think that's one that required a lot of explanation, right? As the brand was hitting its most general market. You know, peop people were finding AP because of what a basketball player wore, not because of what uh Hodinky wrote about it. Right. And those people, their their excuse to buy a watch, and and I don't mean this in any way as a denigration. I mean it as a championship of marketing, is this watch went to the moon. The moon. Right. Wait, I don't know of any other watches that went to the moon, right? This is this is the most famous dive watch, right? This is the this is the blank, right? Whereas I think I think that people who listen to this podcast, people who read the site, people who end up working in the on the editori edit side of the watch industry, we like the long explanation, the minutia. But that doesn't fit in a in an ad about how you don't own the watch, you just pass it on to the next generation. It doesn't fit it doesn't fit in an ad where it's uh uh Leonardo DiCaprio in in incorrectly wearing your watch. R |
| Jack Forster | ight? Yeah, and I think that's a big part of the disc you know the disconnect that can sometimes happen between um you know the an enthusiast community, which is you know fundamentally what we're part of, and um you know a more general audience I mean people uh uh peep people love to say that they hate date windows so much that nobody even says it anymore. It's just become you know it's it's become |
| James Stacy | like it's become a cliche. Yeah and then you talk to a watch CEO and they're like we, have to put dates on them. Right. Are you crazy? Everyone wants a date. You're part of the four percent that doesn't. That' |
| Cole Pennington | s right. Could be even lower than that. Yeah. What uh what are some brands that don't seem to have that? Like who who like you said, Coldplay has been or Green Day has been a bunch of different brands. What what company has been a bunch of different companies to different watch enthusiasts? I can think of a few actually. Hit me. All start off with Zodiac has gone through a bunch of different iterations and have have kind of spoken to different people. Um Zenith for sure. Certina. |
| James Stacy | Timex. Timex. I think Timex. There's a wing of Timex that is really starting to realize that that, like, that is really started to realize that there's a core of people who know the name and and and something about their history, but don't want to buy uh an Indigla necessarily. They want they want something else that but then we but they do like the name. So again, there's a scenario where there's suddenly less explanation for watch that might have requi |
| Danny Milton | red more. I mean, I know we talked about Omega, but is it Omega? I mean, I see more like generalist watch buyers buying an Aquatera than any other Omega, you know, that is. Or a Seamaster. Or a C yeah, well, yeah, exactly. Or a C any any number of Seamasters, then what we would think most people are buying Speedmasters, but I see sort of the stuff that we generally as the enthusiast crowd are not necessarily into, you know, quote unquote, which I always find so interesting and it's probably the most interesting part of uh this watch hobby for me is what non enthusiasts gravitate toward |
| James Stacy | . I mean look at look at Seiko and Citizen, right? Yeah. Their their big models are not the ones that we're upset when they discontinue. Yeah. Tag hoy two different worlds. Tag hoyers look kind of like as well. Yeah. Yep. All right, well it was a good show guys. Um nice talking, y'all. Where do you guys land personally on the watches you buy? Do you want do you like that consistency and that's okay with you even, if it it means maybe's a watch you see a lot, whether you're on the subway or at a hangout or or doing a hodinky event or something, or do you like, do you like the variety? Do you like some of the the weirdness? Do you do you prefer spice or or you know, something a little bit more reserved in its flavor. |
| Cole Pennington | Much much like the brand's portfolio, my collection has a few uh, you know, icons, so to speak. And that kind of allows you this the space to go out and try something crazy. Like for me, it was the the Mad One red. Kind of something like kind of weird and crazy. Because I'm a Seiko and GMT guy. So I think for me personally, my my habits are dictated by okay, you have your steadfast core pieces that you can kind of, you know, the classic wear every day, go anywhere, do anything, watches. And because of that, because you know you have something great to come home to, it allows you the room to go say, all right, I'm gonna try this colorful dial sin or whatever, or uh some like Danny. I saw you were wearing the rowing blazer, Sika |
| Danny Milton | . That's kind of out there and weird. Yeah, that's probably like the the the sort of limits, the outer limits of my out there, I would say. It's it's good to explore a little, you know? Expl |
| James Stacy | ore your own. And I mean the the collaboration models b,oth, you know, we this is something that at a at a brand level for Hodinki, not us four, but that our colleagues have a lot of experience with, is doing these collaborations and in many ways that is like when two brands that you might not expect work together. We live in a time when, you know, Fleet Foxes did a song with Post Malone. Like it it that that that's a collab that that might might make something uh of an M B and F level uh you know kind of departure from the norm uh in in terms of the space. But yeah, I think it I think it's an interesting interesting sort of thing. Jack, where do you land on this? Because I like you I I know you to have some classics on your wrist, but also like you're a big G Shock guy and G Shock's really not afraid to mess with a format. |
