In Conversation With Sylvain Berneron¶
Published on Wed, 12 Jun 2024 16:55:00 +0000
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Synopsis¶
In this episode of Hodinkee Radio, host Tony Traina interviews Sylvain Berneron, founder of the exciting new watch brand Berneron and designer of the critically acclaimed Mirage watch. Sylvain brings an extraordinary background to independent watchmaking, having spent five years as Chief Product Officer at Breitling, where he led the complete revamp of their product portfolio following the brand's acquisition. Before Breitling, he worked as a watch designer at Richemont for brands like IWC, and earlier in his career designed motorcycles and cars for prestigious brands including BMW and Ducati.
The conversation delves deep into Sylvain's philosophy on watch design, exploring what constitutes "good design" beyond the oft-repeated mantra of "form follows function." He argues that since mechanical watches are no longer tools—having been rendered obsolete for timekeeping by quartz technology—their true function has evolved into something more complex: artistic expression, technical achievement, and emotional connection. This realization led him to take the enormous risk of leaving his secure position at Breitling to pursue his own vision. The Mirage, his first watch, represents this philosophy perfectly: an asymmetrical gold wristwatch where the case shape is dictated by a custom movement, rather than the typical industry approach of designing cases and movements separately to hedge commercial risk.
Sylvain candidly discusses the immense challenges of launching an independent brand, including investing 1.1 million Swiss francs of his personal savings—money accumulated over 15 years that was originally intended for buying a house. He sold 90% of his personal watch collection (keeping only four pieces including a Patek Philippe 5196 his wife gave him and a Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso they bought together) and worked seven days a week for three years while still employed part-time at Breitling. The technical specifications of the Mirage are impressive: a full gold construction (including base plate, bridges, dial, hands, case, and even spring bars), a 2.3mm thick movement with reversed hand stack to minimize case height, and an asymmetric movement architecture where the gear train dictated the unconventional shape. Despite suppliers initially dismissing him as a "madman" for wanting to create a shaped movement in gold, the Mirage launched to critical acclaim in October 2023, and within six months had allocated six years of production.
Looking forward, Sylvain reveals ambitious plans for Berneron, including a 12-year product roadmap with new releases annually. The October 2024 release will be a 34mm Mirage with stone dials, followed by a round complicated calendar watch in 2025. His long-term vision is to establish four collections with sixteen references and annual production of 400 pieces by 2035, maintaining a small team of 15 people. He believes the watch industry is entering a new era where creativity, dress watches, precious metals, and smaller case sizes will dominate, creating opportunities for young independents who bring genuine innovation rather than simply replicating existing products. The episode concludes with Sylvain's gratitude for the support from prominent collectors and his commitment to maintaining the artistic and technical integrity that defines Berneron's identity.
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Transcript¶
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| Tony Traina | Welcome back to another episode of Hodinky Radio. My guest this week is Sylvan Burnarone. Sylvan is a designer and the founder of one of the most exciting young brands. Before starting Burnaround, Sylvan spent five years at Brightling, where he eventually became chief product officer. There he helped completely revamp and build a product portfolio after the brand's acquisition. Before Brightling, he was also a watch designer at Reishma, working on projects for its portfolio of brands. He got his start designing motorcycles and cars, most notably for brands like BMW and Ducati. Now Berneron is leading his own brand, and his first watch, the Mirage, makes a statement. It's an asymmetrical gold wristwatch that takes its shape from its custom caliber. More important than his background though, Sylvia We talk about his career, what watch design is missing, and about building his own brand and developing the Mirage. I hope you enjoy the conversation and thanks for listening. Sylvan Berneron, founder of the hottest watch brand, I I think I could be so bold as to say. Uh welcome to Hodinky Radio. How you doing today? U |
| Sylvain Berneron | h good. Thank you very much, Tony. That's a spicy introduction. So so thank you very much for having me. Sure, where are you calling from? Uh I'm actually in the chatel right now where where the HQ is based, so in the heart of the watchmaking region. So I mean, as we speak, this is still my flat. So we have uh ground level where Marie-Alix and I live and I sort of you know conquered the the the the roof below the not sorry the the floor below the roof uh where we do most of the operations. So so I have boxes and components and all of that and we're gonna take dedicated offices uh early next |
| Tony Traina | year. So before we get into your background, I wanna ask you, you know, I think the foundation for you starting your own brand, Burner on, and then your first watch, the Mirage, comes from obviously your experience designing cars, motorcycles, and then watches for the past five or 10 years, however long it's been. But it obviously, starting your own brand comes from a place of passion, but I also imagine in some level it has to come from a place of frustration, perhaps, of where the where existing watch brands and watch design is. So uh I want to ask you what the most frustrating thing is about modern watch design from current or larger brands is to a designer like you. Well, it it it always depend |
| Sylvain Berneron | s what kind of target you're you're pursuing, I guess. Um so I had the chance to work for the Groupe Richmond and then to work for Brightling. Uh these are large public brands uh which produce hundreds of thousands of watches. Uh their goal is not to venture into uh sketchy, risky creative endeavors. The goal is to produce in large scale a very reliable product which uh turned out into uh status symbol so and and in that respect i think they fulfill the the goal and and the clients uh wishes very well uh in my case uh my mother was a painter she gave me the a strong artistic education. And I always felt the need to venture into more risky stuff. So I had the same frustration in the car industry, even more, I would say, because cars are heavily restricted for pollution, aerodynamics, safety features, all these things, which is why I moved to the to the watchmaking industry. Uh, which for me and for any designer is a fantastic playground because watches are no longer tools since 50 years, pretty much since the quartz crisis. You no longer need a watch, especially not a mechanical watch, to have precise timekeeping, uh, which opens um different fields of playfulness for the discipline. And that begs the question of what is a well-designed watch, because I've been taught at school that good design is formed following function. After 15 years as a designer, I tend to agree with that definition. But the question for a mechanical watch is what is its function? Because if what you want from a watch is good timekeeping, you will be good to go with a baseline swatch at $50 with the quartz movement. You'll have precise timekeeping. Um, but most of us watch collectors tend to spend multiples of of that amount uh on mechanical watches, um, and then all of a sudden the the function becomes it it could be different things. You could be expecting status symbol, you could want some technical superlative, you could want some metéda, you could want some artistic endeavor. It depends. In my case at Berneron, I want to talk to uh educated collectors that have a deep understanding of art and technique, uh, and not necessarily to guys who just want to show off, which is why my watches are thin. I make them in white gold, which is probably the most understated metal. Because as a collector myself, this is what speaks to me, uh, art and technique. Uh something that you can enjoy without looking too fancy and too too offensive to others. So this is what I try to bring in the produ |
