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Gear Patrol's Eric Yang (Plus Coronavirus Effects On Watches)

Published on Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:00:16 +0000

The product guru talks about stocking up, paring back, and the importance of helping people find their passions.

Synopsis

This episode of Hodinkee Radio features host Stephen Polverant in conversation with Eric Yang, co-founder of Gear Patrol. The episode opens with a serious discussion with Hodinkee's Joe Thompson about the coronavirus outbreak and its profound impact on the watch industry. Thompson explains that the virus strikes at the heart of Swiss watch industry growth, with China and Hong Kong representing 23% of all Swiss watch sales. He details how Hong Kong was already experiencing a crisis due to political unrest, with sales down significantly, and how the coronavirus has turned China from a 'Swiss watch hero' to a victim virtually overnight. The impact includes widespread store closures, disrupted supply chains, potential delays in product launches, and uncertainty around major trade shows like Baselworld and Watches and Wonders Geneva.

The second half features Eric Yang discussing his journey from starting Gear Patrol as a blog in 2007 to growing it into a 50-person media company with a quarterly print magazine. Yang shares his minimalist philosophy and focus on essential products, explaining how having a family changed his approach to consumption and travel. The conversation explores the responsibility that comes with product journalism and influencing purchasing decisions, the democratization of information about gear and watches, and the ethics of consumption in a world with too much stuff. Yang emphasizes the importance of making investments in quality products rather than 'just buying shit,' and shares his current essentials including his Panerai PAM 111, the watch he wore when he first started reading Hodinkee. The episode concludes with Yang's recent interest in furniture as a category that offers longevity and can be shared with others.

Transcript

Speaker
Unknown Everyone's at a different place in their journey, right? I don't know if it's part of age or it's part of having a family, but I think about a lot more so now how it is that we can get products that one, I'll keep this thing for a long time, but then how do you make sure that it goes to the next person, if it can be downcycled or can it be upcycled or whatever else cycling there is. I think the thing that we need to figure out is whether or not we're making purchases and investments and not just buying shit
Unknown . Hey everybody, I'm your host Stephen Polverant and this is Hodinki Radio. I'm really excited about this week's episode. We brought in my longtime friend and one of the co-founders of Gear Patrol, Mr. Eric Yang. He's somebody like me who finds a lot of meaning in the products he surrounds himself with and the products that he tells others to surround themselves with. There's an added twist though, which is that Eric's on a bit of a minimalist kick lately, so we're gonna talk about his essentials and what value you can find in paring down. But before that, we've got my conversation with our own Joe Thompson talking about something that's a little bit serious. Uh it's what's probably the biggest news in the watch world this year, even though it doesn't sound like it has anything to do with watches, and that's the coronavirus. It's already had a huge impact on the watch industry this year and that doesn't show any signs of slowing down so Joe's here to give us his analysis and a little bit more information to hopefully help you understand what's going on. Alright let's do this This week's episode is brought to you by the Hodinky Shop. Stay tuned later in the show to learn more about how the Hodinki Shop is changing the watch buying game. For more, visit shop.com. Mr. Joe Thompson. Good to see you again. Good to see you, Steven. I haven't seen you since what like uh ten minutes ago when we had our like fourth hour long meeting of the day. It's good to see you here. Yeah. We could spend a lot of time together, just not on mic. On the radio. Yeah. Uh I wanted to bring you in because weirdly, I would say maybe the biggest watch news of 2020 is something that has like basically nothing to do with watches on the surface of it. Um, but it's had this huge impact, and that's the coronavirus, right? Correct. And I mean, obviously at a large scale, this is a a human tragedy. It is a huge, huge catastrophe. It has implications that touch basically everything. And, you know, I want to make it clear up front that the reason I brought you in to talk about it isn't so that we can make it all about watches. Um obviously the stakes of this are like on a bigger scale than that. Um but it is having an imp
Unknown act on the industry. Yes, and that impact's profound, Stephen. You're absolutely right. I mean, speaking personally, this is a humanitarian disaster. You know, 1,300 people plus dead. Um um, you know, thousands uh infected. Um but professionally, uh as someone uh whose job it is to cover the industry, this the impact of this is profound. And that's because the coronavirus strikes at the heart of the engine of growth of the Swiss watch industry. I'm gonna focus today, our conversation is gonna focus primarily on the Swiss side of the business. It also affects smartwatches because smartwatches many most are produced in China. But just focusing on the Suisse, um the impact is is very serious. Just how serious it will be, it's too early to tell. And as we speak today on February thirteenth, no one has uh the foggiest idea of how long this is going to last. But it has already had a dramatic impact. Uh perhaps the best way to and I I'll make a few points about it uh and perhaps the best way uh to start is to is to simply explain that the two markets most affected are Hong Kong and China. The number one market in the world for Swiss watches, and the number three market in the world. Asia as a region represents 53% of total Swiss watch sales. But Hong Kong and China together in total of total value of Swisswatch exports, just the two of them, represent 23%. It's nearly a quarter of all Swiss Watch sales. So, and if you throw in the celebrated Chinese tourists, that's 150 million people every year, who buy luxury goods overseas on tourist shopping ventures, it's it's even higher than 23 percent. And so I think the place to start on this in terms of the impact, and I'll try and go quickly uh,, is Hong Kong. Okay. And the point here, number one, is as everybody knows, Hong Kong was already uh in a crisis. Yeah. It was in a political crisis that has become an economic crisis. The second half of the year was a disaster for Hong Kong. Sales there dropped for the full year 11.4%. They were down 24% for the fourth quarter, just an example of the impact it had. The largest Swiss watch company, Swisswatch group, is the Swatch Group. Okay. Swatch group sales last year were down 2.7%. Okay. Down. First time in a while they were down. The culprit was Hong Kong. They were up in every other market in the world except Hong Kong. And because they were down in Hong Kong, uh, they were down for the year. Why? Because well, they operate ninety stores. Swatch group has 90 stores in Hong Kong. In Hong Kong? In Hong Kong alone. And their own estimate is that they lost 200 million Swiss francs. It's a little bit more in dollars, in Hong Kong last year. To give you some sense, one more quick one, which is that LVMH, the world's largest luxury group, that has in excess of 50 billion They had record sales for the year globally. This is all of their products. You know, watches jewelry. Um, you know, they have tag, they have Ublot, uh, they have Zenith, um, and of course they have Bulgary. Um that's only eight percent of their sales. Okay. But in Hong Kong, for all of their sales, they were down in Hong Kong twenty-five percent in the third quarter and forty Forty percent. Geez, that is. My point is that Hong Kong was a catastrophe even before the coronavirus hit. Business people in Hong Kong say the impact of the coronavirus is worse than all of this impact of the political violence in the second half of the year. Why is that? Because in the in the political violence, the stores were not closed all the time. There were not demonstrations and tear gas all the time. The stores were open. People could shop. And so for point one about Hong Kong is that a a a terrible situation has now has now been made worse.
