Fantasy Draft Results & Edouard Meylan¶
Published on Mon, 16 Mar 2020 10:00:06 +0000
Can I get a drum roll, please?
Synopsis¶
This episode of Hodinkee Radio features two main segments. The first reveals the results of the 2020 Budget Watch Collection Fantasy Draft, where Steven Pulvirent, James Stacy, John Bews, and Cole Pennington each assembled five-watch collections for under $10,000. James Stacy emerged victorious with 37% of the vote, featuring standout picks like the Rolex Explorer reference 14270 and an Omega Seamaster GMT. The hosts discuss their strategies, what they would have done differently, and debate picks ranging from the Tudor Black Bay 58 to controversial choices like Steven's Apple Watch. Despite some campaigning efforts and the infamous "pharmaceutical bot" votes, the group reflects on value picks, missed opportunities, and potential sixth watch additions to their collections.
The second segment features Steven's conversation with Edouard Meylan, CEO of independent watchmaker H. Moser & Cie. Meylan discusses the evolution of the brand's identity, particularly the significance of their minimalist Concept watches launched five years prior. He shares insights on connecting directly with customers through digital channels, the challenges and opportunities of being an independent brand, and Moser's approach to creating provocative timepieces like the Swiss Alp Watch and the controversial Swiss Icons watch. Meylan emphasizes the importance of establishing unique design codes, taking creative risks, and fostering collaboration among independent brands rather than competition. The discussion also touches on the fragmentation of watch industry trade shows and Moser's future direction focusing on e-commerce, boutique experiences, and maintaining close customer relationships while staying true to their distinctive aesthetic centered on fumé dials and innovative movements.
Links¶
Transcript¶
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| Unknown | Hey everyone, it's Steven here. Before we get into this week's show, I just wanted to say a few words about what's going on right now. You may or may not have seen it last week, but we're temporarily closing Hodinky HQ in New York City, and our team will all be working from home for the next few weeks. We'll still be publishing daily and the Hodinki shop is still up and running, don't worry. We're just going to be doing it from our couches and from our desks instead of from a shared office. Hopefully you won't even notice that anything's changed. Our producer Gray and I have talked a lot about what to do with Hotinky Radio as the coronavirus situation continues to evolve. Ultimately, we've decided to keep it going, publishing every Monday as usual. We've armed our editors with mics, and we're all set up for phone interviews. Right now, everyone should be practicing social distancing, but that doesn't mean we have to actually be isolated. The internet's good for something, right? During my time as a watch collector and reporter, nothing has consistently impressed and surprised me more than the incredible community that grows around this shared passion for watches. That's the whole idea behind Hodinky Radio and the reason that we started this show in the first place. It's an expression of the diverse, engaging people who rally around something like watches and the wonderful sense of community and friendship that these little bits of metal can foster. You can follow the coronavirus situation via mainstream news sources like the New York Times. We're not going to be talking about it here. I'm not an expert and that's not why you're listening. But when you want a break, when you get a little stir crazy and you want something fun to engage with, we'll be right here, every Monday, as usual. You can also hit us up on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook at hodinky, or me on Instagram at SJ Pulverant. We're always happy to chat. So for this week's show, we've got the results of the twenty twenty budget watch collection fantasy draft, including the winners, the losers, and some thoughts on what each of us would do differently. As well as my chat with Edward Melan, the CEO of independent watchmaker H. Moser, covering everything from the rise of the independence to how a modern brand can set itself apart in a crowded marketplace. Alright, the last thing I'll say before we get into that is that from Gray, from everyone here at Hodinky, and from myself, we thank you for all of your support, and we hope that the next few weeks are easy and uneventful for you, your families, and your communities. That's enough from me. Let's do this |
| Unknown | . Hey guys, what's going on? Hi. Gray's gonna make loud noises. I'm gonna sit here and uh struggle to eat a Mars bar |
| Unknown | . That's how we know you're Canadian. You chose a Mars bar. Well we're recording this on a brand new mixer, so it's a there's a good chance none of this makes it to air. Yeah, it's alright. What bar would I have chosen |
| Unknown | ? Snickers. Yeah, thank you. That's an American candy bar, right? Milky Way. Milky Way, yeah. Milky Way, yeah. Better than Snickers. I'm uh I'm a I'm gonna go |
| Unknown | Twix or Dark Chocolate Cat. A Cadbury crumble. Okay. Twix? Twix. Barely a chocolate bar. I don't want |