| Tony Traina | ct. You know, you kind of asked yourself the question that I wanted to ask you next, which is basically what is a good design? Because something we we talk about a lot, we even hear about a lot on Hodinki when we're introducing new watches or covering new watches. This design succeeds or fails because of this or that reason. And I wanted to ask you to just dig into this idea of what makes a good design, specifically a good watch design, a a little bit more. You mentioned form follows function, obviously one of our favorite cliches to repeat in the watch industry, but certainly you've thought about uh other core sort of key principles that drive your your watch design. So I wanted you to just kind of talk about it a little bit more, other principles or features of of a watch that you really look for when you're designing or analyzing someone else's design perhaps. A good design is something |
| Sylvain Berneron | in my opinion that needs to be justified. As a designer, you're not here to please yourself and and the the reflection of saying, Oh, I did this because I like it is far from being enough. This is not, we are not here to, it's not a hobby. It's uh we've been trained uh multiple years, I've studied five years, and then so, for example, when you make a motorcycle, you will find three types of surfaces. You will have ergonomic surfaces, the ones that you sit on or you grip. You will have the aerodynamic surfaces, important for the efficiency of the bike. And you'll have technical surfaces, which are pretty much what keeps the bike together as one object. And once you've learned these three things, you can actually design an object and make sure its surface you design meets one of these criteria. On a watch, it's actually much easier because the technique is usually within a cylinder, within the movement uh space required. So the technique is pretty basic. The ergonomic uh is quite simple as well because you have to wrap around the wrist. So the definition of the surfaces involved are pretty simple, which is why basically you could sum up a watch. If you were to do um a very functional driven design process, you could end up with a watch that costs $20, uh round quartz movement, a straight band around your wrist, and that would be it. That would be the the I would say the very theoretical approach to designing a watch. And and the the watchmaking industry is very special because it's actually one of the few objects that changed its status uh during the course of its history. It started as a pure tool. We needed watches in cities, on churches, then uh in pockets, then uh on the wrists to keep time, and that was important for agriculture, for you know different types of businesses to not miss a train, a boat or whatever. So it was a real tool. And now since 50 years we all have uh iPhones that will change the time when you land in a different country on its own. So we we don't need these things as tools. And they clearly became a piece of jewelry, which in my opinion has to be deeply connected to the culture of the society we live in |
| Tony Traina | . We're gonna get to you and the founding of Burnaround and the Mirage and how you answered some of these questions about what a watch should be nowadays. But before that, we gotta get to know you a little bit better, Sylvan, of course. So you mentioned at the top there that your mother was a painter and how much that's influenced uh your your chosen career path and how you view the world even. But I'm wondering if you could just talk a little bit more about sort of your upbringing and then how it's impacted the way you view sort of design and specifically now, obviously, watch design? Yes, so I I grew up uh aro |
| Sylvain Berneron | und Paris in Versailles to be precise, so very close to Paris. Uh my mother was a painter, although she never made a living from it. It was basically at the time where pursuing a proper artistic career was not very well accepted, uh, where she came from. Uh, and my dad is an engineer, uh in the in the tech industry. So he used to make cell phones and then you know internet Wi-Fi boxes and stuff like this. So he really lived the the the boom in the early 80s of base, how do you call it this tech industry sort of. So my dad is very well planted into the ground, very rational, strong mathematician. He's some sort of a petrol head as well because he gave me the love for riding motorcycles. Uh and my mother was a lot more poetic, uh a lot more willing to take risks. Uh she was actually painting directly on the walls, not on a canvas. So I grew up in a house where I had 15 different living rooms over the course of my childhood, because she would repaint uh endlessly on it and you it was like a ever moving painting if you like in the in the living room uh and i always loved this so i i i spent multiple rainy weekends drawing and painting with her. And when it was the spring and the summer, I used to to ride motorcycles with my dad. That's pretty much and and right now I feel it's funny how our parents influence us very much. I'm I'm pretty much right in the middle between the two. So I love technique very much because I do I he my dad taught me how to maintain my bike. So I know how to dismount and remount a motorcycle engine, for example, and to take care of a motorcycle. So that knowledge translated into the good understandings that I have now about watchmaking and how pinions work and the different springs and jewels and axes uh and my mother gave me the the artistic uh fire i would say which sometimes i don't know if it's a curse or blessing it it depends because uh the the and and and that translates to to why i had to leave brightling to make my own company because i had to do it it it's very hard to explain to a lot of my friends they keep asking me look you were set. You were 35, 34 years old, boat member at Brightling. Why the hell did you |
| Tony Traina | have to make it more complicated? You started developing the Mirage in what 2020, 2021? 2021, yes. And it's it's hard to remember now, but you know, because dress watches and shaped watches are a little bit more popular nowadays. But in those days, I mean it was still sports watch everything, right? It was integrated bracelets and all these types of things. Uh and now it seems very invoked, but when you started developing it, uh you you could have had no idea that that's where the trend was going, right |