Unknown So we're projecting losses in excess of 25, 40% downturns. For Hong Kong, for sure. Q
Unknown 1 will be uh a nightmare, certainly for Hong Kong. Yeah, it sounds like it. The second point I would make is that what coronavirus has done to China is turn it from a Swiss watch hero to a Swiss watch victim overnight. What do I mean? China was a hero because with Hong Kong down eleven percent, China had a great year last year. They were up sixteen percent for the year. Perfect example was December. Exports into Hong Kong in December were down twenty-nine percent. The value of Swiss Swatch exports into China in December were up forty-nine percent to get ready for the Chinese New Year. Well that'll that'll help, right? Like that helps two things. Enormously. So the Swiss W and and so uh what what happened was by year end, even with number one Hong Kong being down double digits, uh the Swiss industry didn't do too badly. They were up two point four percent for the year. Thank you, China. Thank you also Japan. Thank you uh Chinese tourists who go to to London and to Tokyo. Thank you to them. Um the problem is that China is now not the hero, it is a victim. Perhaps the best example uh is Bulgary, because uh John Christoph Baban is one of the few Swiss watch executives that is going on the record talking about the impact of the coronavirus uh on uh on sales. And what he told CNN uh is that uh he has fifty-one stories. Bulgarie has fifty-one stores in the greater China area, which includes Hong Kong and China. Half of them are closed now. Just closed. Indefinitely. The stores are closed. The ones that are open, they're open uh uh their hours are haphazard. They're on short time. Uh and uh and there's no traffic. Even so, even still there's no traffic. Cities are closed. Factories are closed. In Chin in Ch in in in in Hong Kong, by the way, schools are closed. This is Hong Kong. This is not Wuhan City, uh where where the coronavirus started. In Hong Kong, schools were closed in January, and just today they announced they'll be closed until March 16th, and they keep extending the deadline. So you get and so what John Christophe Baban told CNN is he said the fact that we are relying on e-commerce only in China is hurting sales significantly. And so with the stores in terrible shape, he's down to e-commerce. And it's not just him, it's everybody. So this is so what is going to happen then uh to the hero of
Unknown 2000 ye Especially because Hong Kong, who's the other one who could potentially maybe pick up the slack, is part of it.
Unknown No, that's not gonna happen. Now, uh other repercussions, the third point, as I mentioned, is travel shopping. Uh Chinese buyers account for 40% of sales in tourist destinations and in airports. Then there are the fact of retail sales have slowed down, obviously, um so that that all of these uh all of these exports that went into China in December, they're just sitting this inventories are now rising. They're sitting in the stores. This is going to lead to a revival of the gray market
Unknown . I don't know if you did any research into this. If the products are going into China, you have to imagine that nobody wants to ship these products out of China at this point, right? Like stuff's probably not coming in and out as normal, right? So it's not like if another market rebounds, somebody's just taking all these products and shipping them to Europe or something somewhere,
Unknown right? Yeah. I mean, the now the Hong Kong started this reviv uh to in in context. The trouble in Hong Kong started sort of the revival of the uh the gray market, which had been sort of cleaned up because both Swatch Group and Richmond Group have been working on that. And this information is coming from from Credit Suisse, who does some studies and surveys about this. And they saw even in in Hong Kong that because of the political troubles there, that the inventories were rising, of course. Retail says there was very little sell through. It makes perfect sense. The stores were closed. You weren't so you had sell in, but even the sell in you had, you can't sell through. Even worse in China where you had a lot of sell in. And so that's exp that's happening now. Other things that are that are going on that affect business. Let's talk about cancellation of trade shows. Um we know two of the brands that pulled out of Basel World for 2020, had planned to have their own uh events for their clients and for the press. One was the SWATS group. Uh they were going to have an event in Zurich in March called Time to Move. At the very same time in the first week of March, Grand Seiko was going to have the Grand Seiko summit in Tok Tokyo. Uh at this point both are cancelled. Ye
Unknown ah. It's a huge blow. I mean it's a huge blow to some of the biggest forces in the modern watch market.
Unknown Speculation now is rampant to be honest uh about what is going to happen at Balza World and Watches and Wonders Geneva, which is the new name for SIHH. I was in Switzerland, as you know, last week uh with some of our colleagues, and we met with some Swiss watch executives and unasked, unprovoked, they talked about their own concerns about what is going to happen. Yeah. You know, with the shows and with the fairs. And we know that just this week, in terms of the week in review, Bulgaria itself withdrew from Balsa World and citing Corona
Unknown Aaron Powell Yeah. And I think, I mean, I don't want to like stoke, you know, fears too much here, but I I think one of the things people may not realize is the economics of these fairs is already tenuous at best, right? Like these brands pay a ton of money to participate in these fairs, whether it's internally with Riesmont and the FHH and Watches and Wonders Geneva, or whether it's Basel World and all of the various brands that participate. But even if coronavirus isn't a problem at the shows, right? It's not just safety at the shows they're worried about. It's also if no one from China, no one from Hong Kong, maybe nobody from Taiwan, Korea, Japan can come over for these shows or choose not to come over for these shows, the economics might just not make sense, right? Like if if for some of these brands, over fifty percent of their revenues come from China and Hong Kong, it why would you pay two, four, six, eight million dollars to participate in a fair when half your client base isn't coming
Unknown ? Well, that's correct. And that's what leads to uh the cancellation of the shows. We're already seeing that with some European shows. There was a telecom show in Barcelona that ended up having to cancel. Correct. And it ended up being forced to cancel simply because the bigger brands started to pull out. Um and so I mean there's another place where I mean I I love Basel Ball uh Basel World. This year it'll be how many for you? Uh the sorry to put you on the spot here. All right. All right. So um and it it it it it's a great gathering of of the watch clan. I always get you know a a terrific amount of information ob,viously, and seeing the gang and all the rest. But uh and so that uh uh the I I just your heart goes out to the management that is trying to to revive the show with their new plans and they just cannot catch a break. They really can't. But there are also other implications to in in addition to the ones you cite, and I think a bit I've r reported on it before, that some of the mid-sized brands who go to Basel still do rely on Basel World for orders. So the cancellation of Basel World for any number of brands is a terrible strategic blow. They do not have the resources to do what Brightling does and the SWATS group does and what LVM the LVMH group was able to do in Dubai in January, which is stage their own shows. These guys don't have that kind
Unknown of dough. Yeah. I mean like if Basel gets canceled, Rolex is fine, tutor's fine, paddock is fine, L VMH is fine, show parts probably fine, like some midsize brand on the back of the second floor, like they're you know
Unknown one, yes. I mean you don't wanna uh you know I don't wanna cite particular brands, but but yes, I mean uh people do rely on that show. Another thing to consider uh is the supply chain in China. There will certainly be disruptions. Um for the watch industry, that won't get a lot of coverage. Most of the coverage is going to the electronics side and the automotive side. I mean these huge, huge industry but consider that the watch appearance parts on many Swiss watches we're talking about cases bracelets dials hands a lot of it's made in China so is that guy you know what is happening with that and that that will cause then disruptions. Um and so bottom line, what is the impact on consumers? Well, um there w there will be certainly delays There may well be delays depon depending on how long this goes and the impact on the shows of the launching of new products