| Jack Forster | Well okay. If we're talking about me personally, um my tastes are sort of all over the place these days. I mean, uh I have a really, really strong basic fundamental preference, I think, for um, you know, enduring classics. But you know, that said, you know, if a design is, I mean, I love MBNF, you know You. know, I remember that when Max launched launched HM1, uh, he came to New York with it. And um the very first time I met him, we had lunch together at the um Museum of Modern Art Cafe, which is kind of the perfect place to see HM1. And uh I looked at it and I thought to myself, what this guy's gonna go places, this is really, really amazing. I mean, there's there's always a chance that something, you know, can't work, but it was something really revolutionary. I'd never seen anything like it before. And I thought it was the coolest thing since sliced bread. And you know, with G Shock, they've been very imaginative about uh making what are basically uh stylistic changes uh in in in the in the guise of um you know technical diff differentiation I mean there's probably not a whole heck of a lot that you can do with a Mudman, for instance, that you can't do with just a basic, you know, uh tough solar. Exactly, exactly. Um but I mean uh I have I have both of those watches and um I'm proud to say. And I mean the Mudmaster is like hilariously fun to wear. You know, I I I put it on and I f I I feel like I'm like cosplaying. Um I I'm not quite sure, you know, cosplaying for what. Um but you know, it makes me feel much, much cooler than I actually am to put that watch on. And I mean I got a new watch for the first time in a long time a few weeks ago. It's a um citizen uh you know the ProMaster 300 meter EcoZilla. And I'm having I'm it's it's a monster of a watch. It's like strapping a tank turret onto your wrist. And I'm just having an absolute blast wearing it. Um they are hilarious. But she's so but you know, then that the but that's the model, right? Like uh you know, what what Max is doing makes sense for the kind of business that he wants and for the size business that he wants. And it's not a stri I mean, you know, coming out with something completely new, outrageous and over the top with a completely new movement, you know, every year or every um, you know, eighteen months. And building an entire business around that is not something that would work at all, you know, for uh for um a major sort of mass production industrial watch brand. But it it it's not that's not the that's not what they're after. And and you know, by the same |
| James Stacy | token, that's not what Max is after either. And you know, you you mentioned like mass industrial watch brand like a like a brand like a Rolex. It's interesting because we've seen a different strategy in the last twenty years, certainly with Tudor. Right. Right. A discontinuation of the of this idea that they play kind of not second fiddle, but as a a a more entry level option, same sort of case, same they they ended their submariner, right? Yeah. And they came back with something that arguably referenced the submariner, but in its own in its own way, and in a manner that I don't think we'll ever see from Rolex, right? This idea of uh neo-vintage and and uh uh pointing backwards at a reference, uh uh really leaning on the the sort of anomia of a watch versus uh uh the the uh the kind of absolute quality of the product that could be made at that time for a given price. Right. Uh it's interesting because these brands are so heavily linked that they do definitely today, but for a while now represent two entirely different strategies on how to find and speak to a general audience. Yeah, absolutely. I mean when Tudor uh |
| Jack Forster | relaunched in the United States. Uh it relaunched as a completely n I mean, in a lot of respects, completely different brand than the one that um you know, people remembered at least in this market. Uh and they like Rolex, for example, is never gonna do uh limited edition heritage models. I mean well, I mean we we saw uh a left-hand crown GMT master this year, so I guess never say never. But you know, Tutor can do Tutor can do and does do things that Rolex can't and or won't. And um I think it's smart of them to do that. I mean the audience is different um the the level of excitement that they need to create is different like you you go to tutor a lot of the time because they have come up come out come out with something new and something that you haven't seen from them before and that you know you're never going to see from Rolex. You go to Rolex because they haven't come out with something new. And it's more or less exactly the same watch that you saw last year and the year before and the year before and you wanted it last year and the year before and the year before. And you know you you you don't you don't want it to change all that much. You know, whereas the expectations with Tudor are completely different. So like for the purposes of this discussion, they're they're X th those two companies and and it's odd that they're Those are two companies that actually pursue on the one hand a strategy of uh incremental and sometimes zero change and on the other hand a strategy of uh const |