| Sylvain Berneron | ? Yes, yes, and and and and and I didn't uh it was a very selfish move. So so first uh um so I joined Brightling in in 20 mid-18. I spent more than five years at Brightling and I developed an entire product department from marketing, strategy, design, product development, movement development, and prototyping. So when I left six months ago, I had was responsible for a team of 50 people across all these different fields. Uh I learned a great deal. Uh I mean I've been working for George for George Kern for 10 years effectively because we worked at Richemont before. It was a tremendous learning curve for me. But at night I was dreaming about making something different for me. And I never um poured my own taste into the work at Brightling because I never forgot that uh when you work for a big brand, the designer should not try to please himself. You're here to serve the brand, you should understand the brand you work with, and it's not about uh pleasing sylvain berneron it's it's about uh writing a new page in the brightling legacy and making sure that the work you put uh in the market is actually coherent with the the brand philosophy and its values. So I was two years into my job at Brightling and I started to discuss with George. I was like, look, I'd like to try a little something on my own. I want to make a small batch of uh you know maybe a hundred pieces or something you will it won't have anything to do with the brightling aesthetics or even the brightling universe I just want to do a little project just to to please myself and to make sure that I can um keep my rational approach when I do brightling projects but I need a little bubble of air to go crazy on the side uh that took a good six months to negotiate. Uh, and George agreed back then to reduce my contract from 100 to 80 percent. That lasted for two years, and this is when I started developing the Mirage on Fridays and Saturday, Sunday, of course. So I've been working seven days a week for the past three years and I've invested 15 years of my own savings. My dad was not very pleased about that because I was supposed to buy a house uh as a good man. Uh and and the at the last minute and and four years into my marriage, uh I asked Marie Alix if she was fine for me to spend my cash, so I didn't spend their money, but to spend my money um into this watch project. And it's pretty much all of it. Um return on investment not guaranteed at all. I could have lost it all uh but i really had to do this and and and she knew uh she actually told me i know you'll be happier with a failing watch brand raser than a good house and and and if you don't try so she she she agreed to let me try and I I'm sure you relate to this, right? Because I mean you had a very good lawyer career going on, if I'm not mistaken, and you s you took the energy and I know what it takes, you know, the evenings, the weekends, to get something done on your own. And you made the same leap of face that I did, which is to to follow your guts and and go into what speaks to you and and um just like uh just like in my situation, I'm not sure if it makes financial financial sense, but at least you know why you wake up every morning. Uh and and that has a lot of value in my ey |
| Tony Traina | es. Well, I'm pretty sure I was a mediocre attorney and I'm pretty sure you're a super talented designer. But putting that beside the point, I wanted to circle back a little bit to before your time at BrightLink, because you kind of mentioned there the uh genesis of the mirage and the idea of doing something for yourself. But at that point, you had been working for a number of big brands for probably a decade or something. So if you could just talk about sort of your career up to Brightling, uh, I know you started designing cars and motorcycles, and then how you got involved with Rieshmont and and George Kern and then uh how that led to to your time at Brightling. |
| Sylvain Berneron | Okay. So uh basically from uh five years old to 15 years old, I was drawing with my mom as a hobby uh during the rainy weekends. Um as I grew up, school became more and more painful. I W washen 15 years old, I could not uh sit on a chair for two hours. I was not bad at school, but I just could not take it. So this is when uh this was actually a pivotal uh turning moment in my life uh when i went to middle school so in france you are 14 years old so to speak you have to choose a major um and my dad came to me and asked, okay well,, you know, what major would you like to do next year? For him, it was clear I was supposed to do an engineering or mathematical major because that's the most noble studied path you're supposed to go for and when he when he asked me what do you want to do uh for your studies I said I want I want to do fine arts uh and I will remember his answer my whole life he said no no no sylvan I don't ask you what you want to do as a hobby, I ask you what you want to study. And he was, he didn't mean to hurt me at all. He was very serious because for my dad, drawing cannot be a job. And he never meant it in a bad way or anything. But uh so we had a quite a bit of argument this day because I think he was worried and he wanted me to study something serious. Thksan to my mom, she defended and she she she basically convinced him to let me study fine arts. So I started to study fine arts as a major in my program at the age of 15 years old. So you had very few schools that would offer this program. So I had as of 15 years old to take, I think it was two buses and I had like two hours of commuting a day. Very very early on, just because I had to go to the other side of the city to attend to this program. This is actually when all my discipline problems disappeared because I was all of a sudden very uh in into this study. So I got my A level um in fine arts uh and then I decided to push further and to study industrial design uh at university. Uh in France you would not find any major uh basically you you study transportation design uh as a whole and you can do boats, planes, trains, cars, any sort of highly technical object, you you would follow the same courses. So I studied three years uh in that university and I I won a design contest, and back then they would not give you money, they would give you an internship in a prestigious company. So the first price was a six month internship in Munich at BMW. Uh of course I took that, I was very happy. So I uh packed my little suitcase. I was 18 years old and I went to BMW. Did my six months. Uh I had great fun. I learned a ton and they kept me, they took me out of school. So I went from being an intern to an apprentice. And I was going to night courses in the University of Munich. And this is how I completed my master's degree in industrial design. And after five years, I realized that although I lost my job, that Germany was not for me. I never really coped with the culture, the food, the language. So I decided to go back to Paris where I came from, and I opened a little design studio on my own where I retained BMW as a client. I also freelance for Porsche, for Ducati, for MV Augusta. So I started to travel in Italy in different countries to attend to these meetings, although I was 23 still. So I made a few concept vehicles for these different brands. And it is during this period that uh I had the first uh freelance missions for for Reichman through IWC. Uh so I decided to after a few projects that I enjoyed doing as a freelancer. I decided to join Richemont in Merin, close to Genève, in the campus de la Haute-Horlogerie, where you have all the Richemont brands packed together. Worked five years for Richemont, uh through IWC, Beaumont Mercier, for George. George uh has always been the boss of my boss, sort of, uh, always working for him. And when he moved to BrightLink to become the CEO, we've discussed, and he gave me the chance to basically take over the entire product slash design department for BrightLink, which was a very interesting mission because BrightLink didn't have these resources uh internally yet. They were still having their cases and their designs made by external companies back then. I |