Unknown . Um yeah, I mean that's an interesting thing because you know there's already been concerns and we've talked about this I think on this show before, is with the shows being pushed to later in the year, brands already have a hard time off in delivering new products to retailers in time for holiday when the bulk of sales for the whole year happen. Do you think that this could if if we're already orders are being placed late and the supply chain is under pressure. Do you think we see a year where like many or at least a significant number of sort of important commercial releases, they get released and people place orders and they just can't get to market fast enough. Like they just can't make them fast enough. Absolutely. And
Unknown what that and that could be dire for again some of the smaller brands. Um just rely on the business. You just can't take a year off. You can't survive that kind of thing. Yeah, you can't just say like uh it's coronavirus. Well uh let's just let's just wait till twenty twenty one. Yeah, I'll hold this launch. And um so this also the the the if you have to clear out to clear out the inventory that did go in in 2020 that perhaps sat around depending upon the market, that's gonna go to the gray market. Let's say not out of Hong Kong and China, but just say the rest of the rest of uh the rest of the world. Um and uh so we'll see how severe it gets. I mean theoretically if it just k kept going, I mean uh no one's taking any bets. Bernard Arno, the chairman of uh the L VMH Group. He said he said in his con uh earnings call uh with uh financial analysts that look if it goes for two months, we'll be all right. That's this huge group. Uh but if it goes for two years,, you know all bets are off. Right. So we'll just have to see. You know, um and that's that's what that's what we're looking at. So I don't want to be terribly alarmist. I mean the presumption that is being made by Credit Suisse is that that that one presumes uh as they through their economic models is that they presume that there is gonna the the the virus will die down in the first half, that that'll they'll they'll come up with some sort of solution to that And that
Unknown 's really what people are hoping for now. Okay. So it's not it's it's doom and gloom for now, but with an eye toward like this not being you know twenty twenty is not uh lost yet. Not yet. Okay. No, we're only in the middle of February. We'll check in in the middle of March. Okay. Yeah, we'll check back in on this. Cause I think this is at least, you know, in in our world, I think most like watch consumers and collectors probably aren't seeing the impact yet, not quite yet. But in our day-to-day lives, like you know, you and I are talking about this all day every day and getting a million emails a day and lots of questions. So I think we'll probably have more on this for people uh soon. Hopefully good news. Yeah. Yeah. Fingers crossed. Yeah, fingers crossed, Joe. Thanks for doing this. Sure, Steven. Awesome. Talk to you soon. You too. Bye-bye. Up next, my conversation with Gear Patrol co-founder, Eric Yang. Hey man, good to have you on the show. Hi Steven, how are you? I'm good. How about you? Not bad. Uh lovely new digs you have. Thank you. Yeah, they're uh we're in this weird spot now where like we've had them long enough that I almost can't remember a time before we had them. Like I I totally take them for granted now. I think
Unknown I've seen all of your offices. Every stage of them from the We Work to now. Yeah. To the to the fact that you're taking over the building one floor at a time. Yeah, hopefully. Uh slow slow empire. Yeah, the empire that you have is this building with Nelson lamps on each floor. Yeah. We have we have some good taste, right? You do have good taste. That's always
Unknown been very true. Thank you very much. Um yeah, I mean you you just referenced it there, but we'
Unknown ve known each other for for a while now. I I was actually trying to think on the way down when the first time I had met you. Because I can remember the first time I met Ben, but I'm trying to remember the first time I met you. And I don't know if it was on a press trip or if it was at a watch like had to be on a watch event, right
Unknown ? Yeah, it might have been a watch event or maybe even like a pop-up flea or something like that. But it had to be like twenty twelve, twenty thirteen. It was a long time ago. And And it wasn't an Apple event. No, it wasn't an Apple event. No. Alth
Unknown ough we've been to many Apple events. And uh it's always just funny. Like the one time I see you every year, no matter what, is in Cupertino. Yeah, right. There's there's that squad that like you you know they'
Unknown re all going to be a Cupertino. You're there, Jeff Carvalho's there. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I mean you're you're all over the
Unknown place. A little bit less than you used to be. I would definitely say that I have settled down and I'm pretty I'm a pretty boring person at this point in the past. I think boring is probably an overstatement, but you you do travel less than you used to. I do travel a lot less than I used to. Um you know I think that when I my wife and I started having children. The promise was, honey, within a year before our first son, Hunter turns a year old, I will try to extricate all the travel that I do out of my lifestyle so that I can be home and see the kids grow up. Did you do it? Didn't. No travel for a year. It was no travel for a year. What was that like? It was um to be honest, fantastic. Really? Well look, the the the whole how am I gonna get to diamond this year? You know, they were silver, gold, oh dude. You know, diamond divorced, right? That's like the the the four four rankings that you have on on Delta. Uh and then so we so i for me it was just like, okay, I got these miles, I'll use them one point for one time, but right now I just wanna be at home. I feel like I should be with my kids and that became that became a theme and it became not just a theme, sorry, raising kids is not a theme. Uh it just became something I really enjoyed and I realized how much I just loved being in New York, how productive I was, and I
Unknown just embraced it. Yeah. I mean there is something nice. I I haven't done anything close to a year, but no. I second half second half of last year, I was on the road more than I wasn't. And this year, I mean we're recording this mid February. I I was out of New York, I guess, for like two days for something, but that's it. Is that even possible? I I feel like just like six or eight weeks is so nice. You get to see friends. You like remember you have friends? You're like, oh yeah, mom, hi. Yeah, yeah, right. Mom too, yeah. Yeah. Uh yeah, I mean travel, it's interesting for me because like travel is such a big part of gear patrol. Like if when I think of gear patrol, travel is something that feels like a big a big part of it. And uh I wanna get into that, but I I think it's probably worth I'm sure you're sick of telling this story. But can you give us like the quick version of the Gear Patrol founding myth? Like
Unknown uh the founding myth. I mean honestly it started out with a blog, yeah, a twenty dollar domain bottom. Like yeah, small business, yeah. Uh you know, Gear Patrol started 2007, uh purchased a URL called GearPetrol.com, bought it because I had had a ski accident earlier that year that I had been put up because I had to I had torn my ACL and so I ended up being taken down by ski patrol down the mountain, which brought up the word patrol. I love products. I have always loved products. I've been obsessed with products ever since I was a little kid reading the Sears Robot catalog. And decided by a domain called GearPetrol.com. It was originally gonna be gearup.com. Gearup.com. But unavailable because I believe that it was thirty dollars. And I think that's ridiculous for a disappointment. So gearpatrol.com and then uh the rest of sort of history. Uh you know, I I like everybody else at the time was entering the blogging space. Of course Hodinki store on Tumblr, right? Yeah, Hodinki was a Tumblr. I actually wore the watch that I had when I first started reading Hodinki. Oh, very cool. We'll talk about that later. But the uh so yeah, Cure Patrol 2007, uh worked on it by myself for a couple of years and then uh met Ben Bowers while I was working at CBS television. And then Ben prompted me to say, I'm now your co-founder. And so we became inextricably tied for time being from then. And Ben is the co-founder. And so fast forward to 200011 we both quit our jobs to start working on gear ritual full time and yeah now we're about a team of 50 people that's awesome yeah that's crazy it's well it's no it's no I mean it's just the same thing the same journey that you guys have have taken with within. Yeah, it is it is funny how parallel it's the larger we work, and you realize why are we paying so much to
Unknown be in a we work. Right. We want our own identity. Also like like me, you probably had the like, I wanna pick what chairs we sit in. Yeah, not I'm so tired of this IKEA table. Yeah. Yeah. Want a real desk chair. Um yeah, it's it's pretty wild. I mean thinking back to like 2007. Sure. And that period, like it's kind of hard to think about, I think for a lot of people now, what the sort of like consumer internet was like back then. Oh my god. Like that was the heyday of like gear blogging, right? And tech blogging. That's when everybody had a blog, all these major media companies had started these like little blogs. And it was really about just like you wake up in the morning and you just like find cool shit and write about it, right? That
