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Inside Sellita And Albishorn With Sébastien Chaulmontet

Published on Wed, 25 Sep 2024 16:55:00 +0000

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Synopsis

In this episode of Hodinkee Radio, host James Stacey sits down with Sebastian Chaulmontet, the Director of Innovation and Marketing at Sellita, to discuss his fascinating journey through the watch industry. Sebastian began as a vintage chronograph collector at age 15, eventually becoming a lawyer who worked on the landmark antitrust case against the Swatch Group when they threatened to stop supplying components to independent Swiss watchmakers. This legal work led him into the industry itself, spending ten years at Le Joux Perret before moving to Sellita.

The conversation delves deep into Sellita's critical role in the Swiss watch industry as an independent movement manufacturer serving over 300 clients without corporate ties or political restrictions. Sebastian explains how Sellita evolved from a pure assembly company in 1950 to a fully integrated manufacturer after the Swatch Group's supply restrictions, now employing about 1,000 people across multiple facilities. He discusses the company's catalog of 135 pages of complications and the creation of Manufacture AMT for proprietary, high-end movements developed with specific clients.

Sebastian also shares his philosophy on collecting, his controversial work reviving the Angelus brand (including the polarizing U-Turn model), and his recently launched personal brand Albishorn, which creates "imaginary vintage watches" - small-batch chronographs inspired by historical designs that never existed. He offers candid insights into the challenges facing the Swiss watch industry, particularly the concerning loss of volume (15 million fewer watches over the past decade) and the need for the industry to remain relevant to younger audiences through better products, communication, and distribution models at accessible price points.

Transcript

Speaker
James Stacey This episode is brought to you by Hodinki Insurance. Collecting watches is fun. Insuring watches is not. But with Hodinki Insurance, we've teamed up with Chubb, the premier insurer of valuable collections, to offer a better and more seamless experience to ensure your watches and even jewelry. Minimizing the paperwork and maximizing the protection so you can stop worrying about your watches and focus on enjoying them. Hodinki Insurance, protect what you love. Visit insurance.hodiniki.com for more details. Welcome back to another episode of Hodinky Radio. Today my guest is Sebastian Chalmonte. Sebastian is the director of innovation and marketing at Solita. His career in watches has also included stints with Le Jou Peret, Arnold and Son, and Angelus, but he started as a collector particularly of vintage chronographs. He even wrote a book about them and is working on another. Besides Salida, he also just launched his own brand Albishorn, which is what we'll get into here at the end as well, the goal of which is to create small batches of what he calls imaginary vintage watches. I've known about Sebastian for years but only had the pleasure of meeting him last month in Geneva. He's as passionate and knowledgeable as they come, so I'm excited to have him on the podcast. We're going to talk about collecting vintage chronographs, Salita, Albishorn, and even what the Swiss watch industry can do better. Sebastian, thanks for joining the show. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to have you on the show because we met as you were introducing your own your new brand, Albishorn, and your first collaboration with Messina Lab, the MaxiGraph. But you just mentioned to me that you are coming up on seven years at Salida. So congratulations on that. And we're going to talk more about your time at Salita. But before we get into that, I want to talk about how you got into watches initially because my understanding is even I know this to be true because you've written books about it. You were a collector, particularly of vintage chronographs, for years before you became a professional in the industry
Sebastian Chaulmontet . Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I was uh quite early on uh very uh interested in the watchers uh without no obvious reason in the fact that my family is not so it's something I developed for myself. So I think they're still wondering why actually what they did wrong. But it it caught me quite young uh to be very uh to be very enthusiastic about watches and chronographs very very early on uh caught my attention so I focused quite early on on chronographs only but of course at the beginning I was very into watches in general but yeah chronographs had this magical combination of complication of design and it's it's one of the few movements you can interact with because I I don't advise anyone to play with the papital calendar. It's the best way to break it. And the chronograph is is also why it's such a challenging technical instrument is that you can play with it, you can fly back it if it's a flyback, don't try if it's not, because it's the best way to break it. But it's a very uh interactive uh watch and you have a quite wide diversity. You can have it combined with a perpetual calendar if you can buy some Patek Phillips or at the time or do a days you can get it also from other brands. But yeah the chronograph is something I think for many males, especially collectors, uh something uh very technical so very appealing. Yeah, I started with chronographs obviously. I started like at the age of 15 or something. I was into watches before actually. I bought the very first watch for my mom on the flea market. It was a little omega before I realized that buying it was one thing, having it repair was another one. So it took me about three four or three years to find uh a solution how to make it run. About a little ladies' watch uh from our deco period. But yeah, so I started to be very seriously into watches being 15 years old. So I I got quite technical, quite early on, reading patents and and disassembling as things like many people do or many interest people do uh watches. But I I was also very keen from a very early age on to become a lawyer, I was an obsession. Um so I finally became a lawyer actually. I I I ended up by also writing a PhD. I ended up in the industry, but in parallel I was already developing technical stuff, patenting uh solutions. I also worked with Harboring, for instance, on the chronograph without bushes. We have a common patent on that. So it's something dating back over 25 years. So it doesn't make me any younger. Um and uh so I was pursuing my career. I find I finally f I I had a job in Zurich in in the biggest Swiss law firm and then I was a specialized in watches. I ended up on the team which had to sue well or attack the swatch group because as you know that at the time they decided to disrupt or to interrupt uh deliveries of of of key components to the Swiss uh Swiss industry. And uh I ended up being in in a team defending one of the companies which was the most um affected by that decision. And um well we get to know each other much better with the investors and owner of this company. And at some point they say, yeah, but you know bit even more than about law, you are pretty good at developing so I saw the few development at some point I say do you want to take it over and it's how I ended up at at Lajo where I
James Stacey spent uh ten years I didn't know that background about you that that's how you actually got into the wash industry was by the one of the biggest lawsuits that affected the Swiss watch industry about two decades ago at this point. Yeah, and it
Sebastian Chaulmontet costed me a few years of my existence because obviously I continued suing them our suing. It's not the right word because it was on the competition uh law, so it's uh anti-trust issues, but uh yeah, being at at Lajlu. Uh and then also we had the last round of of of uh of troubles in that respect also with Celita, which was a second uh big company affected by this decision. So I would say I spent like almost 20 years of my life uh devoted to this topic of uh what you can, what you can't on the on the on on the Swiss law
James Stacey uh regarding uh antitrust. You mentioned 15 years old, got into chronographs pretty quickly after that. Were you as as a collector, were you more interested in the it kind of sounds like you were the technical side of uh chronographs and the movements and all of that. And then can you talk about uh how how it's evolved from there? I imagine you've become more interested in the design since then. Yeah, exactly