| Tony Traina | mean it's kind of commercially and sort of product enthusiast-wise, the the growth of Brightling over the past five years or since twenty eighteen, however long that's been, has been really lauded, I think, and applauded by the market and by enthusiasts. So can you just unpack sort of how you built up that product department from scratch almost. I mean, what it took to do that. Yes. So so when I ar |
| Sylvain Berneron | rived, we were four people. So I had a team of three people. Uh George's mission uh and goal was very clear. He wanted to revamp the entire product portfolio from A to Z. Uh when George took over the brand uh Brightling was making 400 million of turnover. Uh when I left, and the brand is still growing. Uh they are currently making almost a billion, it's not a secret. So slowly but surely we integrated product design, technical construction, marketing, strategy, movement development, casing development, and you basically step by step grow the team, acquire more and more competencies. So when I left six months ago uh we had a fully integrated product department of uh 60 people across different fields uh as I described before, basically from strategy up to prototyping. So we have the entire product spectrum and all the tools required to basically create a watch from start to finish. Um which so you had two dimensions. I learned uh how to manage a team, I learned uh how to take care of people, to play also a little bit with the politics involved in big companies. Uh and you know, we all know you have politics in big brands, but but for example, designers are not we don't get trained to play with these things, so you have to uh and as it turned out, I'm not a very good tactician when it comes to politics. I tend to to to say what I mean and and and to so I had some some rough meetings, let's say, but at least I always had good intentions. So so I think this is how I |
| Tony Traina | survived pretty much. Maybe this is uh a question that builds on your point of politics there, but I'm wondering if you could just take us inside one of those rough meetings, perhaps. What's something that you argue about as a designer? Because I think we only see the end product, right? And we don't be the consumer I'm speaking of here, or the enthusiast. We see the end product. We don't see that everything that went into it, the two or the five years, all of the development that went into it. And we say, man, I wish it were two millimeters thinner or uh you know, five millimeters smaller in diameter or why didn't they do this or that or whatever it is. So I'm wondering if you could maybe this is taking us into one of those uh contentious meetings that you might have had as a designer, but explain that process a little bit more. So the the Brightling Design Studio |
| Sylvain Berneron | when I was there was an absolute bunker. And it's not to to because we think we are better than others, it's because when you hire I had designers that were that were very good at what they do, but if you put them in endless meetings uh with a lot of pressure, you actually um erase any potential of dreaming, of being sensible, of you know, having some sort of poetry into your work. And designers, this is what they need. Uh so I actually took a lot of pressure on myself. So I had endless uh very complicated meetings when you spend four hours in a meeting room not necessarily screaming, but basically fighting and arguing and then you know, these are meetings that wears on you, that wear on you. And when you go back into the studio, you put your politic smile and you say, look, guys, it's all fine. We're gonna make it through. Although I was completely smashed inside. But uh and another anecdote directly on the product, um these big companies like every company have uh financial targets to meet, uh, which means every product is heavily dissected and you basically have one budget for the case, one budget for the dial, one budget for each component of the watch that you have to keep track of in order to make sure your watch uh meets the right coefficient of profitability for the brand uh this is not only at brightling you have the same at Richmond and in every decent business that basically wants to make sure they will hit their their uh turnover objectives at the end of the year. Uh again, uh so laughs if you hear me, I apologize in advance, but I had another conflictual discussion. Uh basically the finance guys looked into the product split, the cost, and they thought that uh they could come to the product team, uh, not only design but product development and the supply chain, uh the people who buy the components, I said, oh, we think we could squeeze the price of a die from you know basically minus 10% or 15%. So I waited, uh I sat there very quietly to hear their expose and and Laos goes like look Sylvain, what do you think? Because I mean at the end of the day you have to agree with this. And I told him, Look, Laos, we can I can take the dial off if you want, if that bothers you. No, if if this is really what we talk about, to save three three francs on a f |
| Tony Traina | . Well, we've kind of already talked about or hinted at the launch of Burneron in your own brand and the first watch the Mirage, but maybe you can really dig into it here and just tell us basically I saw a working prototype at Watches and Wonders a couple of months ago. A year before that, I saw a prototype with a paper movement inside. And I knew you were developing it for uh at least a couple of years before that, as we've been talking about. But maybe if you can just run us through that entire timeline uh a little bit to give us a a little bit of a peek inside what it's like to to launch your own brand with your own name on it from scratch. Okay |
| Sylvain Berneron | , so you have to see this project and I think like any starter project like a tree. So you have the part that you see which are the leaves basically so that's the creative output that's the mirage collection and the roots is basically the the the architecture you need behind the legal structure the the the investment the money uh to basically build a company around it. So uh as a startup, I have to do the two in parallel. So the leaves, the the project of the Mirage, this is the reason why I built an entire company around it. After 10 years in the watchmaking business, I came to realize that the two fields I love the most because I'm a collector myself are classic round pieces with good watchmaking substance. One example could be Longe 1815, Patek 96, and on the other side, shaped PCs like uh Cartier Crash, uh Gilbert shaped case, uh, Reverso, and these two uh fields in watchmaking never seem to meet. So either you have to choose a shaped case and you have a very poor watchmaking substance, or you choose a good movement and you will have a pretty common uh if not dare I say boring design. Uh and I wanted to bridge the two because I love technique, I love good movements, I love good finishings that really moves me, and I also love uh shaped cases. Um, so I started to to draw from a blank piece of paper a train of gears. I wanted a large three-day