Unknown 's exactly what it was. We're I mean, we're just scar like starving for information. Yeah.. Constantly looking We're at that point we were just buried in RSS feeds. Yeah. And that's where you're getting all of your information. And I still miss the days of RSS feed because it was just so clean. Uh but yeah we were we'd be scouring magazines, we'd be scouring uh forums, you know, just everything from like a BMW forum, like E46 Fanatics to Pataristi. Yeah. And, you know, just trying to find out any additional piece of information that we could to put um onto the site. And then we just end up building a rhythm and we never stopped blogging. Just never stopp
Unknown ed. I I will say you never stop but at the same time the sort of like a level of blogging I would say has changed. Having been in SIHH appointments with you and like watching your team work, like you guys are serious pros. This is not just like pulling a press photo and being like here's a hundred words. No, they're a cra
Unknown ck team. They the uh I sometimes stand back when they like push me aside and say, Eric, you're kind of in the way now. Can you just uh can you please uh Can you go back to the office? Just like go play golf for the day, just like get out of here. At our uh we had this this all hands meeting last week and I the first slide was this pick a screenshot of Slack where our um our head of content ops told me, uh Eric, we want to let you know that we're taking relieving you of this duty and it was just a working on the masthead, which I thought was like the most boring part of what we do. And he's you're being and I was, like are you basically firing me from this job? He said, yes, but can you at least appreciate that we're trying to sell it to you? Nicely. And I was like, okay, I think this is the last thing I get to do on the magazine. And it's one of those aha moments where I really don't get to touch anything
Unknown anymore. Yeah. I wonder, is that something that as the company grows, how do you feel about that? I guess I'm not I'm not gonna prompt you too much, but like how do you feel about the idea that like you've now created a thing that like kind of exists outside of just you
Unknown . Yeah, you know it's it's no longer something that Ben and I do. It's it's the company. And it's it's something that's run by much more talented people than we ever were. I won't speak for Ben. Ben's extremely talented. Much more talented than I ever was. He's pretty talented guy. He's a he's a quant. He's also a uh super nice guy. He is the nicest of people. That's that maybe come from the fact that we're both in the south. But yeah, Ben's from New Orleans. Uh he's got the Southern Genteel going for him. Um so yeah, I mean I think that now with the way Gear Patrol is, it's taken life its own. People are doing things that they believe to be best for the company. And so for me, it's it is an out-of-body experience. I just sort of stand back., watch I feel like now I get to sort of play the role of consultant looking in, saying, you know, I think that there's are we heading in the right north? Are we going the right direction? And everybody thankfully is. And we just keep pushing the apparatus forward every day and it is it's it's really satisfying, it's super rewarding. I think I realized that this is the version that I wanted to get to so much sooner, uh of what I get to do with gear patrol and and I love
Unknown it. Do you remember a time, maybe the first time if you can remember it, if not just a significant time, of when like you saw something appear on the site and you were just like, where the hell did this come from? Like this is awesome. And like where like how did this happen
Unknown ? Oh, that's a really great. I feel like I see that almost once a week. The first time I saw the it was actually probably the third or fourth issue of the magazine when it came out. And and I there's probably hundreds of these instances in the past when the team had produced this amazing package uh and it was this long truck they did across Wyoming and it just turned out unbelievable. And it was like super I and I just remember being thinking to myself, and like I didn't do anything. I didn't even know this was really happening. The team put it together. Uh they really understood how to put the products and make the products part of the main part of the story. And it was just super rewarding because you realized, okay, you know, we we use this this phrase like our culture is steeped in products. Yeah. And uh the office and they it you just saw it happening and then you saw it progress to the site. And um and you know, I have these moments pretty much every week and it's almost impossible for me to keep up with the pace that they publish now. And that is a really funny thing now because I'm like, I don't get I can't keep up with the site. Yeah. And so I have to come back to it at different times and consume it and and I'll be like pleasantly surprised because I'm reading a story that I have I've either put on pocket or read to myself or on safari bookmarks and I'll be reading in the subway and being like, damn. That was that was pretty cool. Yeah
Unknown . And like we did this. Like you're a part of it still and and yet you get that pleasure of like consuming it afterwards. Yeah, I mean I I sit next to the person that got to do this. This is pretty cool. Yeah. This week's episode is brought to you by the Hodinky Shop. The Hodinky Shop was created by Watchlovers for Watchlovers. It started way back in 2012 with a handful of watch straps and travel pouches, and it's grown to include dozens of strap options, tons of travel accessories, the best watchbooks and magazines, outstanding vintage watches, and some of the most desirable modern watches on the market today. It's truly a full service destination for anyone interested in watches. In addition to stocking the products you want, the Hodinki Shop is committed to making the discovery and buying process itself as fun and convenient as it can be. You can browse and chop anywhere in the world directly on your computer, tablet, or smartphone, and the incredible photographs ensure you get a vivid, accurate look at whatever you're considering. It doesn't stop there though. Once you've ordered a watch, you can count on complimentary, expedited shipping to get it to you as quickly as overnight. An extra year of warranty is included at no additional charge, and all of your paperwork is stored digitally so you don't have to sweat losing those precious papers. Importantly, when it comes to modern watches, the Hodinki Shop is an official authorized retailer for all brands it carries. This means you're guaranteed to be getting a brand new, fully authentic watch with its full warranty. There's no funny business at all. The experience is truly best in class from top to bottom, and it's what the Hodinky Shop thinks 21st century luxury is all about. To learn more and to take a look at the full range of watches, accessories and more, visit shop.hodinky.com. Alright, let's get back to the show. It's a funny thing when a a media company kinda gets to that point. I mean, even just looking at at Gear Patrol, like I remember not that long ago when like it's it it is part of my daily read. I check Gear Patrol at least once a day. Uh I mean that honestly, I really do. Um I love it. And uh I remember the day like it wasn't that long ago when I could read everything on the site. Like I could read the whole website and I knew every article. Now it's like I check in the morning and I read I have time to read one, maybe two of the stories per day, but like that's it. Like
Unknown there's so much there that's a there's so much there and there's so fast. We have to fix the user experience to to be able help make that easier to read for for consumers. But you know, that's the thing, that the they've managed to pick up velocity and they've also managed to ratchet up the quality and that's like been amazing to see as our editorial team is like really short up
Unknown . Yeah. I mean you guys undertook a similar a similar journey that we took uh and you were ahead of uh way ahead of us on this was going into print uh and I'm I'm curious. I mean, we talked about it a lot when we were going into print. Uh, you know, I called you and asked you a lot of questions and you were extremely helpful. Yeah, thank you. Um, just so everyone is everyone listening should know that like the hodinky magazine would not have happened without Eric and his team. Unbelievably helpful and and supportive as we kind of took that leap. Too kind. Um so I'm curious for you, you know, we under I I guess it was about three years ago that we started working on on our first magazine. But what A, what what prompted you to say, like, okay, we're a blog, now we're gonna be a print magazine? And two, how what was that experience like for you? Was it exciting, disorienting all of the above?