Sebastian Chaulmontet . That's actually my biggest mistake I did. Uh I started by a big mistake as a collector. I was very into into technical aspects of it and movements. So for me basically any Lemania was as good as being into a sitting into a speedmaster. So I was like collecting Venus but not looking if they were in a navy time or from Brightling or anything else. My aim at the very beginning was to own as many different calibers I could. I actually no matter the design. So I also bought watchers I didn't like just because of of the movement inside. And obviously as you know a Veljo 72 has a bit of of more value when it's into a Daytona than some kind of croton or whatsoever. But I was went to the Veljo 72 no matter if it's a carrera or not. That I learned the lesson because I missed some good uh probably some good buys at the time. Uh but yeah, I was very, very focused on the technique, on the technical solutions and having, I mean, this obsession of having every version of every chronograph ever made. But then from there, I imagine it evolved a little bit and you uh it evolved massively because I understood that I did some mistakes in the sense that the watch is obviously what makes it so magical is the combination of technique and aesthetics. And it's only when everything is matching that actually we have a fabulous product and you cannot reduce it to just pure design um or you cannot probably reduce it to pure technique even if you have to reduce to do anything I see nowadays I would say it's it should be design but obviously the the the the marvel of watches in general is this incredible combination of being something which has to be a tool and have to be resistant to water, to shock, to magnetism, or to whatsoever, and still being something quite beautiful. And I think the big complexity and you see today when we do huge watches which are too thick to everything, is because we want to make them resistant to almost every everything. We think they should resist. And when you look at uh exa especially vintage watches, you have this elegance, this kind of magic, and it it shows how difficult it is actually to combine all these elements into that little thing being both attractive but also practical, something you wear on your wrist like every day, and and and having an interesting technical content if if possible. That is probably what attracted me so much to to to watch us uh to start with is this all these elements you can approach it by loving our deco style or Bauhaus style whatsoever, you can approach it by by by the jewelry aspect of it when you have a wonderful gold case and obviously by by crazy chronographs, especially when you go into Atrapant and our split seconds. So um I started by having a keen eye on techniques and I tried to revise it later on, probably a bit a bit late because yeah, I was not the only one. But I'm still I would say a technical nerd and I I will probably die being a technical nerd. But I I I on the on on my way, I I I learned
James Stacey to to really dig design a lot. Angelus is one of the brands that I know is quite near and dear to you. Can you talk about maybe maybe how that fits into your collecting philosophy and why and the history of the brand? Well
Sebastian Chaulmontet , Angélice, uh if you look at it, of course, it was part of the very few uh real chronograph manufacturers. So obviously when you start collecting chronographs you make a difference if they have a movement from Ebouche S meaning London, Valjou, or Venus. Uh even this probably is probably wrong because the biggest design have been done based on on on on stock movements and by it be Navitime acronomat or Daytona or Carrera, so all the big names colour people collect nowadays are based on these movements, but as the at the nerd you prefer an Excelsior Park movement and Angelus, you you prefer an Universal Genève, uh which is actually a Martel movement, but well. So and Angelus, yeah. Angelus was by far the most creative chronograph producer because they not just s simply made a simple chronograph. They came up with a chronological which was a first serial produced calendar, which was not a perpetual, because as you know was Patrick Philip. But the first idea of combining a chronograph with a calendar in a wrist was done by Angelus with a chronodato, then came their masterpiece which almost killed them in the mid-end of the 40s, which was the chrono dato luxe, the addition of luxe, meaning it had a moon phase and the first big date in into a wristwatch, more or less, at least on the chronographs, that for sure, maybe not on the Sri Hand. And it had the very wonderful little little uh big date going up to 39 because we didn't invent the thing which allowed the thing to switch from 31 to 1, so it had to go to 39. But I was totally in love with that thing and uh yeah uh internet was not what it was it was a nightmare to find took me 10 years well now i owned a couple of them uh because i even today if i see one i i i need to buy it it. It's uh compulsive. But uh the good thing is you don't find that many. Uh but I still manage to have a few now. And it's very interesting about the Chrono Datolux. So it's it's it's a marvel in the sense of it had a digital date. Just remember it mid of the 40s and to to wait to see a digital date again. I mean I'm not talking prototyping here. It's a lot of 80 189 at the carrera dato like uh almost uh 35 years later. So um it and it was a big date. I mean it's it's uh like a little datograph. So this is a was a wonder. It was an absolute catastrophe from the sales perspective because it was small. It came at the time where the Swiss industry was struggling selling chronographs because people were more into waterproof uh automatics. And as you know, uh the Swiss industry didn't produce any automatic chronograph up to 69. We can discuss who were the first, it's it's a topic for its own. But yes, Andrew is a pure wonder. Um, you also have simple calendar watches, you have traveling clocks, and you know something at Hunt DK about traveling clocks, just for the joke, but I love traveling clocks. Um, then uh they had the uh an immensely rare watch which is called the Tinkler, which was the first waterproof automatic repeater that did it in the fifties. So let's say roughly 40 years before Patik even had the idea of doing such a thing. It's again a project uh done by the the stalls brother which almost killed the brand. So the brand was always on the edge of of of killing itself but also bringing up stuff which was crazy amazing. So yeah I was I was. I am still in love with the brand. At some point I got an interesting phone call. I still remember because there was a wedding of one of my best friends and I got calls from time to time. You probably know that as well, people offering you stuff and they say, Yeah, I heard you went to Angelus. Say yes, I am. Say too quick, it's I'm on a wedding. He said, Yeah, actually. I said, What are you selling? He said what model? He said, actually it's a brand. So to make a long story short, we bought the brand within seven days. So the original brand. So we have the registration in the US from the origin, so it was the brand was still alive all these years, so they did just what it needed to not lose the registration. And then yeah, we built it up from then I think I disappointed almost uh every Angelis collector on earth and was hated by all my colleagues, fellows collectors, because we did the U TAN, which was this crazy uh square Octobian with the crazy piece of of kind of modern watchmaking, which was supposed to be a bit a nod of the period they disappeared and having a lot of little elements of traveling clocks, of mimicking uh a digital uh technology which killed uh Angelise at the time by having a deadbeat, which you have to put back at the time. We were very few companies doing deadbeats. Um and it was full of little hints and it you it it it had to be fun. I think it was not really particularly well understood. And it was very funny actually to be um uh to be attacked on on all all all channels by people actually I knew as being as well Angelus collectors and say who is the idiot who takes such a wonderful vintage brand and does stuff nobody understands. Why does he need? And for me, the idea was pretty, pretty simple actually. Well, was to say it has always been very modern, very upfront, very doing crazy stuff. So I wouldn't, I didn't see myself taking a such a brand and doing and repeating the past when this brand never did it. So maybe we with U10 we went a bit too far. Then we did obviously rounds, skeleton tobions, split chronographs, and everything. Of course, we had a vintage line on which more or less I think it's done today by the new team. But uh yeah, that's how all this ended up in my hands. Not sure I did the best job ever, but I had fun. And I uh especially the U Ten uh when I
James Stacey did that I said no, I can retire. This was when you were at LJP and you'd been there for a few years and then had the opportunity to to relaunch and absolutely, yeah, yeah.