| Unknown | to talk about this. Moving right along. This is another pod altogether. Agreement offers you a candy that's really medicine. That's a Twix bar. Twix Bar is great. It's like a cookie. It's |
| Unknown | super great. Welcome to the Hodinky Twixcast. Brought to you by Mars Bars. Yeah, Big Mars. We just Big Mars we talk shit about Twitch. Uh all right, so we got the crew back in the studio from the budget fantasy watch collection draft. I think it's time to reveal the results, right, Gray? The time's come. All right. So let's just do a quick recap before you tell us the winners. I don't even know who won. I've been trying Gray to tell me for the better part of a week now, and he will not. So I will find out live on air with the rest of you guys. Um, but uh just so people who may or may not have listened, if you haven't listened, go back, we'll link it up in the show notes. This isn't gonna make any sense if you haven't listened to the other episode. So go back and check out the watch collection fantasy draft 2.0 episode, which was our budget watch collection. Basically, the idea was we did a fantasy football style draft. Each of us had to build a five-watch collection for ten thousand dollars or less. Um we got some pretty diverse picks and let's just go around and have everybody quickly recap what their collections were. Um each collection I do include an everydayer beater watch, a dress watch, some kind of complication, and then there were two flex spots that could be kind of whatever each person wanted. So uh that's the composition. Let's get into the collections real quick. John, you picked first over |
| Unknown | all. Uh you want to give us the rundown of your collection real quick? Absolutely, Steven. Um, okay, for my everyday beater watch, I did uh tutored black bay 58 on a bracelet. Uh for my dress watch, I picked uh a vintage IWC caliber 89 in gold with fancy lugs. Both of those are watches that I actually own. For the complication, I chose a Minerva caliber 13-20 chronograph in steel, also a vintage pick. And then for my two flexes, I went with a Swatch System 51 uh and then a Casio G Shock. I think it was like a D5600 uh was the one I picked which was about 40 42 or $45, something like that. All right. Nice. James, you went next. What's your collection look like? I picked a Rolex Explorer, reference 14270, uh vintage Omega C mail. Uh C Male. Put those words together in a fun way. Vintage Omega Seamaster DeVille for the dress watch. Nice. An Omega Seamaster Professional Ref 2234, which is the GMT from their pre-coaxial era. Yeah. I think a very interesting watch. Uh my flex picks were a Halios C4th and a Garmin Phoenix Six. Nice. Uh I pick ne |
| Unknown | xt, so I'll go. Uh my everyday beater watch was a Torud Black Day 36. My dress watch was a Cartier Santos Dumont in steel. My complication was a titanium apple watch series five in the 40mm size. And then for my two flexes, I picked a vintage Grand Seco 56 GS in steel and a Swatch Skin Classic. Uh Cole, you want to close this out here |
| Unknown | ? Yep. For beater, I went with the Sin556 dress, went with the polar router. The watch featuring complication was the Flightmaster, uh the 911 caliber. Uh yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll just say that. I just went with the Flightmaster. In keeping with his campaigning, he's changing his picks of the last time. Yeah, exactly. This is this |
| Unknown | is Cole's MO year. He's changing the he's changing the caliber, he's changing the price. We don't really know what's going on here at the moment. |
| Unknown | Voting so far. You could literally just say you picked |
| Unknown | five Patek fleets and it's too late. Um then the Seiko six one oh five, the the Willard, Apocalypse Nightwatch for the Flex, and then second one was a vintage Rolex Air King reference 5500 for the second flex pick. Nice. All right, Gray. Time |
| Unknown | is the time is nigh. The time has come. Thousands of votes later. Thank you, everyone who participated, commented. It's not. Well don't say thank you yet. It's only thank you if I win. No. Uh that ain't the boss has spoken. Yeah. I'm only we o they only get thank yous if I win. Fair enough. Well we might as well start at number four and reveal our fourth place finisher. Steven. Oh man. Sweet. Come on down, big guy, and receive your radio's over, right guys? That's it. We're done. Canceled for the video what episode is this? That was seventy-nine was the fantasy draft? It was a good run. What does the fourth place finisher |
| Unknown | in this competition get? What's the what's the reward? Like a hat that says the name of the person who gets first. Okay. I like that. I actually love that. That's we should do that next time. The the |
| Unknown | loser has to wear a hat with the winner's name tattoo. Yep. Uh so with thirteen and a half percent of the vote, Steven, you came in a admittedly distant fourth. And uh you know taking a quick slaughtered wow okay quick quick survey of the uh the poll results we allowed people to comment as to why they voted the way they did. Oh boy. Wow. I'm excited about this. Did you gu |
| Unknown | ys vote for yourself first? Yeah, of course I did. What did you put in the comment? Nothing. I didn't comment. I also voted for myself but left no comment. I voted for myself. The two of you did |