| James Stacy | ant innovation and design. Danny, what do you what do you think? What what's the relationship between design and innovation when it comes to watches? Are they are they tied together because you have to make a product that people will buy then to buy it they have to look at it? Or can it be uh dist |
| Danny Milton | inct? I think it's really a tough answer because as best as a watch brand can try to do, I think that their main goal is to make a lasting robust product, especially if we're talking about luxury watches. So to that end, when it comes to how you're manufacturing it, in whatever era you're doing it, you're using what you assume are what the best materials are at your disposal. Those things then inform how your design changes incrementally. So to Cole's point, when you get excited about a new ceramic bezel or a more, you know, robust or strong bracelet or a better clasp, it's because the ability has been made possible. However, that's going to change how something looks, but I think a brand has to try really hard, especially a Rolex, has to try hard to use those new techniques and yet still somehow preserve that look. Because if you really look at an old bracelet and new bracelet side by side, they look nothing alike. However, the hole still looks how it should look. The silhouette looks how it should look, even if you can tell it's a little bit more modern. And that's the kind of thing that I'm always for. I think that you should be able to tell what what era your watch is from, but I also still think that a brand should maintain a certain level of recognizability. I think that back to the cars for a second, I think that Porsche and Mercedes and BMW, they all maintain a certain aesthetic that I think other brands that are not necessarily luxury car brands don't necessarily have to do. I think that it's it behooves them to change more often. And that's the kind of watch uh stasis that I'm into is this sort of like material upgrade, but identity preservation? And I, you know, own vintage Rolex and I own Modern Rolex. I have spent a fair amount of time with modern speedmasters and vintage speedmasters. And I think that there's really a a talent to what these brands are doing to preserve what amount to iconic design. Aaron Powell And |
| James Stacy | I think in some ways it does speak to the fact that on a long enough time scale, all of this stuff changes, whether it's a watch or certainly when it comes to cars. I'm I'm sure there's definitely car brands that wish that laws had never been enacted for, you know, efficiency and passenger safety and uh pedestrian safety and the rest of this and Ferrari could just keep making a two fifty GTO forever. And I'm d I'm on board. They should be given some sort of special discompensation and and just m make the car you want to make. I let uh rules be damned. But uh the nice thing about watches is there's no safety laws. There's no emissions laws, there's no like a watch is meant for a wrist. Nothing more, nothing less, which means it fits in a drawer. Um I think that there's there's a lot of different uh did Danny just put in our chat bring back radium? Uh you know what? That that did slip my mind. Yeah, you're right. I guess that I guess we have seen some some generations, although at least in this case, you know, superluminos probably better on more fronts than just not uh, you know, causing some problems uh when it comes to radiation. But it is it is kind of a thing where this is arguably this a a space where you could make almost any change you want. And some brands have found success by making almost none. And and I don't want to be unfair to Rolex. Like Jack made this clear and I think it I think it's worth saying it's not that we think Rolex is necessarily boring. They're just kind of stoic and they're very focused on the performance. It's these little incremental changes that just just push the the product forward without changing the way it it explains itself to the audience. You know, the thing |
| Jack Forster | about Rolex is that I I'm going to talk more about Rolex. The thing about Rolex is that I can I I sometimes feel like I can't tell whether or not they are actually as completely deadpan serious as they seem to be, or if this isn't some amazingly successful decades-long straight faced troll. Like they're some sort of a uh a Kaufmanque-es. Yeah, I was actually thinking of the comedian Stephen Wright, you know, like one of one of my favorites, yes. Completely deadpan delivery, never cracks never never cracks a smile. And um I mean uh there's this weird sort of um undercart with Rolex that they know perfectly well how uh they have exaggerated classic Swiss conservative values really to the point of parity. So I think, and I honestly I think that they I think that they are actually as serious as they seem to be, but I also think that uh as a company they're um pretty self-aware and uh there's like this undercurrent of you know kind of like bizarro deadpan humor but I I sense sometimes from the company or maybe I'm just making it up because I've been doing this for too long and I'm I'm you know seeing things that aren't there. |
| Danny Milton | Jack I,'m actually surprised you did we did we we didn't touch on Cartier in this conversation because that's a brand that is absolutely sort of maintaining that |