Sebastian Chaulmontet But of course, we had also plans to do a wonderful traditional column wheel, super complex. But again, if you did the all the Condodato Lux in the forties, you cannot show up with just a simple colon weed big date hundred or eighty years later. It's ridiculous. You need to bring it a huge step further technologically. You need to bring something to the table. And otherwise to, be very honest, why don't you buy an original vintage Condodato if you do uh something which just mimics badly what have been done in the past? That's that's the problem of these brands actually. Do you have such a heritage? If you don't have like uh tens of millions to develop and having time to build it, it's not that easy to to make something where the where you where you deserve to use a name. So yeah, but uh I'm still very proud of what we did with Angelus and I'm happy that it's still exists today. But it's interesting being on both sides of the table, being both a collector who is disappointed by not seeing a reedition somehow, which I was not because I could have done it, but and then being confronted to people you know as being collectors as you finding that uh yeah you do things wrong. So it's pretty interesting, you know, because m some I think people in the industry are not collectors, so when they get criticized, they get criticized by people they don't know, talking about product they're never heard of. So having like twenty-five chronodatos and six or seven cro chronodato looks, I actually know the product of of the history pretty well and still decided to not re-dit these these watches
James Stacey . Can you talk a little bit more about this idea? Because it's something we see a lot in the industry, these heritage brands doing some form of reissue. Uh sometimes it's hated, sometimes it's it's loved, sometimes it's lambasted for being too on the nose. And then on but on the other side, if you try to push things forward too much, as you did with Angelus, as you've just been talking about, you get the same kind of uh pushback. So can you talk about just more more broadly in the in the industry how you think brands should how you think brands should think about this balance
Sebastian Chaulmontet ? Yeah, that's that's a very difficult one. I I I would I would say probably. Um uh well there are different problems I would say and they are one thing is not understanding your heritage meaning you have the text but you don't understand the grammar so basically you cannot you cannot extract elements I could write you a thesis about the U10, which is all that is about it. Obviously, if you need to explain it, it's that your product already failed. But I could explain why DITARMS had something to do and that, why and why and why. Okay. Obviously, but if you are obliged, if you are in a state where you have to explain what you did, you probably already failed. But I think the industry, especially when it does re-edition and also the idea where I did Albison actually, is first of all that probably don't understand perfectly what they did at the time. So they copy without understanding. Uh which me like copying a text in a foreign language and I just copy it, but I make many mistakes because I just don't understand what I'm writing. And then the other aspect is when you try to make what they call neo vintage is to adapt it to the what you think is the taste of the time and then you decide to add another layer of making it resistant like uh like a Russian tank. Well we might discuss if these are the most uh resistant ones, but at least you try to to make it rock solid, and then you end up with bulky watches for water resistance for shock resistance. So, actually, you lose the the what made the thing attractive in the first place were the elegance. I mean, we could talk I think hours for the elegance of ancient Patrick Philip chronographs and what in my eyes they'll they lack today. Um but um yeah it's it's a complex a complex topic. So I think you should distinguish maybe watches which have always existed. Like I'm a big, big fan of of Reversos. I it was one of my very big because I was both very attracted to chronographs and to the brand Yeager le Kult, which is how I I started actually I was uh I was very, very, very attracted in in the in the nineties by by the brand and obviously the reversal. So this one you might just say it's not really a re addition in the sense uh as a stopped production as you know the Italian game and all the story which uh are told every day. But it's it's a classic or or some other watches. But when you go into really doing re-edition of of stuff to the 40s, 50s, which has really not been produced for so many years, yeah, it's not the watches I'm attracted to, but I can understand that most people are and also probably talking about Ibisan also understand that probably a lot of people think that it's just not unnecessary in the sense of just give me a good reedition and I'm happy, right? But as a collector, my dream was always to produce stuff which never existed. I'm not saying that it's always successful, but also with Angelus, I could not imagine putting the name Condodato on something which would not be tremendously uh deserving the n
James Stacey ame This is something we do on the on the Hoodiki podcast most weeks. Uh kind of uh either a wrist check or look at something cool on your desk. And I asked you, you're at you for those not watching on YouTube, you're at your office in Salita, it it looks like. And I asked you if you had something cool on your desk and you had kind of a funny story to tell about why you don't so maybe you could start there
Sebastian Chaulmontet . Yeah I can start it was both funny, frightening and and somehow sad for the company as a whole. So uh as some people knew we had a terrible storm uh last year. When I say terrible, it really destroyed the company in a way uh unseen in in Switzerland. We are not used to that kind of element. So we have just finished more or less reconstruction now one year later. So we had four roughly 30 million of of damages. So my my my office, which is quite in the middle of the building, was still fully devaste. So obviously being a watch lover, you always accumulate in your desk stuff you want to see to relax, to enjoy, to to study or to so I had a few quite a lot of watches actually in my drawers. And uh I got the news when I was um on holidays in Greece. I saw the pictures of the destroyed company and I couldn't, so I flew back of as quick as I could, but there was very uncertainty of what happened to my watchers because I had no roof anymore. It was flooded with water. So um nothing happened to them. Obviously uh first nobody died at the company because we're closed some so one guy was quite uh heavily injured but but is is doing great now so obviously this was our first concern but then obviously I was concerned about my so yeah to make a long story short my watch has survived but I thought I would I should not have that thing in my drawers and it he it killed actually my my decoration in building in my on my at the desk and I had a wonderful little eight days uh clock which uh yeah was flo blown away, but I kept it because it's in in thousand pieces. But I have it as a memento mori, some kind of I will see what if I put it into some kind of plexiglass. But I kept the thing. I I even picked all parts because it was shedded with glass and pieces of the of the walls on the on the st on and the piece of my my desk which was smashed and I even collected as many uh parts of glass and even found the the blue hands uh after an hour of search. I have the hands. I don't know why I did it. I I searched for that thing and I have all pieces and it reminds me a lot of things. So yeah, I don't have anything. You didn't ask. I would have talked, but no, it's my my my desk is clean as as would be a clinic doctor's desk. But yeah, I'm wearing obviously my first uh prototype. So some people always complain that they saw it on Instagram and I haven't been delivered. It's mine, you see, guys. I couldn't deliver any yet. So you don't, it's not that you have not been the first to be delivered, it's that it's on my wrist. So yeah, so I'm wearing it, I'm enjoying it. Uh obviously uh I keep on testing it even how I've tested it long, but um now that uh I I I I finished the first batches uh first batch, I I I'm enjoying wearing it