| Unknown | and and I found your comments, so those are coming up. The Apple Watch, I think, was a big hole in your collection for a lot of a lot of our uh listeners. One commenter said, I would have voted for Steven if it wasn't for the Apple Watch. Another one's saying the Apple Watch could put you over the top with uh the rest of your collection brought into the picture. So Steven, sorry about your fourth place finish, but uh thanks thanks for participating. I will uh thanks. Yeah. I'll uh I'll take this one on the chin. That's all right. Uh topic for another time, but we should talk about the Apple Watch thing. Uh that's uh that's a hot topic. Fifth anniversary of the Apple Watch is coming up. Uh I think I think that's that's worth talking about. I have so many takes. All right, we'll table that for now. All right, third place. Number three. Despite shady campaign finance tactics and uh you know changing his vote at the last second, one Cole Pennington. Very surprised. I thought I was three |
| Unknown | for sure. Oh my God. Certainly in the straw |
| Unknown | polls on the exit polls, uh Cole was a was a favorite, but unfortunately the results did not uh express that. Despite outspending most of us by like 30%, 40%. Yeah, I I will say the the uh comments went for nothing. The comments on the poll itself with with you know, if you're just taking those on face value for who won the draft, Cole would have won in a landslide, a lot of hashtag Scottish uh watch podcast, Scottish Watches, Cole twenty twenty. Cole Cole had like a grassroots campaign. This is |
| Unknown | amazing. It's like ev in this country, popular, I won the popular vote. We'll say that. Did you win the popular vote? You didn't the popular vote. Your supporters shouted the loudest. Mathemat |
| Unknown | ically, you did not win the popular vote. Correct. Yeah. Uh despite adopting some modern campaign tactics, you finished in third place with twenty four point five percent of the vote. In addition to the uh the folks who voted for you given your trolling and shameless campaigning, uh there were folks who appreciated the aviation theme, which I think we all can agree with? Uh was a nice move on your part. Uh but yes, Cole, third place finish. Thanks for that screen. Thanks for playing. Sure. Number two. Mr. John Buse with a second place finish. And you know what that means? That Mr. James Stacy with uh thirty-seven percent of the vote, you are this year's twenty twenty. How are we referring to this thing again? I don't know. The budget watch collection fantasy draft. With the head size, Steven. Yes. Congratulations, James. You're getting me a fitted? A silver medal for John Bews. Not bad at all. My favorite quote actually from the poll was referring to John's collection. Uh very slim margin over Cole. Uh to get down to the the tenth or the hundredth of uh the decimal. Cole had twenty-four point four three percent of the vote, John with twenty-four point seven eight. So I narrow I narrow that. Narrow narrow is a second place finish. Uh my favorite quote from the uh the poll we collected this collection tells me John is cool but not pretentious, mainstream but not following the herd. Can talk to you about the history of watches or just tell you the bloody time. I'll take that. I like that man. That was very nice. I'd like to run. Whoever whoever left that, I'd like to buy you a drink. Also, you may have taken a uh uh leaf out of Cole's book because there were a number of like weird pharmaceutical bots that decided to weigh in on our role. Like hundreds of pharmaceutical bots advertising all kinds of like you know brand name pharma drugs that we won't mention until they cut the check. Yeah, right? Exactly. All I had to do was murky the water. Another good quote: the most complete collection without any uh standout winner in any given category. So a complete collection, puts you in second place. Vice President John Buse. Thank you. I'll take it. Prime Minister, what are we what are we referring to as? What's your title of choice? James Trudeau. James Trudeau. I'll let the people decide. Fair enough. Man of the people, James Stacy. Uh I think my second favorite quote: Because James is the fucking man, I bang into shit left and right and need a modern Rolex and Garmin for my day-to-day. So as a a fellow banger of shit into prison. For sure. Everybody's in a way to do that. I think your your first pick was an MVP caliber pick. Uh well rounded, uh with a couple standouts, great pick, except for the Garmin. So I think despite the Garmin choice, uh you still managed to pick up the uh the first the first uh place here. And finally, I am James period. Congratulations on voting for yourself. Nicely done. I am James. That is true, yeah. With those results in mind, congratulations for uh all those who participated. Thank you to all who voted, uh Steve and I turn it over to you. Yeah, I mean anything awesome, honestly, that we can what? Do I win anything? Do you win anything? Yeah, a prize. We just talked about how you're the winner on a podc |
| Unknown | ast. Oh. It's 2020, baby. There's no money. No bottles of whiskey. No. Oh, we'll take care of you later. Rolex might wanna give James a watch. Give James the Explorer. I don't think that's how that works. But uh if if anyone's listening and wants to go for it |
| Unknown | . Ain't listened. Yeah. Um what was my winning percentage? If my math is correct, is we're the thirty-six something? Thirty-seven point two six percent. That's a strong plurality right now. |