Unknown It was definitely disorienting, exciting. I believe that we had a falling asleep like on the first press day. Yeah. You know, uh so with the magazine and I have to say Honicki magazine is a fantastic publication. P a beautiful periodical actually it's a more of a more like a volume. Uh, you know, I think with us it became a choice where and it was two sort of competing factors. One, we'd always wanted to do a print magazine. I I didn't I'm doing gear patrol now even because I had hoped one day I didn't pedigree to join a magazine and rise up the masthead, so why not make one ourselves? Uh and the other more important side was we just realized as a company, okay, we want to make a bet, and we don't think that we can be impactful when it comes to video. Video, there's just too much upstart costs, and this was early in the days, you know, the Nikon D90 day, or actually was it was the 5Ds were out that point. But the for us for the magazine, it was can we be with the resources we have, can we put something out there that like lives up to what we do? And that's really what drove the magazine to become like the place we decided, okay, put video aside, let's focus on putting together a magazine. And the journey was unbelievable. Like it was we didn't have anybody coaching or counseling us on, you know, if you're gonna do it this way, make sure you're processing all your photos in CMYK, you know, even though you're doing are you shooting RGB, we're learning all these things along the way. We didn't understand like the the the compounding costs as the magazine starts to add paperweight and you know we were understanding, oh, cover stocks is so what's a perfect bound magazine is supposed to be. And you know, we had probably had every magazine on earth at our office trying to understand what this looks like, but we were trying to figure it out ourselves. And the journey was like super rewarding. We we we bonded over how difficult it was to put our magazine, the whole team would work insane hours to try to get this thing to press. And we it was that way for the first three or four issues before we got together and got our processes right. Um and the journey was amazing. The first time we got to see it up on a Barnes Noble were I think I don't know the I think early days we were probably the annex and Trion Lounge, but the first time we got to see it there was it was pretty cool. When you didn't put it there yourself, you know you you go to the store like wow, I'm in I'm in Atlanta. I remember I was actually down in Tennessee and I saw it on a Barnes Noble and I was like, oh damn, that's pretty Yeah. That's pretty
Unknown cool. It got here. There's something about like accidentally encountering your work in places that are not like New York and LA, basically. It is so exciting. I remember my parents used to live in uh Saratoga in upstate New York. Yeah. And uh I co-wrote a book uh I guess a year and a half ago. And my mom found a book at like a local bookstore, like a little independent bookstore and she's like, That is so weird. Like if there's something as somebody who makes stuff mostly on the internet, it's weird to see your stuff in the physical world. Yeah, you're like, wait, what is this? Is some
Unknown who just took our logo? Yeah. Yeah. Like, wait, where did this come from? Uh no, it's it's super meta and you know it it it continues to be amazing just to see it out there. I I I feel like sometimes I do take the fact that we do now a quarterly magazine for granted. Uh but then whenever, like right before I came down here, I was looking up all the comps on the wall and you know the whole design team puts them on the wall so we can take a look at the magazine, the flow. And you know, again, this issue had nothing to do with it. And I just super just I just started reading and just sort of standing at the wall reading what everybody was doing and it's just amazing. And the magazine's romantic, right? And that's what and that's why we love print. Yeah. That's why we love watches. Yeah, agreed. This romance
Unknown . Uh we'll we'll get to watches in just sec aond. I do I do want to talk to you about watches. Um but you you said a minute ago that you you almost take for granted that you put out the magazine four times a year. And I think, you know, in media it's very easy to forget kind of what a privilege it is to be able to speak to audiences on a daily basis. Like I I often forget that like not everybody wakes up every morning and has a platform to reach hundreds of thousands or millions of people every day with their thoughts and opinions and kind of like insight into the world. Uh and that's something I try I personally try to think about a lot is like what what does that mean and how can I appreciate that more and kind of like make better use of that and kind of like be more responsible about that? Is that something you guys think about at all, you or your colleagu
Unknown es? That's that's a really amazing question. I think that we do take because it's digital and because in WordPress you just hit publish yeah it's out there and even now with APIs it's now there, it's on Flipboard, it's not Apple News and you're not thinking about how many people you're reaching and impacting until you realize, you know, and that I think that's the really cool thing about data that we've driven back into our team, which is we have our team really obsessing over how readers interact with a story. They'll see, okay, this is what everybody clicked on in your story. This is how many people engaged in terms of time engaged. And you realize when you see a story and you you count the numbers and you see, oh, somebody engaged with the story, the audience engaged with the story for the equivalent of 40,000 minutes or what might amount to a week's worth of time. You know how much attention has somebody given our stories or in aggregate have people given our stories? Yeah. And you realize how that influenced cascades into what people do and how people purchase things and how people go about their lives and I don't know this might be too nerdy, but I think that's why in the big in the next couple of years, I think media is gonna be talking a lot about attribution. Yeah. Which is how many watches has Hodinky inspired to be purchased? Not just how many people are buying through your store, but how many people have you pr inspired to purchase and nobody and technology hasn't been able to put the peg on that. Yeah. And so I think that's I would be sort I wouldn't surprise if Hodinky and Gear Patrol and some of our counterparts move the the gross domestic
Unknown product a bit. Yeah. No, I I think you're totally right. Absolutely. Yeah. And I mean I'm sure you get these emails too, but we we get emails from people all the time saying like, hey, thanks so much for doing a review of this thing. I bought it yesterday and I love it. And I would never have thought about it. You know, that those kind of emails. It's a nice thing too. We we talk about it, especially when new people join the team, about that as a responsibility. You know, like when you you know, you being any one of our writers or or your writers, you know, puts 600 words down and half a dozen photos and says, like, this thing is awesome. I really love it, they should know that like people are gonna go out and spend their hard earned money on that thing because they trust you. And that's that's a a weird responsibility to have over a bunch of strangers on the
Unknown internet. No, it's super important. I think that's one of the reasons why um even though we were a young company, we really try to use this phrase um which is product journalism. And the reason why is not just because we think we're a company of journalists, it's really comes down to the fact that we have to take responsibility for what we're writing and the readers and the if there's no readers, then there's no gear patrol. Right. Yeah. If there's no readers, there's no hodniki. Totally. And the fact that they are the most important people in the room and they're not there. Yeah. Like you have to be accountable to that. And you have to think about how what you're saying and how you're advising people is driving people to a place where, you know, we this empowering people with knowledge to help them get the things that they need. That's a ke
Unknown y, key tenet for us. Yeah. No, totally. Um, I mean, I just know from my own purchasing behavior, like, you know, obviously with watches I have a lot of resources here and there are a couple other product categories where I have I have friends and and things in the industries who I can go call. There are other times where like I'm just I'm just Googling. Like I bought a like a tea um what do you call it? Like thermos earlier this week. Right. And like what kind you get? I bought a Kinto. A Kinto, okay. Yeah. Um and like my first thought is like I Google it and check in on like gear patrol and wire cutter are basically the first two things I check. And it's like if one of those places recommends a thing, like that's it, it's done. Like popular says, okay, I saw two positive signals, I'm gonna go purchase that. Exactly. And it's like it's that easy, but it's like the they're remembering that like I'm that thing for someone else is really intimidating 'cause I know I know what that sort of like brain chemistry is like. And you're doing it for five, ten, twenty, thirty thousand dollar purchases. Right. That's true. Yeah. I I wonder, you know, going back to the the early days of gear patrol, like I know watches have been a part of gear patrol basically all the way back to the beginning. But gear is a it's a big it's a big little word, you know? Um It's a big little word. It's so broad. What what at the beginning in the earliest days, because I was not a reader early, early. Sure. What was what did ge
Unknown ar mean? Like what did gear cover? I think we were really focused on outdoors and cars and tech uh with with a with a sensibility design and style got mixed in uh early on early on probably about style essentials and then we brought on some really talented people who know a lot about style and fashion and we've continued to cover it with our lens which is trying to help people understand it and I think the one thing that we're really focused on just and we weren't I don't think we could have put a pin on it way back when but we were probably heading that way in the journey is that we were saying, okay, can we democratize this information? Because I think what happens is in our space with watches and cars, and you see it a lot with car journalists, they just start talking at you and they expect you to understand what like a C V joint is or that this Tesla battery has 19,000 kilowatts in it, and you're like, I don't I just want to know if I can get home to Poughkeepsie in my in this Tesla. Yeah. Or I just want to. Yeah, what I I don't know what you're saying. I think that's why Daniel is such a fantastic writer for Wall Street Journal. But the uh and for watches, people when they start to talk about, you know, when like the third word is escapement. Right. And you don't realize, okay, can you just explain to me first what escapement is? And I I feel overwhelmed and I feel like I'm not part of this club that's talking about watches. Uh and one thing that's always been great about Hodinki is you guys never took that tone. We try. We try. Sometimes it comes out, but we try. True. And and and and at least well look, I I I follow your stories and so I think that that's one thing that you've always done a fantastic job of is being able to say, all right, I
Unknown I want to explain to you why this means a lot. Yeah. And well thank you. I mean it's it's in a lot of cases and and it's something we've done kind of on purpose. Uh in a lot of cases, people come from not in the watch world. And I think that helps us. You know, like I came from a men's clothing and tech background. Um, and we have other other folks on this team that like they're watch enthusiasts, but they don't didn't come from a professional watch writing background. Sure. Which helps. And I would imagine it's probably the same for you guys that like hiring somebody whose entire career has been in automotive journalism maybe isn't who you want writing your car reviews.