James Stacey . So maybe we can just start here and you can explain to the people. There might be some misconceptions still, but talk about what is Salida and what is its role in the Swiss on Swiss watch industry, largely speaking. Yeah. So Salita is actu
Sebastian Chaulmontet ally a very ancient player, even if people never really realized that. So Salita was founded in 1950 by Mr. Grandjean. And it had been from day one a major player in assembly but what what people have to understand that the industry was always sharing in the sense of uh of having specialized company doing special tasks so an ebus as the name says in french doesn't sell movement, it sells skips. So ETA has always been for many years an Ebush company. It means it never sold finished movement to console uh to its clients. It sold ropas which were put together by assemblers, and then they had to buy on the one hand the barrels, the jewels, and the escapement. And even the escapement, they could split between the hairspring and their other parts. So Celita was one of these companies buying, let's say, 70% of the kit from ether, buying the stones, buying the hairstrings, and buying the escapement from Niverhox, which is also like the fusion and combination of different companies. And that it was doing on very large scales from ninety fifty to the decision of the search group to say you will die tomorrow because you will not get the part you will still assume. So first of all people have to understand that this is not it is a job which was it was a job uh way of organizing the industry which has always existed long before the creation of Celita and which at some point some people decided to change the the the game uh the rules of the game. So for Celida, it was obviously the end of his activity because when you are someone who puts things together and you don't get the things you're supposed to put together, basically you just close down. So Miguel, which was the second owner uh uh at the time, um roughly became the owner at that time actually, said okay, we have two options, or we dare doing it ourselves, or we close or sell it to the people who have the parts. And obviously no uh you probably not know migal but he he's not the guy who who would say I would let it go so he said let's let's do let's do the components we we don't have. So from a pure assembly company we became a fully fledged producer, which is not an easy thing to do. And talkers also sometimes to be on the extremely high quality level we have now. We had a learning curve of 20 years. And what's very interesting to understand as well is when people say, Yeah, but why you started by just copying something existing but people have to understand there are two main reasons. The first is our clients were still delivered partially by by by the swatch group so they wanted to have exact equivalent that you could have a certain watch equipped with an ether once a liter movement but they had to be like to say hundred percent similar that's the first thing so the industry was calling for perfect copies because they were having two sources for the same thing. The second thing is all our tooling, all our industry was built around assembling that kind of movements, meaning you cannot on an assembly line for Chevrolet then assemble some kind of Ferrari. It's not the way it goes. So it took us a long, long time first to to to to to get to master these products because i also learned over the years that collect that copying is often much more complicated than creating because when you create you make mistakes but you understand what you did. To be very honest with you, nowadays there are still a few things ETA did uh or does. I don't know if they still
James Stacey do. We don't understand why. How big is Slater now and over your time there? How much has it gro
Sebastian Chaulmontet wn? Roughly we we uh and it's not thanks to me and just to be clear, but yeah, we not doubled but but not not far doubling the number of employees. We have massively verticalized, so we are roughly in the group a thousand people. So we are at the main call in the headquarters, the one which were destroyed by the storm. We have three huge buildings with roughly 600 people. Then we bought during COVID a turning company, one of the biggest but failing company in Switzerland, which we reconstructed and says we even put a new 10,000 square uh foot building. So we built fully new facility. It's a very ancient company from 80, 84, something like that. Then we have our own decoration ateliers which are also not in the headquarters. We have our Galvanek uh treatment company, which is the same actually. It's combined with the decoration. And we do have um also uh uh um uh main plates and bridge uh owned company in Germany in near Glashütte where the know how lies so very close to Norwalks and Langensonne where we have uh roughly hundred twenty people and we just finished to also add uh I think uh two hundred fifty or three hundred square meters just recently or even a bit more. Uh so yeah we are quite verticalized. No basically we are verticalized
James Stacey . What are some you kind of mentioned some of it here in the evolution of Solita and what it does in the past two decades, basically. But what do you see now as open spaces for potential innovation in the markets or the clients that that Solita serves or supplies? Oh