| Unknown | So what campaign what what what did you do here? Uh I just made I made |
| Unknown | it harder for any of your picks to stand out. That's all. He said the uh the Cialis bots on on John over here. Twenty five dollars from a PayPal account I can never use again. Yeah. Ooh that email is dumb. Now we |
| Unknown | 're getting some Yeah, this was super fun. Um, I thought it'd be fun to go back over some of our picks. Uh I came up with some categories with gray and we thought we'd kind of go around and see now in hindsight we, know who won, we know what picks were popular. Uh and we've all had a little bit of time to think about it. So uh I want to go over some categories. So we're just gonna go around and kind of take a little bit of a a little bit of a poll here and and get some thoughts after the draft. All right. Let's start out with the obvious one. What does each of us think was the pick of the draft? It doesn't have to be one of your own picks. It can be, it doesn't have to be. Let's start off to my left, Mr. B |
| Unknown | use I think uh probably James's explorer looking back on it, I think was probably the best watch uh uh of all of them that we picked. James? I don't think it was necessarily the best watch. It is it it was like I think it was just it was the most strategic first pick. Yeah, I bet I was yeah I'm sure we'll get to this, but I was weighing three watches as in in that first pick. And the fact that neither of the other two were selected made me think that I'm I definitely fretted that needle correctly. Yeah. Uh because there wasn't you know, I think if I had waited, someone else would have hit that that watch and that reference, uh the 14270 or the one one four two seventy yeah. Ye |
| Unknown | ah. Cool. I I'm definitely in the minority. I don't I'm not in love with the Explorer to be honest. I like the You gotta get off the sh you gotta get off the show. Yeah, this is there's no there's no shit talking the Explorer on this podcast. I'm not it's a great watch, but I think the standout pick to me, to be honest, is the black page 58. It's a great choice. Yeah. Yeah. Uh I kind of went back and fort |
| Unknown | h between the standout pick being the BB58 and the Explorer. I think ultimately I'm going to go with the Explorer. Mostly because if James didn't take it, I was going to take it. My number one lesson from this draft is don't pick after James. That's what I learned here. But uh all right. So that's the pick of the draft. What do we think was the value pick? Which which pick do you think got someone the most bang for their buck here in the draft? We'll go the opposite direction. Cole, you want to start |
| Unknown | ? Uh I think James's Seamaster pick. Uh that that to me represents the most value. Yeah, and that watch is what? It's under a thousand bucks? No. No, no. Not not the Seamaster uh fifty. Not the Deville. Oh, you think I think you can find those two to twenty five hundred bucks. Yeah, okay and I think for I A like that generation of C Masters is not super well loved though. Like Yeah. I I love them. I do too. At a base. Um easy service. And I think those eventually will become more expensive. I think. For sure. But that that's the value right there |
| Unknown | . Sweet. James, what do you think? Um I I'm I'm of two minds because I think like in in many ways if you go down to a two watch collection, I think you'd find a lot of guys would want a steel sport watch and a something else. Um so if you're talking about the and the value uh guys of gals, for sure. Yeah. Guys is a colloquial. I'm just trolling I'm continuing trolling, you know. All right, yeah. Yeah, but anyone who might be interested in watches, if you look down, you might want something like a steel sport watch and then something else and a something else and uh for me I I I think John's caliber 89 uh is is the standout dress pick uh just because that's so much watch for the money. It's gorgeous. You could wear it like jeans and a t-shirt for sure. Um, and then if if you were leaning more towards I don't want a dress watch, or I even saw some comments on the post that people were saying that a Sea Master DeVille's not a dress watch. I don't I d uh I don't I don't I literally take I don't want to handle that. I think a Deville's cool and and is a great option, but there's something specifically more um exquisite about the 89. Uh so I think that that would be my pick. I I I definitely think like if you if you're in the space of more value to you being a s a steel sport watch then uh that the two two three four uh it is just a huge amount of value If you're comfortable buying a used watch from you know 10 plus years ago, uh I I think those are kill two two insane watches. Thank you. John, what do you think? Yeah, I mean I think, you know, uh by virtue of this exercise, pretty much all of the watches on here, all however many that what uh twenty watches are are great values. Um I I don't think you could get away with taking a watch that wasn't a good value and trying to make uh a collection work given the the rules here. But uh yeah I would say the Albert the IWC caliber 89 is a is a really good value um you know for what it is it's like James said a lot of watch for the money I think that's why um, you know a, a long timego I I alighted on that as what I wanted my gold dress watch to be. And it's really I only have one of them and it's that. Um so I would say that. And then also um, you know, Cole's uh pole router if you want something uh with kind of uh it's a real like watch guys watch with like it's a genta design it's I think uh a quite beautiful dial um the one that I think that you had that you had picked um yeah, so probably between the pole router and the and the IWC. Th |