Unknown Cause then the next thing you know, you're a trade magazine. Right. A trade publication. And what you want is you want people understanding, no, I'm interested in this in my free time. Yeah. And I'm interested in what I'm interested in cars because this is what I do after I get home from work. Right. And I'm and therefore it's on this on the on the on the pendulum on the fun. I'm interested. This is exciting. It's my passion. I'm an enthusiast and that's that yeah, you're right, exactly right. And I'm I'm glad to hear that you guys do the same thing, which is people who aren't steeped in just watches. Totally. Yeah. Uh to dive into watches deeply for for a minute, you you mentioned the
Unknown I feel like now I'm going into shark confession. No, no, you're you're fine. You're fine here. You mentioned that the watch you have on your wrist is the watch that you had when you started reading Hodinky. Can you tell us about that watch
Unknown ? Um yeah, sure. It's a Paneraye uh Pam 111. I think I got this in 2005. I'm not sure if this is a J or K. It's a J model. Um and this was my first like quote unquote luxury watch. I had been working at CBS. Uh I had just made art director, I think, and I first and David's I went out and got myself a panorade because I'd wanted one for so long. And then do you remember why back then why like a
Unknown watch was the thing you wanted to go to? Of all the things you could buy to mark that success, like that's a fantastic watch. Do you
Unknown remember? I think it became it was part of my sort of indoctrination to New York culture. I was a car guy. I always I have always been, I still am. And uh I'm waving to James Stacey on your window. Shout out James Stacey. Shout out James Stacey. He's a really good podcast voice, by the way. And you go in and you think, okay, what am I what's the part of like what you buy in New York? And you know, uh this is I was more naive back then, and a watch is what I wanted, but I didn't want another watch, and it wasn't that I wanted like yeah, there's a Rolex, and I wanted there's all kinds of options you could have got back then, and Panorai just sort of spoke to me, not only because I have enormous wrists, but because I just fell in love with it. I fell in love with it at a turnautiful like many first time watch buyers. Totally. Yeah. And uh bought up in Columbus Circle and got
Unknown it. And then where'd your watch kind of collecting go from there? Like when did it go from being like, oh I have a I have a panor eye to like maybe maybe I want more? Like maybe maybe there's there is a next step here.
Unknown Well, I think my next nice watch after that might have been it probably was a Rolex. Okay. And I You're allowed. Nobody's gonna nobody's gonna throw a shade at you here. And where am I on that bell curve that you guys talk about? You know the the Yeah yeah. Yeah. I like Rolex. I don't like Rolex. Oh, I really appreciate Rolex. Yeah, right. And I'm on the appreciate Rolex stage in my life. Uh so Rolex GMT. Um I got a Bugari Octo. Nice. Yeah, I love Octo. And I love the Finissimo even more. Yeah. Oof. Finisimos. Oh my god. The lugs
Unknown . Uh. Did you see the to Dow Ando one? No. Oh dude, I'm gonna send this to you after after we're done recording. It's bananas. Absolutely bananas. Do you have one here? U
Unknown h I do not, but I have some live photos of it I can I can show you. Um the uh and then I have a vintage omega that my father passed down to me. It was a watch that my mom bought for him during a wedding. And holy cow. Yeah, Gray just broug
Unknown ht in a photo of the Tadao Ando design Dr. Stevens Instagram right now. And that dial. It's so zen. Crazy. We'll link out to uh our friends over at uh hodinky.jp covered it. So you'll if you don't speak Japanese, you'll have to use Google Translate. But uh it works, I promise. Anthony Oishidesa. Okay. So
Unknown uh yeah, it's uh that's that's really beautiful. I'm still thinking about that for a second. Uh yeah, and then I don't have much more beyond that. You know, there was there I was tempted with a lot of other pieces. I've realized that now this stage of my life, we're we're talking earlier about essential products. I think that my journey is gonna be trying to score all the steel grails. Just over the over the rest of my life. This is not going to happen next year. There's no windfall happening. But you know, if I can if I can get a 57 Eleven at some point. Um if I can get our voil oak. I think these are I think this is where I find myself most fascinated with watches where steel and fine time pieces collide. Stunning. Yeah. So you
Unknown guys you guys cover watches. And I think the way you guys cover watches is actually really complementary to how we cover watches, which is funny. I think people ask all the time. We get this question. I'm sure you get this question all the time. Like, who's your who's your competition? You know, right? And it's like I I to be honest, like, don't think about you guys as competition at all, despite the fact that I think your watch coverage is some of the little like watch coverage outside of Hodinky that I that I read. There's a handful of dedicated watch sites I read, and then you guys you have a great team or in that team. Um but it's it's you guys do a great job making it approachable to guys who maybe we we try to take the people who don't quite know they're that into it yet and pull them more in. But I think you guys do a great job taking those people who like don't even know necessarily that like a nice watch exists. Yeah, I think you do a great job getting them in quickly. Like some of your stories you can dive in and six hundred words later you go from knowing nothing to being like, maybe maybe I do need a speed mas
Unknown ter. Like Yeah, if we can get you between a subway two subway stops, understanding why you want to nomos. Yeah. Then we've done our job. Yeah. And I think that's what the team really does. And Oran and Zen are fantastic. They they actually just put me onto this watch called an Ophion. I don't know if Oh yeah. Yeah yeah. Anyway the I'm always fascinated with these small sub brands, especially when they can be kind of derivative but not derivative. But anyway, the uh that's that's really what their point is they're trying to they're again this phrase earlier of democratizing the information and helping people go from zero to one because we know when you start getting super deep, Hodniki is going to become your homepage, and we know that there are going to be other sites that are going to help you dive deeper into what is it you love. But what we try to do is we try to really merchandise our stories in a way we know that people are coming in from a lot of different directions, and if you are maybe a bourbon collector and we can put you on to why it is that you may also love watches, then that's a really fascinating thing for us
Unknown . Yeah. I love the idea of going from zero to one. I think that's a really important thing that especially enthusiasts forget about, you know, they forget that there was a time where the thing they're in, and not just in media, but like they forget that there's a time, you know, whether you're a watch collector or a furniture collector or an art collector or a stamp collector, whatever it is, right? Like the thing you go home and you're like browsing through on your iPad all night. Yeah. You forget there was a time that like you didn't know that thing existed
Unknown . Yeah, and you didn't know where to go. Right. Yeah. You would just get your first thing that's when we're talking about the panorists the same thing for me. I I just didn't know where to go. Right. Uh and you know if I if I were if I'm sort of speak so boldly here, I think Hodinki has found a way to to build a build a kinship through a through line of watches for a huge community. And we think there's another community that's underserved which is people who are coming into all these different spaces. Yeah. Where it might be intimidating to go to Hoigi.com or it might be intimidating to go into another publication uh and really help them understand that we can speak about a lot of different things. We also know everybody has limited budgets, right? Right. And so you may you and I may uh spend an outsized amount of discretionary income on a watch, but uh That is definitely true uh or cars or
Unknown uh or chairs. Chairs, definitely chairs. Um I have too many chairs to fit in my apartment. I no joke have a storage unit in Connecticut with mostly chairs. That okay, we're gonna we need to tal
Unknown k about that a little bit too bad. We'll talk about that at some point. But yeah, you know, I think that for for for people who okay, they may not understand what um is necessary premium out there, but there are options that are premium that don't actually cost a whole lot. Yeah. And so when we can help people figure out how to get more value out of things they own, I think that's that's that's a a hard day one