Sebastian Chaulmontet uh yeah, they're different things. I mean, first of all you asked about uh what is the place of Celita. Celita is a key player because it's privately owned and it does no politics in a sense of whoever comes uh can buy a movement, you can buy a single piece obviously it's not at the same price that if you pay buyer but you can any any watchmaker can register and buy parts to service the movement as you know it has been a big struggle with the search group over the years and probably other companies as well it's to get access to the parts. So basically we support independent watchmakers or and repair workshops by providing all technical documents, providing all components, also to service watches done by others, which are on the same they can use our components wherever they want to. So I think this is a big difference uh because we have no policy in the sense of forbidding to sell online or having requisite. If you come to us, you want to create your brand, you have an idea, who are we to decide if you are have the right to be a watchmaker or not. It's not our job. So this is something very interesting as well as for me because I I meet a lot of young brands and dynamic people doing crazy stuff. So I think it's very important. So we belong to no group. We have no watch brands. So we are not competing with our clients. Uh so this makes I think the the something a very unique position, and we serve over 300 clients. So it makes uh I think uh uh I would say a lot of brands you have seen recently in the Swiss made, and I mean in the real Swiss made, uh like really movements made in Switzerland are not supposed to be, uh haven't would have it never existed without us because they gave us we give access to all these people to to have these movements. What changed massively, I would say, since I started, not that it directly connected, but we went from a non-existing catalog in the sense we had no catalog because it was not a standard in the Swiss industry to a real catalogue of hundred thirty five pages of complications. Not only you can buy regulator, you can buy all kind of moon phases of model of of of chronographs in all kind of variation ways without GMT with whatever you want. We have a huge diversity. So I think for our brands it gets really interesting because they can create something of their own. You have a lot of brands using it very intelligently and making quite quite interesting product, I would say, using the diversity we offer. Then what changed also over time, we created a second company called Manufacture AMT, which is our technological branch. So clearly we aim another another level and another another another kind of product but yeah so Celita has that and no with a new trend in the industry where brands want something specific what are willing to pay more for the movements, quite massively more. Uh we created EMT, which is an umbrella. Well it's a company of, but it's also an umbrella of product. So most of the product are reserved for one client. And so we call that manufacturer, you can call it proprietary. At least the client knows when he buy a certain brand, he will not find that movement or not something close to it. It's not just a question of bridge of bridge shape, you know, another one. So we do quite technical movement with much longer power reserve, 90 hours, multiple ball burying within one movement, a lot of rubies undestructable over ten years. But again, it's not the entry price point anymore, and it's as these brands have a very high standing and have also very good engineers that we are very interconnected with them. We develop it together. And these movements are made and developed by IMT, but we will just find them on the single brand. And next to it we have a catalog which is open to to to most in the sense of there's a certain volume to buy, but open to any client. As I said, we do no politics where we do something in between of a very highly evolved uh sedita movement. For instance, the flyback chronograph uh uh column wheel, which actually at the end you have maybe 20% of original paths in it. So it has a double side winding, it has a column wheel, it has more power reserve, it is flyback, uh it has a patented uh friction system for the chronograph that it has no the the the hand moves quite smoothly. So well if you put everything together, there isn't nothing really left from the original product, but obviously it is a f an evolution of an SV five hundred, and that one is not claimed to be fully new, but it's eighty percent ne
James Stacey w. Got it. So maybe we can take that as an example, actually. The 5100. I've started to see it in at least a few different watches. Maybe some bigger brands, smaller brands that I I can think of off the top of my head, an Oak and Oscar and a Ferland Murray we covered. But you're saying it while it's a a movement that various clients have used, they customize it in terms of bridge shape, in terms of finish, whatever else that that make it different and then that's proprietary to them. Exactly. But that movement is st
Sebastian Chaulmontet ill the base you will find in others. Some go very far. I'm not I cannot mention here if they don't do it, but some invest heavily in having all bridges and all stuff uh done to the to their requirement. Some do just one bridge, some use it as a manual wine, some use it as but just to give you an example you can choose from five different colors for the column wheel from fully blue fully black big bicol or gray so the people and then yeah and the new tendency is at least you started by doing own rotor shapes, something you saw in the 90s you, know, you did your logos of the chronoswith stuff of kind of stuff of of our friend who passed away, Kat Rudiger Lang. Uh and nowadays it goes further that you do bridges, yeah. Like full bridges. And then of course it has a cost.
James Stacey Something else we've mentioned before on this podcast or just mentioned as one of the major problems facing the industry over the next generation is the potential shortage or the difficulty of finding watchmakers. And you just mentioned how much Salita has grown over the past handful of years. Can you discuss what that issue looks like or how much even is an issue from from your perspective? It has be it has been
Sebastian Chaulmontet a huge issue, but but not only on watchmakers uh in general of qualified people in the industry. It has it has really been issue. Uh also engineer the engineers in uh for developing movements or technical. When you look at the engineering at Celita, for instance, we have more engineers engineers specialized in developing machines than actually doing movements because we do all our movement all our machines inside for assembly. Because you can imagine Switzerland we have Rolex, Swatch Group, and us doing really big volumes. So you can imagine these machines you need are not freely available. So at some point uh Miguel Dionard said, look, I don't develop machines that I see them somewhere else. So we had a few full Selita engineering, uh which are like just engineers who developed assembly lines and all the techniques, laser gr laser welding and all that stuff in in-house. So also finding these people is very tricky. Finding good movement design that is extremely tricky because everybody wants them. And obviously tried and trained watchmakers. Well we have a quite easy we try to work as much as we can with schools because the the funny thing is everybody want qualified people but nobody wants to qualify them. So we are very popular because we have such a deep know-how in the house. So it's we are probably one of the best school after the school because you can learn everything because we do all in-house. So you can go through you understand. You have a deep understanding also I would call the black box or the very complex uh escapement question which you usually don't address at Watchmakers because they buy the things. Um and then we try to train them. Obviously, after a few years, you always have the risk to losing them to to others, but uh you we train we also have an internal school uh where we train people which are not necessarily washmakers to start with also coming a lot from south of Europe because as you know it had been quite difficult economic ille yearsgal. So we have an internal school where we train these people to become qualified watchmakers and to be able to evolve within the company. And it's something we're very proud of. And uh it's even our technical director who teaches personally to these people, which is show So all these little elements uh yeah help you to to find people and uh but it yeah it stays a struggle. I think that the the crisis now will probably eat that a bit because as you know, in the last three or four years we had seven thousand the industry, more people working in the industry. So everybody was trying to find talents. And as the volume seems to be reducing now, probably you will have less pressure. But on the long run, I think qualified people will always be the the most precious asset of any company