| Unknown | ank you, John. Yeah, I'm gonna go uh I think I'm gonna go with the C Master Devil. Uh I I thought about a UG, about the UG polar router. I own a pole router. I love that watch. First like real vintage watch I ever bought. Still wear it all the time. But I think, I mean, I kind of alluded to it earlier when I misidentified what Cole was saying, but the fact that you can get that Deville for under a thousand bucks, like that is such a cool watch. And I remember looking, I I haven't ever owned one, but I remember when I bought the pole router, like that was one of the other things I was looking at. I needed a vintage watch that at the time I could buy for like maximum a thousand dollars. Um, and I wanted something kind of like mid-century, understated. Uh, and the fact that those DeVils have not shot up just because there are so many of them, um, the fact that you can still get a killer one maybe even on a bracelet for less than less than a thousand dollars is so cool. All right. Uh let's do the next category. Let's do the one that got away. Uh, what's the watch you wanted to include in your collection uh that just like either you couldn't fit in under the budget or somebody else picked it, but like something that you really wanted to include in your five watches and it just for whatever reason just like didn't didn't work |
| Unknown | out. Uh James, how about you start? Uh yeah I have two. I mean the the the big one for me is I I I didn't get um uh doxa in there and and there's no way like I I could pair down my collection to two or three watches and I'd have probably at least one if not two Doxas. Uh but the a sub three hundred fiftieth uh anniversary, I think is like essentially a perfect watch because it feels like a classic dive watch that isn't a submariner. It's like they're so different. And it was made in 2017. They're uh killer, they hold their value really well on the secondhand market. They come in several different dial designs. You can even do the black lungs if you want. I own a C Rambler and I own a professional, and they are two of my most favorite watches. I think there's something crazy fun and under the radar about Doxa because they have this history that is directly in line with some of the largest dive watch brands and models in the world. Yeah. But they they didn't because they didn't kind of have the same longevity as some of these other brands, like a Rolex or a Blanc Pond, they they you you can get into that value and that charm and that custo aesthetic for vastly less money. Yeah. That's a great, that's a great pick. Uh John, what are you thinking? Um, you know, honestly I I I wrote down five watches going into the draft and I got all five that I wanted. Oh I did I try to threaded that needle man. I truly did. Um and it's because well, I had the first pick, so I was lucky, right, in that with that. Um but looking at what's some of the stuff that you guys picked, I really do wish that I had got a Rolex into my five picks and I didn't do that. And I I feel that you know the collection suffers a little bit for lack of uh a Rolex for not having one. Uh and so if I had could have found a way to get the explorer in that James had or you know even like you know Cole's Air King, that would have been cool. Um but but I did but I didn get't what I what I wanted. I pick I got all five. And the the the other the other one that comes to mind just as John was listing that because I I changed my pick 'cause his first pick of course was the fifty eight and I wasn't sure if I could pick a B B G M T. Mm-hmm that's another one that um Oh yeah. I mean it you you're spending forty three percent of the budget immediately. Um but that's essentially a perfect watch. Did you just do that math in your head? Forty two fifty from ten, it's not that hard. Oh I didn't know the pistol actually But yeah. I think that's uh that's another one that that was on all of the little paperworks I put up and then John's first pick. I didn't want to be the I didn't want the second pick of the draft to be contentious. Yeah, that's I appreciate that. Cole, what what would you have gone af |
| Unknown | ter? I have two. All right. One is the second Cole, always going over. Always going overboard. Kind of taking more than I uh I should here. But the Seka Marine Master 300, MM300. Yep. That was on there. That that would be a great flex, a great beater. Um it's just an awesome watch. That could probably replace the Willard on my list. That's most similar. And then the the vintage Seamaster with the 321 in it. You know that watch? Yes. There are those it's Se |
| Unknown | amaster Card They're three register chronographs. Exactly. They have a three twenty one inside, but they're smaller and much dressier than like a speedy would be. |