Unknown . Yeah, no, I agree. I think I think the the idea of getting value out of things is interesting too. You you mentioned earlier about essentials and about paring things down. Yeah. Uh which I'm kind of on this kick to. I'm trying. I'm so bad at it, but I'm trying. Well you just you just started with I have a storage unit. Right. Which is typically the air I mean that's because we downsized apartments to be fair. Okay, okay. We went from two, yeah. This is this is a whole thing that we don't need to get into. But uh yeah, we had my wife was working in a different state, so we had an apartment there and an apartment in the city. Not everything fits in the New York apartment. But I have also used it as an excuse to accumulate things and to not have to deal with them every day. Firstdibs.com. Yeah. Yeah. So bad. Yeah. But the idea of paring down as even as somebody who like does I do stuff, gear for a living, you know, like I love, I obviously love products. Um, but there's something really appealing to the idea of like fewer, nicer things that are also not just nicer because they're more expensive or more premium, but they're just like more sort of suited to you, I guess. Ye
Unknown ah, I think that's where we're all trying to go on this journey. Like if you can find the things and then not to be Maria Kondo here, but the things that really bring you joy, yeah. And you can figure out, okay, if I'm buying I and I'm gonna use a very rote thing that like a lot of people understand, which is like a Sono speaker, and you say, Okay, this phono speaker costs two hundred dollars, but if I amortize that over the next 10 years, then I'm gonna use it and how much music I'm listening to. How it's worth me paying more to make sure this thing is good or it's great. Totally. Not just good, it's great. And I will love it and I will use it. And it constantly is something I interact with. And I think when you think about it that way, then you start to eliminate what might just be waste or just buying shit instead of like making an acquisition. And so for me, I think that enthusiasts of which we both reach with both of our publications um is that enthusiasts really look at things with both time and money as investments, whether they're s mini or macro. Sometimes we sweat the small purchases more than we sweat the big purchases. I I'm looking at your eyes because you know I know exactly that we'd have those moments where like, wow, this thing is $20. Do I
Unknown want to spend $20 on this? I told you I bought this T thermos. I s no joke spent probably two to three hours doing research on an iPad for thermos, like it's thermos. I should have just gone online and bought the first one on Amazon and it probably would have been fine. But that's because you
Unknown 're a product guy. And that and then I think that a lot of people, whether or not they realize it, are on their way to becoming a product person. And more so than ever, there's so much products out there. And and if you gotta you have to cut through the noise and figure out what the signals are. Ye
Unknown ah. So for for you. Well, I'm gonna ask you about yourself personally. But before before we get into what you're cutting down, I I wonder it's something I struggle with a lot, which is like, you know, it's 2020. We're we're modern forward thinking human beings here, I think. I I try to be, yeah. Yeah. It turns turns out you're super regressive. I just have no idea this whole time. I haven't known for years. Um there's too much shit in the world. Like there's just too much stuff, and specifically too much stuff that people think they want and then don't think they want, or they buy the cheap thing because it's cheap, but then they have to throw it out and replace it every year. How how do you think about sort of the the ethics of that? Because I I think about it all the time as as we spend a lot of our time trying to encourage people to like buy cool things that we genuinely think will add value to their lives. But like how how do you think about that in the context of a world where like less stuff might actually be better?
Unknown You know, it's a it's a good question. I think for uh for gear patrol, we think about it because everyone's dirt at a different place in their journey, right? And so we try not to think too much about, hey, is this, are we forcing the same person to do something again and again and again? Or are we making sure the information's out there so the next person who's at the stage to make that purchase is making the right one. And so that helps us understand where that, you know, the the the journey of a consumer there. For an individual, I I know it's it's a fine question. I think that I don't know if it's part of age or it's part of having a family, but I think about a lot more so now how it is that we can get products that one, I'll keep this thing for a long time. Yeah and, you know, and everything's got a different lifespan. It's up to you how long that lifespan is. But then how do you make sure that it goes to the next person, if it can be downcycled or can it be upcycled or whatever else cycling there is and not just thrown out. And I think that when you think about it, you end up s and you know, this is America, so we're gonna consume. Yeah, of course that's not going anywhere. It's not yeah. And so I think the thing that we need to figure out is whether or not we are making the right consumptions and not again, we're making purchases and investments and not just buying shit. I think for me, it's really it's I hate to say it, but it's driven a little bit out of convenience because two kids, yeah, a startup and you don't want to make these decisions elsewhere and you want things that just are gonna work. Yeah. And so out of sheer essentialism, you have to just look for the things that you know are gonna work best. Yeah. That's really actually gratifying because I think it's helped me build what I call my own sort of internal rubric to to to figure out what those things are. Yeah, it
Unknown 's it's funny. I I you know, I got my start in clothing and what you still have your blog by the way? I do not. No, no, no no I literally have not published on that blog since the day I started at Hodinky. I remember that uh I I published saying I am I am starting a job at this watch website that some of you may have heard of I don't know uh and that is the last post. And I've kept the website up. It's up there. We'll link to it. But yeah, it's uh back in that day, and it's something that comes up on this show probably too much is like that was the like hashtag menswear days. Oh man. Everybody was peacocking. It was all about like how technical you can get, like how many pick stitches per inch are on that lapel? And it's just like I got super deep into that. How many Goodyear welts am I gonna talk about this week? Yeah. Exactly. And it's funny as it I mean, I'm still a total clothes nut, but in a very different way. Like I'm now I like thinking about it when I buy the thing and then once I buy it, I don't ever want to think about it again. Like I want I want it to be in my closet. I want it to be comfortable to wear. I want to enjoy wearing it. I want to get some sort of pleasure out of it. But I want like everything to match everything else. I want everything to just like kind of work. I don't want anything to be too fussy. I don't want to have stuff that like sits there only for special occasions. It's much more about what you said. It's about this idea of like there's decision fatigue, and I just like I just want stuff that works. I just want to open my closet and have good stuff that I enjoy, throw my music on my sonos. Like it's it's easy. It's the essentials. Yeah. And do you you do a do you do a uniform? Not a full uniform. Not a full uniform. I'm trying to push in that direction. It's a slow journey, but I I have aspirations of of uniform
Unknown . The uniform has been fantastic. I and I don't know if sure if not sure if it's just our entire office culture that has this as well too, but you know the the the the nice sweatshirt or the nice sweater, the nice button-up shirt. You know, I I threw out all of my button-up shirts. I went to Korea, I got 20 custom shirts made. My mother-in-law helped sent back to me in America. And that for the longest time was all I wore. And now I've added a couple t-shirts into the mix and and it's amazing. There's no decision fatigue. And you're out the door, and you're not I'm not trying sound like Zuckerberg here. No, no, but
Unknown I I I get it. I mean I own I guess 10 of the same white button down shirt and then I own two with a different collar. I own two. They're the same shirt, but they're collars that look good with a tie, whereas most days I'm wearing a button down that that I wouldn't wear a tie with. And and that's it. Like that's all my button down shirts. That's it. It's all of them. That's amazing. Yeah. But then I have piles of t-shirts and I have, you know, a million different kinds of sweaters. And it's like it's it's a little more uh I'm like I said, I'm I have aspirations of uniform. I'm not quite there yet. But you pull it off every time I see you