James Stacey . Amount to which uh the Swiss watch industry is slowing down, production is slowing down. Bloomberg has reported, for example, some uh manufacturer suppliers even sort of seeking state aid to slow down their their production lines for a little bit. Uh can you just talk about how that's affecting where where you are in in Switzerland at all
Sebastian Chaulmontet ? Well we have the chance of of having such a broad audience of of clients uh on some doing still pretty well uh I mean uh there are a few launches uh which you also see on online brands like very very very beautiful watchers uh who still sell crazily well uh on the dog uh and and at these people who do very very uh great jobs you you see they manage to sell and high quality product, even if they get criticized for the price. If the people would have a closer look, they would say that it is an amazing offering. But it's not to me to say that. But we have the chance to be both working both for very small, very successful brands and very large, still very successful brands. But yeah, we see the slowdown now we we feel it. We hadn't. We are not on the uh on the list of companies right now asking for uh for for for shortage in in in in work or having any kind of support, state support. We are in this lucky position that we don't need to have it now. But yeah, I mean the lot of factors are coming together. I mean, uh the collector, I think you serve you, we have seen crazy years which are which are obviously not not no no not close to normality. I mean you cannot be on waiting list of of brands which has just been created. Come on. I mean some point you need to to relax a bit. I mean, we're not selling a cue against against diseases. We're selling watches people actually basically don't need. So I think we are going back to normality. It's good. We have seen hypes in vintage. We had the chronograph hype, which faded away, I would say, two years ago, where people were paying crazy money for Valju 22. I love these actually I have a lot, I should have sold them, but I'm a collector, so I keep the stuff. But my point is we have seen also crazy years where I would say the expectation were not realistic. That being said, I mean that that goes back to normal. I think it's healthy. It's because two watches should not be primarily an investment vehicle because they are not. And it's the lie saying something else that should be weared and enjoyed. Um the problem I see is a bit deeper is the relevance uh for the Swiss industry over the last 15 years. We lost or 10 years we lost almost 15 million, so we halved the volume. We just keep on increasing the price. And my personal view on that, I'm not talking on behalf of Selida, is the Swiss made, uh, I think even Nicola Hayek uh said it, needs up to be a pyramid. He said to have Bregier need swatch. And I think the industry uh obviously needs the swatch group as a base and needs also to to appeal to a broader audience and to sell watches uh to uh to many people and uh it's essential that you can buy i think a Swiss ma bait watch, might it be a T Sou or Longino whatsoever for two thousand francs and still have an access. And I think for the industry we struggle, probably in the entry price level, to stay relevant somehow over the last years and to stay uh attractive and i think the big question we should ask is not the economic downturn we are facing now is on a more structural level what could we do that watches get sexy again somehow uh and as small brands show it how to do it. I mean you have a lot of offering I find exciting. It's but it's more on independent, smaller brands, very flexible, and um and the this the industry should really ask itself how can we be fun? I mean the moons watch has been an amazing success, which proves us if with a good idea you can do crazy stuff. So my point is uh I think we we should remember in Switzerland that we have nothing else than our creativity. I mean we have no resources, we have uh no commodities, nothing. So um and and and to be relevant against something highly technological, which is not a watch, but it's much more than that, is a tool uh for the health question and everything which is an apple or any digital watch it's it's it's very difficult i always thought that you could die technologically only once you know since the quads killed us i said nothing else could kill us again because once you have been overtaken technologically everything which came afterwards, well, you're already late, you know? So we had a different status. We had a status of being a jewelry for man or something you could repair forever. So we have a lot of things talk uh which are I think in our favor. But I am very afraid of this lose of uh the loss of of volumes because people have to remember as an industry in Switzerland, we have the same subsupplier. The ones we go at Sub Celita buying billions of components are the same, doing pinions, wheels, or whatsoever for the very big ones. And you would not see a luxury industry in Switzerland if we don't have the base to keep all these machines running. And uh I think the industry as a whole and uh and some groups which are more active in it in particular will probably have to find ways to to more attractive watches. Or to be or to talk to a new a younger audience and to be relevant, stay relevant
James Stacey . I'm glad you made this point because it's it's one I've made on the pages of Hodin Keep before. People at a high level will tend to track just the top level, you know, export number, how the total value of of watches that are being exported from Switzerland a year, which totally can obfuscate what you're saying about the number or the val the volume that has completely been decimated over the past decade. Yeah. That said there are some bright spots. You mentioned the moons watch. I think the PRX has been a broad success. Yeah, wonderful, wonderful success. Yeah. Surely there are others like the Hamilton khaki, khaki field. Yeah, and also the last cardboard one is is is also I think uh will be a great hit. I I hope for that. The new to Sophia X, yeah, it's super cool. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, yeah. I'm wondering if you have any other things that you would like to see at that uh call it entry level space under a thousand bucks, under five hundred bucks that would help the industry besides the the massive success of the moon swatch. Anything else you think the Swiss watch industry could could do better at that level?