power reserve with a large flying barrel. I wanted a large balance wheel with a stable chronometry, and I wanted a direct small second at six o'clock, like a pocket watch. I I drew this entire set of gears myself. Um and then I when I realized that this movement would be huge, I decided to go around the gears basically. If the movement I made in around a bush, in a round base plate would have made a 44-45 millimeter watch, especially because the barrel is very large. Uh so this is when the idea uh and and my I would say my love for shaped cases. I was like, okay, what if I try to do a shaped movement? And and so I drew basically around the gears to keep the movement as compact as possible. And this is when uh I handed up with this heavily asymmetric movement and I decided to draw the case around it. So uh to synthesize it, the mirage, despite being another shaped case, uh is actually very different in its DNA because it took its asymmetry from the inside from the technique to go onto the case. And to me this is and that refers to what we talked earlier in this discussion to good design is formed following functions. So as a designer, I decided to let the mechanics go free, the barrel, the escape wheel, the train of gears, basically took the space it needed on the base plate and then I I coped with it creatively and I decided to draw around it. So this is the whole idea of the Mirage uh of a shape watch that found finds its asymmetry from the inside |
| Tony Traina | . You know, that's kind of only the start of the movement development, right? The the shape of it all, and then how that impacts the cases you're talking about. Because once you decided this was a project that you wanted to pursue, you apparently you said to yourself, I'm not going to compromise at all. And that meant, I mean, I want you to describe to us what this meant, but as far as movement development, it's it's all gold everything is kind of the headline but just talk about like what what that meant to you yes my my my goal was uh to to |
| Sylvain Berneron | and that's my my my mother's spirit probably speaking uh out through me uh it's really an act of love and devotion any artistic endeavor by definition is transforming a constraint into an opportunity whether you do painting dancing singing it doesn't matter uh it becomes a truly artistic project when again you turn um a challenge into an opportunity but in my case i wanted to come up with what is to me the the ultimate expression of a dress watch. Uh, and this has to have three things: uh seen on the wrist, sitting very low on the wrist, precious metal, time only. And I decided basically to to tick all the three boxes and to go very far in them. So thinness the movement is 2.3 millimeter, the overall watch, the the metal band is 4.9 millimeters. So that's quite thin. It's not world record breaking, but I don't have this this uh claim either. Uh time only, of course. So I took a small second at six o'clock, a sector dial, uh, which are attributes that are deeply rooted into traditional watchmaking. It comes from the early pocket watches from the uh 19th century. And the third precious metal, again, I decided to go all in. So it's not only a gold case, the mirage is actually a full what we call a full gold construction. So the base plate, the bridges, the dial D hands, the case, uh the buckle, and actually even the spring bars, all these components are in 18 carat white uh white or yellow gold |
| Tony Traina | . You mentioned thinness. Uh can you talk about flipping the hands? |
| Sylvain Berneron | Mm-hmm. Yes. In the process of uh making a watch as thin as possible, you quickly end up fighting against physics. So when you want to go under two millimeters as a movement, and I should uh I was actually with uh uh at concepto this morning they are the company who make the the world record breaking movement for bulgaria and we had this discussion this morning he he confirmed Valerien that uh once you go under two millimeter for watch movement, you venture into uh troubles. So you have this is where you need to use fancy materials, you have to give up on finishing, you have to give up on performance, reliability, uh so I didn't want to cross that line, especially as a startup, you don't want to end up selling watches that keep breaking. Uh so which is why I imposed on myself to stay at 2.3 millimeter, which is already quite demanding, especially in full gold. So I was stuck or let's say I locked myself on 2.3 for the movement. So I was like, okay, what else can I do to improve the slenderness of the case? And this is where the idea of flipping the reversing the end stack came. So on a normal watch, you have the minute hand sitting on top of the minute uh and the minute hand is the longest which means in a section you have to wait until your your minute hand uh finishes before you can drop the glass onto the case uh in the mirage, I reversed the end stack so you have the hour hand on top, and that allows me to drop the profile of the glass much sooner onto the case profile, which uh brings a benefit of saving uh heights by around 15% |
| Tony Traina | on a on a case band. Why does a brand like Brightling or any other big brand, any other brand really, why do they put the minute hand on top |
| Sylvain Berneron | ? Uh because usually you have a center second as well, uh, which I don't have because I have a direct small second, and basically the the physics say that the faster your hands turn, the smaller you want your pivot to be to reduce friction. Well I mean so so the logic says that the hour hand is the slowest turning, so you have the biggest cannon if you want, because it turns very slow and the faster you go you reduce the diameter in my case between a minute and an hour it doesn't matter very much so I was able to flip them around but if I had uh center seconds for example, it would not be recommended to have strong friction of a second turning on a big axis because you drain a lot of power from the movement |
| Tony Traina | . You mentioned a little bit the resistance you encountered, the commitment that you made uh financially and time, uh, and all of that type of stuff. But I'm wondering if you could just talk a little bit more about uh I think you've even told some people sort of how much you've committed and invested in this project personally uh person |
| Sylvain Berneron | ally uh I've invested 1.1 million of my own savings uh in into this project. Uh I don't come from a family where that money has been given to me. Uh it took me 15 years to save that money. Uh during 15 years I also had to reduce on, you know, buying toys, fancy holidays, whatever. I actually had to give up on the idea of buying a house to spend that money into this project. For the record, I had to sell 90% of my private watch collection as well. I had 25 pieces, I'm down to four pieces. Uh I drive a car that is, you know, very cheap, very crappy. Uh for the record, my colleagues at braking asked me to park very far at the end of the parking lot because I was quote unquote damaging the the the public picture. No no I swear, I swear. But I mean this is where and people ask me quite a bit uh when I was working at pricing, they were like, Come on, Sylvain, you're a board member at Briking and and you drive a one thousand dollar car, really? I was like, Yeah, yeah, well, you know. So um all that is to say that uh the the commitment involved it's not only a creative risk. I'm literally playing with personal bankruptcy because you invest all the money that you have. There is nothing to fall back on