Unknown just super crisp. This is why this is why we have you on the show. Yeah, just a this is a font of compliments. Fantastic scarf, uh fantastic pair of trousers and some white sneakers. I think that scarf is his sweater that he
Unknown has taken off and wrapped around his neck. And this is where I cut, and you cut back the out. Yeah, so so for you, what are the essentials? Like what are the things as you pair back? Like what's the stuff that for you is stuff you can't do without? Like the stuff that that it that is at this point like a part of you? I mean, I think it's what I walked in here
Unknown with. Okay. Like AirPods Pro, a good set of boots, pair of jeans, sweat sh sweater that I love, a watch that I love, uh and unfortunately a phone. But, you know, I think beyond that, if you think about what these centrals are at home, I mean I mean you and I could do like a four hour episode on home. Four part series on homes, but the yeah, I think that for for me and then uh just a a a great jacket that you can wear all the time. I don't know if it really needs more than that to me. It's it sounds super boring and simple, but I think that the essentials oh, and like a good pair of socks. Oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm talking about socks on the hoodinky podcast. What are your what are your go-to socks? Uh well I'm I was wearing Bombus earlier. Okay. And now I think I'm wearing a pair of keen socks that go up to my knees because I was kind of cold this morning
Unknown . Nice. Yeah. So you mentioned you mentioned the categories, but since you're Mr. Gear Patrol here, we gotta we gotta go specific product rec here. We gotta shout stuff out there
Unknown . Uh so there's a pair of RM Williams boots. I think I'm wearing I'm wearing some uh soft Japanese denim, but I don't where these are from. And then uh have a J.Crew cashmere sweater on, and then of course the pan right on a purlon strap, which I think I might have bought from your store. I don't know. Very nice. And then a now jacket, a
Unknown trench. There we go. Pretty simple. Yeah. What's um would you say there's any sort of like new category of thing that you've gotten into recently? Or are you really trying to like kind of focus and and pair it back? That's a fantastic question
Unknown . I I've really been on furniture lately. I I the thing about furniture that I realize is there if you can justify the investment and you can spend the money on it and you know how long you're gonna keep it. It's so it's so really one of those things where you realize, okay, it's actually not that expensive. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Like you're talking about these chairs and you realize I I can have this chair 150 years from now. Yeah. And it will still be the same chair. It will still be the same principles. Uh and so you know, I look at that and say, okay, that was worth the investment. So I if furniture, uh and I'm not sure if that's boring or not, but uh I can't
Unknown f I'm obsessed with furniture. I'm I'm right there with you. Yeah, I mean the longevity is one part. Like I have uh we've been Eames uh a wood lounge chair. Um not the big padded lounge chair that people think of, but the the L C M. Yeah, they'll see him. Yeah. And it was my fat it was in my father in law's house when he was a kid. It was my my wife's grandparents bought it in suburban Minnesota in probably the 50s. And uh I still sit in it and watch TV like almost every day. And it's so the longevity is there, but it's also one of the things I love about furniture that's a little bit harder with clothing and watches and things is furniture is easy to share with other people. It's easy when like somebody comes into your home, like it then becomes like something you share with them. It becomes an interaction. And there's something about that that I find really lovely and that also helps me justify spending money on it's it's like not entirely selfish, right? Where I I tell myself it's not entirely selfish that oh well like my wife can enjoy it and when we have friends over, they can enjoy it and it becomes a thing we talk about and whatever. And like maybe that's me just like bullshitting myself into spending money, but maybe it's maybe it's real
Unknown . It's it's fixture in your life. And I think if you've got a great relationship with it and you're thinking, okay, I love this thing and I can share it, which I've actually never thought about that particular perspective, which now I'm suddenly justifying. I'm doing all this tabulation in my head so I apologize to your family in advance. Oh I'm sorry, Hannah. Uh and all these these things that you have. You're right. Your furniture is it's it's a thing you share. That's such a good perspective. Yeah. Never th
Unknown ought about that way. Well I I wanna make sure we get to the hodinky questionnaire, but first uh let's let's do a little log rolling here. Uh log rolling, all right. Yeah, let's uh let's let's promo things. Um you guys have a new magazine coming out soon. We do have a it's going to press in uh a week and a half, yeah. Okay. So when will that be out? Uh it will be out in March. Okay, great. Um we will link it up, make sure people can access that. Please do. Anything else big coming in the uh the gear patrol world in the near future? Uh nothing I can say.. Okay. Yeah
Unknown So some super secret awesome. I'll tell you when we when when we turn the podcast off. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, there's there's uh they're they're always working on on great things and uh again, one of the things that I find out later when it's already halfway
Unknown done. So it's great. Um all right. So we're gonna focus on you then to finish this show out. Okay. Uh we're gonna do the Hodinky questionnaire, which we I'm excited about this. Was part of the old show format, and we bring it back from time to time, but I think uh we bring it back when we think somebody will have particularly interesting answers. So no pressure. But uh I think I think you got this. Is this rapid question style? Yeah, it's you can you can give uh I would say a little bit of explanation, but you don't need to give a 10-minute answer. Alright, I'll try to keep it perfunctor. Uh what's a watch that's caught your eye recently and why? O
Unknown xen Jr. The date. And I don't know why. I think it's the dials. And I I really sort of rekindled my it's an it's an odd watch, but it's a beautiful watch. Ye
Unknown ah. Perfect. Um what's the best place you've traveled in the last year?
Unknown Shelter Island. Shelter Island? Shelter Island, New York. You know this. I'm out there every weekend. I try to go. Oh yeah. Ah, perfect. That's a that's a that counts as travel, I guess. It's travel, it's it's a train ride, it's a drive for us, but uh yeah, it's it's a place that I've come to just realize that it's my one of my favorite places on earth. All right, perfect. Yeah. What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given and who gave it to you? Uh lose the ego. You'll get there faster. Great. And who told you that? I don't remember. And I wish I did so I could pump up their ego, but yeah. Uh what's your guil
Unknown ty pleasure? Movie trailers. Movie trailers. I love movie trailers. What's the best movie trailer you've seen recently? Wonder Woman, 1984. Yeah, it looks good. It's it' the the the the edit. the song I gotta admit I didn't even love the first Wonder Woman movie that much, but I'm for sure gonna see the second one just because of the trailer. I think Patty Jenkins crushed her with this one. Yeah. Perfect. Um and so the last thing then is uh can you give us a cultural recommendation? Something people should go see, should go read, should go check out. Uh The Korean
Unknown in me says you should go watch Parasite. Yeah. I will co sign that all day. Uh unbelievable, fantastic film. Uh really cool to see that happen. And then the thing that I'd recommend for you to go do, I think that one of the sort of the unsung places in New York that's fantastic is the children's museum in New York. Oh, I've never been and I think it's if you've if you live in Manhattan you haven't made it out there, it's worth a visit. It's not like the freshest or newest museum, but it's it's such a fun place to take your kids. Perfe
Unknown ct. Uh last question I gotta ask you. Okay. When we wrap, you gonna go patrol for some gear? I'm I'm gonna go gear for some patrol. Perfect. Thanks for coming, man. It's good to sit down and
Unknown chat. Absolutely. Thank you guys. So I appreciate it. Take care
Unknown . This week's episode was recorded at Hodinki HQ in New York City and was produced and edited by Grayson Corhonan. Please remember to subscribe and rate the show, it really does make a difference for us. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.