Sebastian Chaulmontet Yeah, it's not a single thing. I think it's a lot of things that you said the Pierre Rix. I think it's really an an amazing watch if people look at it closely. Uh what you get for the price. Of course if you say you want an apple because you want Apple Watch because you want to track your your basic data, which I can understand, you will never compete uh no matter the material you use or no no matter how much you skeletonise the thing. But yeah, trying trying maybe to better explain to people that the thing can be fixed forever. Uh that that it is something different, that it look, I I I still wear my first I I spent all the money when I was starting with uh the uh working at the university i spent it on the reverse so like 30 years ago i mean the thing is still relevant it's it's i would have bought anything at the time a laptop or even a mountain bike which i really liked at the time a lot i mean yeah it would be in the museum of technology. I mean my my my my reversal could as well, but my goodness it's still the classic. My point is really focusing on that and and and again, look, we talk in such small numbers. You know what I mean? I mean come on, we're talkinging sell 15 million. What is it when you look at the at the at the population we have? You know what I mean? I mean, if I would be at Apple and talking about having 15 million more sales of an item, they would probably s smile at me and say yeah it's great but we are one company it's one of our product i mean these people are i mean we are talking we are i don't even sure that we deserve to be called an industry are we an industry yet no we are we are come some kind of little ateliers you know a commodity when you say to people as an industry we lost 15 billion it's a catastrophe they say yeah is it a daily production the monthly production they say no no it's for the entire industry for a year say oh guys, my goodness, what are you selling exactly? Hand painted something? No, I mean we are ridiculously small. I mean, and and that's a problem. If you get too small, you get irrelevant in the sense of also the Swiss made. For me, it needs to be a brand which is somehow uh uh uh obtainable you know what i mean if if you can just start to be Swiss mate by having a Rishamille an Oldmapig a Rayalok or some kind of Patek I mean let's okay let's start with Rolex but come on that cannot be the Swiss made. It's not a Swiss made. It used to be, it's not a Swiss made. It should be. You should be relevant. But yeah, um, to come back to your question, if I would know that, probably I would be rich and not sitting here, but uh, what is exactly the product we need? Probably a lot, and a lot of different initiatives, but I think it's both the product, it's the communication and the sexiness of how you sell it to new generation, which I'm not a part of, and also probably how you you you you you you you fully embrace new channels of distribution which also allow you to have direct access. I mean we had this discussion on and on and about is the movement watch no salt online or not, which model is, what the thing is. But again, I I'm not a marketing specialist by any means, but yeah, the industry has a lot of things to face and I think the volume are much more important figures than the value
James Stacey . Yeah, I'm glad you brought up the last point there because I I asked you about the product and things we can do better on the things the Swiss watch industry or we could do better on the product side. But of course, that's only one piece of it. One of the other things is the business model itself of how we sell watches and looking at how to do that online better, how to do that uh better direct to consumers because really what you have to do is change the entire business model especially at this low 500 000 500 000 price point because if you're selling those through retail, there has to be margin for the brand for, for the retailer, the distributor, all of this type of stuff. And it's something that these small brands have figured out how to cut out all of those people and just make a good product and what you see is what you get. Uh, and there's not the markup of all those intermediate steps and uh the Swiss watch industry, it sounds like we'll probably have to start figuring out how to do that a little bit better, especially at this lower price point, because otherwise people are just gonna buy an Apple Watch or whatever else, as you kind of mentioned there. Yeah. And you can have a f
Sebastian Chaulmontet ew show rules and everything. I mean you I think I I strongly believe in the multi-channel if you're big enough to do that because there's still brick and model which is attractive to some, but but again, you you you you need to adapt and as you said, I think obviously if you do uh uh brick and wallet you have to have multiples which obviously makes your pri price quite expensive. And and again yeah so I think we have to uh there's a lot of s of work to do in the indust
James Stacey ry Well, this kind of gets us to what you've decided to do on the brand side of things, which is all Bishorn. So maybe you could start just by well, I'll let you talk about it because it's it's obviously at a much smaller scale than any of this. But maybe if you could start it by talking about the concept of the brand and how you're going about introducing the product. I think the most important thing to uh
Sebastian Chaulmontet to to to to know about that I I did the watch I wanted to do without any consideration of what would be how would I sell it. I I it's not that I figure out something I said it has to be massively done different and I will prove the world that I have something. I just wanted to make a watch and a different watch because I have a few models coming. And I just did that. To be very honest, I it was a quite selfish thing of my my my my my concept was pretty pretty simple. It was for me to say, okay, I wanna do something vintage because it was a given. I I I I will present some so next year probably something very contemporary but not on the dead brand something I did for eight years a very complex movement just for the sign of making it so that nothing to do but Ibisan was really set to be the watches with could have been and they forgot or didn't do and and the watches I would want to wear and want to own. So obviously it had to be chronographed. 99% will be hand worn. So nothing of that will make it a success in a sense of broad audience. But my concept was pretty simple was to say, okay, I'm a nerd. I should be able for every single watch over a certain period of time to find other people who want to join me on that dream. And it's it's it's it's why it's also not it's no compromise in a sense I've didn't add and it's not a product did by the committee, it's something I wanted to do. I fully understand that people will tell me I'm not into regatta, I'm not into that, I wear YAs no date. Yeah, you will not it's not supposed to please. I mean I hope it please at least 100 people. But my concept is if I found hundred people have the same pleasure as me and having it and seeing that it's original, even if it's fully connected with history, and I'm not hiding that I have links to to some launchings design I love, to some middle designs, multi-center chrono. But again, when you look at the thing, you say damn that thing never existed before even if it could have and it might remind you but you say it's just not a rip off. It's clearly inscribed into an history, it it it it respects all the codes and so it's not actually more yeah during I had my I I was working on a very high end very complex movement with a new escapement for like eight years and I'm I'm pretty close to fusion but uh I was a bit frustrated with COVID and at this discussion with a friend there was a new re-edition. I say, my goodness they, have to extend the museum. They did all reedition of everything. I don't know. They have to go back to ancient Egypt to find new models, you know? And uh I say they cannot continue forever. At some point they have to write a new song, all right? And they say, yeah, is it that easy? I say, look, if you if you have who loved watches that much and you have written about that, studied, yeah, at some point, yeah, you could add line-up to existing watches. Uh uh, and I I started to to sketch uh some few uh ideas and because I said yeah if it cannot be a one trick pony. So I ended up having 25 things pretty