because I actually quitted my job to do this. Uh, and on top of that, I decided to go uh with a shaped case and a shaped movement. I should explain that from an industrial perspective. So I'll go back to it later, but basically I thought, okay, I have the legal authorization from Brightling. I save the money. I have the time because I have a part-time contract now, I'm good to go. And I started knocking on doors at suppliers with a big smile. Hey, it's me. I'd like to do this weird project. And I got slapped in the face really, really badly. Like, and that was one of the the hard moments in this project because I thought uh I mean I did everything I could and now even when I have the cash and the time they would not let me do it and I was not prepared that I had to convince people to say things. And that's simply because I had a high hierarchic position at Brightling, so I was more used to sort of give orders or give directions and have the job done. And now I was back at the bottom of uh of the scale again and I had to basically to beg people, although I was paying them to do it. So very special feeling. And I had to convince these guys to to to get these pieces. Yes, that's that's what I wanted to say. From an industrial perspective, when you make a new watch and a new movement, the movement represents 75% of the global investment. So out of my my 1.1 million, 750 go to the movement alone. That includes development, tooling, prototyping, homologation, pre-series, all these things, and it requires uh four people you would have a technical constructor, a watchmaker, a project manager, uh and uh fine uh industrialization guy so, to speak. So these four people have been working for two years to develop that caliber. Uh, and that takes 750,000 Swiss francs to make a new movement. When you make that kind of investment, you want to protect it, which is why watch brands make round movements so that when you go on the market with your watch, if it doesn't sell, you can make a new case shape on that movement you have protected your investment or if the movement is not reliable you can keep the case shape and put a new movement in it but you want to decouple the risk uh between design and uh manufacturing. In my case, the movement and the case are completely married together, so that scares the suppliers because they are thinking, okay, if this guy doesn't sell anything, I'll end up having unpaid bills and he will have wasted my time when I have you know restricted resources. And not only I wanted to do a shape movement, I wanted to do a shape movement in gold. So I I really they thought I was some sort of a madman, a very poetic designer, uh who thinks he can do a shaped uh gold movement. So it took me a lot of convincing, a lot of driving, a lot of phone calls, a lot of begging, uh, a lot of money paid in advance, because the only way I could convince him at the end, I mean they would seem some of them would simply not agree to do it. So yeah, that took a lot of convincing now now we uh i started in 2021 we are mid 2024 so in july i will finish a period of sort of sacrifice of working seven days a week for three years. I promised Marie-Alix, my wife, that in July I will take my weekends back because I don't want to sacrifice my marriage for any professional endeavor uh but that was uh necessary until now um and we as you know we've presented the mirage to the public in october last year and as we speak six months later, we've currently allocated six years of production uh for this piece. And for Berneron, I have a long-term vision. So the I have a 12-year product plan uh in place where we plan to release a new product every year. So in October this year, one year after the Mirage 38, we will announce the launch of a new product with a new B-spoke caliber again that I've started the development of in September last year. So even before I released the Mirage 38, I had started the development of a second calibre |
| Tony Traina | . So it's almost like taking the same risk that you took with the initial mirage all over again. I mean, I know you had a book of orders at that point, but but still you didn't have a ton of cash flow. You hadn't you had you still haven't delivered any product |
| Sylvain Berneron | . And this morning and then I and started this week the development of a third calibre as well. Uh and that comes for twenty twenty-six. But uh if you want to make new calibers and I'm sure people like uh Martin and Felix at Overk or Max at NBNF, they will tell you if you want to make new calibers, it's minimum 30 months down the line. If you want to do it properly and then make really a new caliber, I'm not talking about making a module or adding uh one a couple of wheels in an existing movement. Uh so you have to anticipate these things and that's pretty much why this business is so demanding because you you have to take a leap of face and you have to sort of pull on the trigger two years uh before you you you have to commit very early and then you have to commit a lot of money. |
| Tony Traina | But um do you want to give any hints or preview any further what's to come for the brand? You said September you'll have something and then new movement and development 2026. I imagine that might be a little too far down the road, but but anything you want to sort of uh elaborate on for now |
| Sylvain Berneron | ? My goal by two thousand uh thirty-five is to have four collections, the miraj being one collection. Um so four collections, sixteen references, and an annual production of around 400 pieces with a team of 15 people. That's pretty much the first chapter of what I want to achieve. Um, and the second launch for this year in October 2024, I feel the need to establish the mirage not as a one-shot uh shaped watch, but as a concept and as a collection, which means I'm gonna hammer on that same nail again, coming with a mirage 34 millimeter, whole new B-spoke movement again, full goal construction, of course, and we're gonna go even one step further venturing into stone dials. Uh, so this is where uh we're gonna push the mirage even further into jewelry sort of and and you'll see when you'll see the watch but we we uh i even find the way to drive the the stone dial maker mad uh because uh I don't want to display it now because it's uh we got the technical approval recently but it was not just about having a slice of stone we went uh a bit further uh into trying to push the technical boundaries. Uh it has been a very challenging project because again, when you are the the smallest and the newest client at a supplier, you're not in the position |
| Tony Traina | to ask for fancy things. Well and I can't imagine there's a ton of stone dial suppliers around nowadays, right? No, you have only three |
| Sylvain Berneron | . You have two in Switzerland, one in Germany. Oh wow. I've done an extensive research uh for the record, I was quite shocked to discover that some of the stones that us collectors like are actually not natural stones. They are made by machines and by take one example. Uh Aventurine is not a natural stone. I discovered that when I did this is something that is made. Uh so the sparkling bits are added into some sort of a resine or I don't know precisely what the mix is. It's pretty much glass. It's not resin, it's glass with sparkly bits in it. You won't find that in nature. This has been made by humans. The name Aventurine is a marketing name. Uh, for the record, same goes uh with cornelline and onyx. These are agat variants that have been tinted in the mass, but you won't find black onyx in nature, it doesn't exist. So I made all that research because I wanted to make sure um that I would pick stones that are in line with the the the level of quality and what I expect from from the product uh we want to |