| Unknown | Right. Yeah. Those are great watches. I think that's like kind of a sleeper hit. And I had that down for thirty five hundred bucks. Okay. I found some around there. I mean who knows if they need a search. I would have given you a hard time about that price, but that's why that's all right. That's why I just didn't didn't bother with it. Um so those were two that I would have wanted to include that I did.n't get the opportunity to. Cool. Uh, I think ultimat |
| Unknown | ely mine is gonna come as no surprise to anybody, which is the explorer. I mean, that that was kind of the like linchpin of my theoretical collection. Uh and with James picking right ahead of me and sniping the uh 14270 out. Swish. Uh yeah, exactly. Uh I I think you know, James absolutely nailed it with that pick. I think, you know, if I had to pick what I think is maybe the best watch you can get for under $5,000, it would probably be that watch, or for around $5,000. Um yeah, I just think it's it's an incredible watch. I am wearing my Explorer today, and you know, even after I wear a whole bunch of other watches in in a rotation and then come back to the explorer after maybe not wearing it for a week or two, uh, I just think to myself, like, holy shit, I can't imagine not having this watch now. So for me, that's that's the big And the BB36 is an amazing watch. It's different. It's a different thing. So yeah, so that would have been it for me. Let's do something a little goofier, a little more fun here. Uh what if you had to trade a watch with somebody else? They don't have to agree to the trade. But secret Santa rules. Yeah, kind of. Yeah. Uh you if you could swap one watch out from your collection and swap in one watch from somebody else's collection, don't worry about exact dollar values, but like comparable. Like don't you can't grab James's Rolex. Uh in my case, like I couldn't trade James my swatch for the explorer. But like if they're vaguely ballpark, uh what what trade would you make |
| Unknown | ? Uh let's have John start us off here. Okay. Um I think it would be fun to to swap the Is that a fair is that a fair fair? That's fair. Okay. Yeah. I'd check that out. All right. What do you do on c |
| Unknown | all? I will trade you. Okay. Maybe the Air King or maybe No, no, no. The Willard. I'll trade nah. I'll trade you the pole router for your iWatch. Or Apple Apple Watch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why? Because I've never worn one, I've I've never actually understood like I wanna understand this the the last episode I was like, ah, no, no way, right? Didn't you call it like a fridge? You were like, shouldn't you just get a refrigerator? Well, to be honest, I do see that. Yeah, James is nodding. I I hold that opinion. Like, I think it's not a watch, it's an appliance. But I want my mind to be changed, and I don't want to be so closed-minded to never ever try it out. So I'm gonna give you my polar router. You can choose to either accept the trade or as a proud owner of both a titanium Apple Watch and a polar router. Yeah. Uh your life's better with both. Oh so maybe I I'll'll give you the Willard instead then. All right. I'll I I would take that. So for you, Cole, I would take that. Thank you. I want to see what it's like, you know? What trade |
| Unknown | you got? Uh what do I have? This was a tough one. It's funny actually that that Cole brought a polar router. That's when I would want. I don't really have a hole in my collection budget-wise. Because I look at what else I've got. I mean, I would maybe swap the 56 GS for the pull router, maybe they're both kind of like funky idiosyncratic uh designs. Uh I might swap the swatch for a G Shock uh with John. That I think is is an appealing one too. Um, or if we're going in Cole's vein of uh Discovery, maybe swap the Apple Watch, James, with you for that uh that Garmin Phoenix. Uh love my Garmin. It's something I haven't haven't used before. My wife runs with a Garmin and loves it. So maybe maybe I need to give that give that a try. All right. Al |
| Unknown | right. How about you? Um I'd probably drop the Deville for John's 89. Yeah, that's a good call. Um I that's not obviously not a value trade. I'm I'm literally exploding my budget by twenty percent doing it. But uh that's where I would go. Uh because it it would it would net me a solid gold dress watch with awesome provenance from a great brand that you could literally just wear all the time. Just I just have twenty straps for it'd be great. Yeah. Cool |
| Unknown | . All right, last thing. Last thing we're gonna do here, and then I'll let you guys go. Uh get back get back to work here. Um, sixth man, all right. Your collection's five watches. You gotta add a sixth to your existing collection. Keep it roughly in line budget-wise. Um, let's say like, you know, say five thousand ish bucks, give or take. You can go a little hard here. If we expanded the budget to let's say like 15 grand, uh and you got to add a sixth watch, uh, what would that watch be? Okay. All right. John John's raising his hand here. |
| Unknown | I'm adding that same explorer that uh that James spec'd, the uh 14270. Okay. All right. I think it's uh you know, I cause it's uh yeah, it's a vintage watch, right? So I wouldn't I wouldn't necessarily view it, I'd view it as every day, not as a beater. And I'd put like the watertight, you know, uh tutor more toward like you feel free to wear it in the pool kind of thing. All right. Cool. James. I had to get a doxa. Yeah? Which one? Uh sub 300 fiftieth. Yeah. Uh probably C Rambler. Okay. Nice. Um because it's not quite enough to get to uh 167 uh 570. Uh sorry, it's not quite enough to get to an explorer two like my polar. Yeah. Uh you know, those are realistically more than a a a bump of five grand on on this budget. So yeah, I'd go with the the Doxa, no question. All right. Easy pick. Cool |