| Jack Forster | kind of idea. That's a good point. Yeah, I mean um a lot of their most famous designs um, you know, came from the period nineteen seventeen to nineteen th you know, getting into the early nineteen thirties. And I mean one of the amazing th I mean, talk about a watch that's been uh uh copied over and over and over again. I mean, you know, the tank Louis Cartier has not changed since 1918. I mean it's you can if you know if you can find one for sale you can buy a tank Louis Cartier today and it's exactly the same watch that uh you know it's as Louis Cartier designed it and as it was first released in 1919 when they made exactly six of those six of the things the whole year. Um but yeah, that's another that's another great example. I mean they tried to do stuff that they had never done before with a fine watchmaking collection, and I love that stuff. But uh the truth is if they had been commercially successful, uh, they would still be around. And what Cartier is doing right now is pretty much what it's done, what what made it successful, you know, for a lot of its history, which is being very, very careful to make sure that everything that everything that they produce actually looks and feels like classic Carti |
| James Stacy | er. We've talked a lot about brands that have succeeded by being kind of slow in their in their progression of their aesthetic and and changing anything that that has been working. Who comes to mind, you know, we talked about MBNF. Who comes to mind for brands that that do change, that are open to it, that, that are trying new things that that kind of delight and still hit that enthusiast base in a way that that you find kind of kind of valuable. You know, there's a lot of micro brands in my mind. I mean I mean swatch |
| Danny Milton | . Sure. I don't know if this is an enthusiast, but r Roger Dubuis is a brand that has shifted dramatically from from like a massive huge change. They don't look anything like what they looked before. And I think that's yeah, there's nothing in the catalog |
| James Stacy | . Ming watches. Ming. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean Ming Ming, although like m maybe still in their first maybe still in their first album. Uh in some ways. You know, I I see, you know, I think I think there's a handful I I always I you know followed very closely uh the micro brand Halios for a long time and continue to. I own several of their watches and they've just kind of evolved to represent the taste of of a niche audience. Um, but it very quickly became one that a bigger audience connected to. Audience people, you know, people who didn't realize their history were were trying to snap up their watches and suddenly they got hard to buy and and the rest of it. And and I think it's it's kind of an interesting thing to see happen at all at all levels. Like you you could be up there with resins with MB and F and be doing or HYT and be doing something like genuinely sort of cutting edge on both the aesthetic and the technical side. But then you just you get stuff that kind of just breaks the mold but still really works at at at less expensive price points as well. |
| Jack Forster | Yeah, I think one of the most valuable things for any business, you know, watches or not, is to kind of have a sense of what what the appropriate size is for the business. I mean, not everything needs to be a big thing, you know? I mean uh the the the the reflex is to sort of look at the success of large scale companies like Omega and Rolex and say to yours you s you sort of say to yourself, gosh, you know, if I started a watch brand I would wanna I I too would like to sell a million watches a year and not pay any taxes and be based in Geneva, um you know, and all that jazz. But like the reality is like don't give away all the secrets. But the reality is like Max, you know, for instance, um that's not what Max wanted to do. And you know, a lot of pe a lot of the a lot of the s more successful smaller brands that we've seen over the last few years, the smaller independent startups like Ming, like Ming is not after a giant scale business. You know, I mean he's his his business is the size I mean I'm I'm sure that he wouldn't mind growth. I mean nobody nobody minds growth, but he's you know he's certainly not trying to become the next um uh you know uh up and coming brand that gets picked up by a conglomerate. You know, I mean I don't think that his I don't think he's the least bit interested in doing what happens a lot in the tech space, you know, where uh where a startup uh you know get get g goes goes through a couple of rounds of funding, gets picked up by investors. There's a b I think he just won I think Ming just wants to make Ming watches, you know |
| James Stacy | , which is kind of fantastic. Yeah, I I absolutely agree. Well, look, I think we're about out of time and if you want to dig in a little bit further on the idea that that there's a scale and a timing to a lot of this, uh jump back a couple episodes to uh Jack and uh my talk with Tony Fidel, who's an interesting one and and dips into some of these comments as well. But uh fellas, thanks so much for being on the show. It's always a treat. Good to see you guys. Likewise. Thanks, James. All right. Thanks very much for listening, and we will catch you all in about a week's time. |