| Tony Traina | make. You mentioned getting your weekends back in July, and I understand that's because you're about to deliver sort of the first batch of of Mirage orders. Is that is that basically correct |
| Sylvain Berneron | ? Yes, yes. So as we speak, the first 24 pieces have been assembled. I just want to make an extensive testing uh about chronometry and having multiple cycles of charging and unwinding the barrels to make sure everything goes smooth. Um, so the final delivery, I will get the pieces probably early July. The problem is, as you know, July is pretty much a dead month in Switzerland in the watchmaking industry. We have the watchmaking holidays. This is the long-lasting tradition of the farming uh industry from centuries ago. Um so effectively I probably plan to ship the first pieces uh early August, in August, basically from yeah, August to September. And I I surely hope that by early September, the first 24 owners will have their mirage uh in their uh in their closet |
| Tony Traina | . You know, you talked about the business plan for burner on the brand and the Mirage obviously has become the successful first release from the brand. But uh could you talk about the vision for the brand more broadly that you have to what you're communicating to make sure that it's not a uh one hit wonder for lack of a better term. What's this what your vision is as as a broader brand |
| Sylvain Berneron | ? So so the feedback of the Mirage has been amazing, which actually puts an additional pressure on is it's like a group of musicians. What do you do for the second album? Uh I surely not want to be locked creatively into asymmetric pieces only. So I can already say that uh my third launch in October 2025 will be a round case. And I want to go into complications. Uh, and I have this concept that I've been dreaming about for at least six years of a very ambition, technically demanding uh complete calendar that I want to work on. Uh we've launched a development this week. Uh it will take 24 months uh because I basically did my Christmas list again uh of what I want. Uh I don't even know if it works yet, but uh we've agreed to spend the money, we've signed the the the legal contracts uh recently to start the project. So it will be a complete calendar in a round case. And the goal of Berneron, my goal as a brand is to to venture into um fresh territories, sort of. I'm not interested in to making another three-hand round watch or to making another chronograph or to making another tourbillon, not because I don't like this species, but simply because I think uh more established brands do it better than I will ever do so. And I've had negative feedback on the mirage of course. I was actually happy to hear negative feedback. Some people told me look, I need symmetry. I can't deal with your banned stuff. Uh, and I'm happy because uh, from an artistic perspective, it means I went far enough. Uh, it is very important to make sure that some people uh hate what you did because it gives you the guarantees that some others will love it. But on the other side, I've been extremely touched uh of the positive feedback we've received. I have the right to name a few esteemed collectors that decided to back us up, namely Laurent Picciotto from Chronopassion, uh Fred Mandelbahn, uh world chronograph expert. Same goes for Jeff Stein. We have Aouro Montanari, uh Ronnie Matvani, Bader Belsala, Nadine Gon, uh, these are you know top world level collectors. Uh I could not be more grateful to have them on board. Yeah, it's it it it turns out better than I would ever dre |
| Tony Traina | am of. Everything you're saying about the way you're building your company sounds so purposeful and deliberate and sort of a slow growth and not hypercharging it, despite the fact that you've gottenten so much attion over the past three to six months or however long it's been. I I wanted to ask you one question though, because you hinted at it when you named the Mirage, you know, you named it that way because it it felt as though was all the things that you were told not to do during your time at at large brands or as a designer designing watches for other brands. So I'm wondering if you could just speak a little bit more as to what you as a designer view the state of watch design as as like right now. Uh what's going well and what you feel it's it's missing, or whether you have sort of any concerns or opportunities about where watch design is at a on a broader level. Um on a |
| Sylvain Berneron | broader level, I think the I've said it in in various podcasts in the past, over the past two years, that I think the time for designers will come again. We and I think we are the beginning of a decade where creativity will again be on the forefront on the development of the watch industry. We've had we are exiting a decade of steel sports watches, clearly. I think every uh watch enthusiast now has uh one or two variations of of the steel sports watch. So everybody has been fulfilled we can now move on uh into hopefully dress watches more precious metal and and this is where creativity comes into play and if you'll see it clearly if you see the the the tastemakers of tomorrow, namely uh all the collectors like the the the Ronis and the Auros. I'm also thinking about the the Mr. A and the the young collectors, you know, in Geneva and worldwide, like the Johnsons and uh all these guys, uh, you can clearly tell that uh precious metal, smaller, case diameter, more creative case shapes, uh uh will be the future uh and I think it's good because um a watch doesn't need to be round it doesn't necessarily need to be waterproof. Um and especially if you get rid of precise timekeeping and then and bulletproof case construction and all that you can as a watch enthusiast yourself display a much richer message. And then I think the the watch market will go into two directions. I think big brands will swallow the first ten big brands will swallow probably ninety percent of the market. Um, but because watches are no longer tools and you can do so much more with them, and you have young companies that are willing to try, uh, this is also why we see uh very impressive growth uh for the young independents uh and and it's a very I think on a broader level you can clearly see that the young independents and then namely the companies like uh Moser, MBNF, Wolverk really paved the way for the second waves that I believe I'm part of, uh, along with uh Xevde, Red Shep, Simon Brett. Uh I'm probably forgetting a lot of you could even also argue that Fjurland Marie and Baltic are young independent watch brands, although they operate at very different price points. But you can clearly see that all these brands have good traction, probably a lot more than they actually need to. And that proves that there |
| Tony Traina | is a need for that kind of product. Yeah. But you know, you kind of your answer focused on design, obviously, because that's what I asked you. But I think one of the reasons you caught on so quick is because the design of the Mirage is eye-catching, of course. But as we talked about at the top, it was driven by the mechanics inside. And when people looked closer at your watch, uh, it was extremely technically interesting as well. So I think while the design and small watch discussion and all of that type of stuff is true. It there has to be something, uh, there has to be substance there as well, technically speaking. Otherwise, people lose interest quickly. Do you agree with that? |