| Unknown | . Um I and I I hate to break rules or bend them or whatever, but Do you I think you love him, man? There's no evidence of that. Yeah, the evidence points towards the exact opposite, my friend. I I don't want to give you guys any more grief or whatever, but what I would do is take the money and upgrade the Air King instead. Okay. Um, and I would go with specifically the Thunderbird uh reference from it's a it's a turnograph. Turnograph Thunderbird. Okay. And they made that watch for the Thunderbirds flight demonstration team with that insignia on the logo. Um and that would be the one I would go for. I would take that money from my Air King, take your extra money that you're giving me, and get the Thunderbird. Alright. Swe |
| Unknown | et. Uh I'd go 39mm Rolex Oyster Perpetual in white. Um I love that watch so much. Our our uh video producer Dave has been wearing his a lot lately. Uh and I keep looking over, he sits two seats away from me, and I keep looking over and eyeing it while he's uh cutting video. Uh and I had dinner with some friends the other night and uh one of them was wearing it. So I uh it's watched been on my mind a lot lately and uh it's one that I think having this collection with no Rolexes in it uh feels a little little weird for me. Um and I think having a a nice, you know, relatively affordable as far as you know modern Rolex goes, uh kind of like everyday Rolex would be, would be what I think I would need to complete my collection. Uh are we good, Gray? Is that is that a good recap here? Final final thoughts that I would like to solicit from you guys. Yeah, go for it. The parameters for the next fantasy draft. Any suggestions? What are we doing? |
| Unknown | Hmm, maybe uh no. I was gonna say brand. I think go like end game end game collection for a normal dude. So three watches twenty five grand. What if we just kept it to independence? Yeah. That could be interesting. I like I like your idea of go end game collection. Like, just like the we all talk about paring it down. Maybe you're maybe you're towards the end, you've learned a lot. And like I'm not I'm saying it's three Like if you have that Seiko that you've had for a decade, that doesn't count. But like three watches where you're like the limit would be that it's twenty five grand. 'Cause for a lot of like deep watch guys, that could be in one watch. That could be in half of a watch. For me, maybe when I'm done all of this in another thirty years, I'll have three watches that total out at twenty five grand. So maybe that would be a reasonable limitation. That's also like a considerable amount of money |
| Unknown | . Yeah, but a a decade. So one watch from each decade. Interesting. Oh okay. Interesting. Going back to the nineties, best of the fifties, you know. Okay. That's interest |
| Unknown | ing. Great. You have an idea here? I just cut the show, man. That's uh that's a total lie, by the way. Anyone who's listening. That is that is not how this works. But uh all right, cool. I think we'll uh we'll have to do another one of these soon. You guys had fun? Yeah, it was great. And thank you, everyone who's gonna J |
| Unknown | ames gives me a shrub. The winner is like, yeah, whatever, it's fine. I thought there was a prize. Some people want to know, are you going on the Scottish Watches podcast? I didn't win, but they did help. Uh I guess they some folks voted for me and so forth. Sure, I mean I'll I'll go on it, no problem. And I think this is the chance to uh redeem this is a chance to win that one, you know? I mean to redeem this third electronic.s Different electorate, yeah. You may be better over there. Third place is is not acceptable. Cole's gonna go be a despot over |
| Unknown | seas instead of uh on friendly shores. Yeah. Uh sweet. Awesome guys. Thanks for doing this, and uh yeah, we'll do it again soon. Up next, my conversation with H. Moser CEO, Edward Malon. Hey, thanks for joining us. Pleasure. Good to have you here. It's an honor. It's been uh been a while since you've been to HQ, right? Yeah, I was wondering uh a few years. There were way less people here. Yeah, we're up to I think somewhere in like the mid fifties now. It's incredible. Yeah, it's pretty wild. Yeah, it's fun. You guys had uh had an announcement last night, right? We're recording this on what I guess Wednesday morning and yesterday evening you announced some new pieces. Yeah, you know, Mozart, we launched a lot of new pieces. It's reality of having a lot of uh those uh special editions, but yeah, we launched uh um a new concept. Yeah. Uh you know, the concept are very clean dials and it's been five years. So uh it was a kind of an anniversary for us yesterday. We were all very excited to say, you know, five years ago we launched the first concepts, which were at that time something what we thought would be just a a PR angle, you know, to talk about our beautiful dials. And now five years later it's it's really part of the identity a lot of people talk about and and appreciate our our