quickly of watches I would have loved to be made, which were not, but some are technically more ambitious than others, and uh yeah and I know William for many years uh he's a collector everything I showed him a few drawings and he was attracted uh to to to to to the first draw the drawings of of the Maxi graph, uh the name actually comes from him, uh the the watches exist without the name. And then we refined it, we discussed it, but we agreed pretty quickly on how it should look like. And yeah, you would say starting a brand with an imaginary regatta from thirty nine of a race of a lake to Geneva, nobody except the Swiss ever heard of. Well how can I say it's it's it's not what will save the Swiss industry. But it's what I want to do at night and it what it what what makes me smile on the Saturday morning, because if it doesn't make me smile on the Saturday morning, I can do something else. So yeah, and for me it was an exercise of doing still something mechanical interesting to an affordable price point when you think of the volume I produce. Uh, because I have done like very complex stuff at arnol like developed a constant force i developed multiple tourbions complex stuff also based on patterns of mine like things for 200 2050 so these are not the watches your friends m usually wear uh and i found it fun for me as well to learn how to do and respecting all the things I love of quality or finishing of case of movement and everything something sub 5000 uh well and it's how Ipison was uh was created but there again, I saw none of the issues of volumes and vision and I I said before, it's really more of something I also strongly believe that over the next years we will see more and more niche offerings for very, very targeted audience, as I strongly believe. It will not say it would not save the volume issue, but it will s serve the creativity, diversity, which probably as a whole thing will make watches more interesting for uh for people
James Stacey . I completely agree with that. Can you talk a little bit more about just the the model in which you're launching these? So I think you're doing small batch production of this watch and then you've got some more some more in the pipeline? Yeah. So
Sebastian Chaulmontet I I try to keep it because my I I'm very I also first I love the the job and and the the opportunities Celita offers are also in creating stuff which are relevant for an industry and not just relevant relevant for me for myself. And I want to keep it uh very professional, obviously. I don't want to do a reliable and very thoughtful product. So I took my time, it took four years to present the first watch. So I really engineered a lot around it. Yeah I started with this one which is a bit of a crazy crazy thing of having a regatta woody clutch is a little pattern, and which is a very, very niche into a niche making a regatta imaginary vintage regatta. Just I have to love about myself when I say that. So yeah, I have a lot of things to come with little technical. I will the the other thing I'm very I in my book about chronograph I wrote a lot about the type 20 and all the execution and all the makers and it's it's something I really love and um it has no ancestor. Well the ancestor is the German chronograph from from from the second world but it has no direct ancestor. So the next thing I will launch at a very pretty, a very funny little ancestor to the type 10 call type 20 called the type 10. Uh so it gives me 10 numbers to add. I can tell do the type 11, the type 12. So the type 10, uh the type 11 and 12 exist as dashboards actually in the French army. But yeah, I will launch end of October the type uh little batch of 20, 25 pieces of uh an imaginary ancestor of uh the type uh 20 called the type 10 which i'm pretty proud of because it has a different dial layout than than obviously the maxi graph so i have some original dashboard uh design to it uh a little indicator a little little complication which I patented which existed on on clocks in in in in in airplanes but I I find a new way of making it it's why I could patent it. And yeah I think it would be a funny little thing. I'm proud of of making thin watches. So it's twelve millimeters on top of the crystal because all these people trying to measure without crystal always drives me crazy. So I'm really on top of it. I'm twelve. Yeah, that's my goodness. I mean it's you buy the entire thing, you know, it's not that you buy the crystal separately and you put it on your watch. So I'm 12 millimeter, which actually puts me below the original, I have to say. I'm proud of that. I'm 39 on the case, 41 something on the bezel, so it wears a bit larger because I have a very small wrist. I have my signature concave bezel which is a bit uh yeah, which is a bit uh well. So uh it's cool, it reminds me of old like brightling super oceans or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm a big fan of the 2002. You will see something available in 2005. So I obviously I try not to copy anything, but yeah, I'm I'm crazy in love with that thing. And uh all these bright links are crazy. Yeah. The very first super ocean chronographs. And yes, I have a few of signature of having you know my by my my uh some operated chronograph and and so yeah so the next thing is that and then will come the imaginary uh watch of the um uh for the Malaya for the Swiss expedition of 52, as you know, we have a huge fight of of of uh for the Swiss for the real uh climb or the the final climb of the English, if it was well, uh Rolex or not, or well, we know it's not. But uh I will not enter into that, but as you might know Swiss, we always like to be the lucky losers, the number we like to be seconds. We don't like to be in the spotlight. So we had a an an exhibition or we'll do an exhibition uh an expedition on fifty-two. We failed two hundred meters from the summit and uh there is no watch known to that. So I think uh Albison should have provided something specially made for that. So this will be as a Sundograph launched somewhere next year and so on and so forth. I also have a chronograph made for the moon called the spatiograph, but actually was lost by the post, it never ended up at the NASA. So it's my vision of no but uh kidding apart, you know, there's an interesting thing about that. When when uh Kennedy said in 61 we will go to the moon and come bring a band and bring him back. It's very interesting to see that almost everything was was designed from scratch to achieve that, but they actually used a stockwatch, uh, which is crazy good for the speedbuster, which shows how much and uh crazy uh and amazing what it is, and still today. But it's interesting that none really, I think Bullova tried something, but that nobody really designed something specifically for for the moon. And uh I think it's time that it's so I I will try to do something for the moon. Uh like it should have been done in sixty-f
James Stacey ive. A lot of fun to be had. I I like the general philosophy of sort of imaginary vintage watches as you call them. It's slightly cheeky, but like respectful of of of the the history Swiss watch industry at the same time, which I really think. Yeah, I try to be just a bit cheeky because st
Sebastian Chaulmontet ill and these watches are not five hundred dollars. So at some point they're also people and and I really try for what but is I hope and uh that they will still be good looking in ten years and and I says they have something of their own are I think they can they can age gracefully because they are not the ripoff of something which is because you know how it is you can buy buy a watch which is reminiscent of something you like, you will always want to have the real thing. And I try I really hope that my s original enough that they can stand by themselves and I I probably the the reason they can age gracefully is because they have something uh of their
James Stacey own. Yeah, completely. Well thank you so much for giving us a little bit of background on Albishorn, everything you've got in the store as well. And more broadly than that, talking about your time at Solita, uh its importance in the Swiss watch industry. And more broadly about your career. So thank you so much for your time, Sebastian. Uh more to come on all the shore and on the website soon. Yeah, of course. And thank you all for listening to Hodinky Radio. Thanks to Vic Autominelli for editing. And we'll see you all again next week for another episode of Hodinky R