| Sylvain Berneron | Sure, yes. I think uh one of the mistakes not to do as a young independent, if your goal is just to to to do a variation of an existing product, just to be your own boss, do not bother to start, in my opinion. And then before I started Bernard, I asked myself the question uh in a very serious manner, why should people care? No, you have AP, Patek, Rolex, you know, Lange, Brege, I'm a collector myself. I admire these brands why should people care about buying you know spending uh hefty price on yet another brand that nobody has heard of the only viable answer in my opinion is that you have to bring something on the table. You can't just replicate what others are doing. Uh so if I was to make another three-hand round watch, yeah, I wouldn't have never started. Um and I think this is why and and also do not take shortcuts, but uh this is not something that young independence can be blamed of uh part of few exceptions, but usually um and and if you see for example, and and my answer proves I believe to be right, uh if you look at Simon, for example, uh very traditional architecture, but he went completely nuts on the finishing. The level of finishing is like unreal. If you go Zefdit, same roundwatch, but he brought something into the movement and you have that street culture linked into the product through the train station, railway, clock. If you take my stuff, you you can see an artistic expression through the the traditional fine art education that I received infused into the product. So you have to have a strong personality infused into the product because that's the only way to make it, and this is why people should care, and I also think as a consequence, young independence have a strong traction because what used to be an orological treat in the past became mainstream. I take an example, uh, AP15202, jumbo rhyolog used to be a treat for uneducated collectors uh 10-15 years ago, and now that became uh almost a mainstream status symbol. So when you are an educated collector, you almost you actually get pushed by these big brands further into independence. And I hear this in the emails I receive every day and on the phone. Once you have your 5711, once you have your your uh jumbo, once you you went through these pieces, uh educated collectors feel the need to have something even more special and I think it's the the natural evolution of a collection. So overall I think all the lights all the stars are aligned for young independents to have a great uh journey ahead uh i think it is harder to to create a company in the 21st century than it was two centuries ago that i could argue um Um but uh I think it's very well worthwhile. I mean um currently we are a team of three people, we are living the dream every day. I complain about the emails and uh convincing the suppliers that you' alsod mention the joy when uh get to have the discussion i have with you now when i spend an hour with the collector on the phone i had dinner with a super cool collector yesterday and and these interactions are mega yesterday i spent two hours having dinner with a collector i've never met he's a business owner as well uh he's 20 years older than i am gave me tons of advice he was i could not take the watch away from his hands he was you know and we had great vibes these these are very very cool moments uh we have a lot of uh young fans as well so i receive a lot of cheering messages on instagram, young guys who tell me look,, I'm 20, uh, I love what you're doing, I'll get there in 20 years, I'll buy you a watch. And I'm like, sure, sure, sure, dude. Like like keep piling on, finish your degree, go there, I'll be happy to allocate your watch in 20 years. Sure. And then and and that kind of encourag |
| Tony Traina | ement is very touching. It's super cool. I mean these things are nothing if not aspirational, right? And I'm sure it's got to be cool to hear from from young guys. Like this is what I'm aspiring to, this is what I'm working for, right? Uh I think that's something cool to hear. Um, but I'm curious, you mentioned uh you had to sell off much of your personal collection to fund this crazy project of yours. Uh I'm curious if you could give us a quick look into maybe one watch you kept, or maybe it's the watch you're wearing right now, just to give us a taste for for what you personally spend whenever you have a spare dime that you can uh throw towards towards superfluous watches. So the the the ones I ke |
| Sylvain Berneron | pt uh I kept uh fifty one ninety six from Patek, which uh Marie Alix actually bought me when we got engaged. Uh so this I would never sell uh unless I have to to sleep under a bridge uh with her. This is when we're gonna sell that watch. We also have uh Reverso uh that we actually bought together when we were 25. Uh standard steel model, nothing fancy, but it's just uh you was cool, we spent money together on a watch. Uh what else do I have? Uh I'm planning to get the the Rolex back from my father at some point. Uh yeah yeah uh what else do uh do I have uh I do actually have a brightling uh fifty seven with the concave bezel you know very retro inspired the super ocean, yeah.ah Ye, precisely. Very cool. Uh and I made, I mean, uh and I sold the the the most expensive stuff I have because I needed the cash. Of course. Uh you will make me cry about it, so I won't go on forever but I had uh manual 1815 you know the one with the manual power reserve on the dive love that watch I had a set of 3940s three metal stupid enough to sell that but I mean when you wanna you know I needed serious cash I mean as I told you uh no choice but uh spent almost three years to get them. One was not as good as I wanted it to be, but nonetheless I had a set. I love that watch. Sold it. He went out like hot cakes. I'm still regretting it to this day, but uh making strong choices I think is important |
| Tony Traina | . Well, listen, I'll speak for so many others when I say that selling those watches to you know I think that the money went to good use. I think it's funded an amazing project that's got a lot of the watch world excited when that doesn't always happen. So so I'll just say that. I think it all went to good use. But listen, Sylvan, I want to thank you so much for your time. We've gone much longer than the typical episode goes. So I appreciate you sort of saying on and just talking about all of your your career up to this point and developing Burner on in the Mirage. Uh I'll speak for everyone when I say I'm excited to see what comes next for Mio. For the releases, how you build the brand going forward. But in the meantime, thank you so much for your time and we'll hope to do something again with you sometime soon |
| Sylvain Berneron | . Thank you very much, Tony, for having me to the entire Odinke community. I've been part of the website for better part of 10 years at least. I've followed the entire journey. Very happy to have you on board because I think your truly embodies the the the new wave of collecting, you know, like younger, sharp guys, you're really uh an icone of the next generation of collecting, I |
| Tony Traina | think. Well, you're making me blush. We might even cut this out of the interview because it's far too kind, Sylvan. But if not, thank you so much for your kind words. Thank you again for the time. Thanks as always to Vic Autominelli for their editing. And thank you all for listening. We'll see you again next week. |