concepts for the minimalism for what it really tells about the watch and uh to be able to continue to to build on that uh idea is amazing. So yeah last night we we launched the funky blue collection. But rather than doing just one model now, we launch as a collection with like there's the tourbillon in rose gold and white gold, there's the center second in rose gold and white gold, and eventually in steel, and then we have uh also um a little bit more feminine uh burgundy color um thirty eight millimeter watch and uh yeah so rather than send uh you know launching one after the other we we did everything last night. Yeah. Yeah it's funny to think five five years ago. It's like the concept. It simultaneously still feels like fresh and new and also I can't really imagine Moser without it. Yeah. In a certain way. Like it feels it feels so core to who the brand is? Yeah, it you know it it it's one of those moments where when you look back and you say, Oh well that might have been a milestone where we tried something which really helped us. And I think on that year we launched at the same time, actually the the perpetual calendar, funky blue and the concept watch. And I think those two ideas of going a little bit funky in the color of the dials and concept with the minimalism were two essential moments um that that made the success of Moser in the last five years. And for me to understand what I wanted to do to with the brand. And uh yeah, I think these were the moments where you look back and say, oh, I think there that was the right decision or a little bit of luck that really helped us. Do you remember what the kind of thinking was there? Like what what led you to want to create the concepts? I think we were all very I mean the funky blue uh perpetual we were all like convinced it would be it would be cool and people would like it, the concept for me I I thought people would not understand because it's it's not what we're used to, you know. It's I mean my team first said I we cannot sell a watch that doesn't have a logo on it. I said why? Because everybody buys watches with logo on it. I said, but you know, we have to be different. I mean as a brand, if you try to do the same thing as the other as an independent brand that nobody knows, nobody will buy it. So you need to redefine your identity that polarizes, that creates a singularity. And I think the um the the the concept diets were were essential to that. And I think the team in the beginning it didn't even believe in it and um and it was something that I think was was consumer driven. I think it was the response of a few opinion leaders, a few retailers who looked at it and said, Wow, this is cool, I want one that helped us gain confidence but also drive the demand in the market. Yeah, I wonder how how much of a watch's response these days. You know, we we see it on the media side of things, but I wonder from your side, from the brand side, how much of a watch's reception and sort of like uh potential is down to that sort of like first response on social media or on the web versus, you know, how the retailers pick it up, how, you know, your retail partners respond to it, how customers respond to it. Like how how does that balance of these different kind of layers of response affect kind of like the long term prospects of of something like the concept? I think personally I believe I tried to make an a a similarity between music and and watches creations or things like this. I believe that the long the music that you like, you know at at first the first time you hear it is you know it's popular music, it's pop music. And I think it's like fashion like the fashion industry. It will change in in six months. There might be a new trend, etc. I think the things that take time to appreciate, that you know, you need to understand, you need to to see it many times and then slowly it grows on you. These are the things that are there for the long term. And and what we realise is even though they are in the industry for for many years, there's a f only few retailers who who see the long term value of a product. But the c but some consumers have that vision. So I'm more relying on the feedback on on on the end consumer and through the social media and through different platform rather than the first feedback from a retailer. When we launched the streamliner as an example, uh recently um you know we had a few retailers said no I don't like that watch. I said fine, I mean it's a it's a watch that is there to polarize, but I hope some customers will will will like it because otherwise we have a problem. And yesterday I was at Cellini here in New York and I met uh Leon with the uh the uh the owner and I said, Wow, you've been very successful with the with the streamliner and he said, Yeah, but I don't like it. And I said, Uh he said, But I don't care. You know, it's the I mean I cannot like everything. And I said uh true. And uh actually sometimes it's a good it's if if a watch polarizes to the point where s people really don't like, that's a good sign. And we came to realize that we have for, example, our team in Hong Kong for many many times on certain products that they really didn't like were very successful in other markets. So when when somebody tells me I don't like it, I don't take it as oh shit, we made a mistake, but rather than maybe that's not the right customer, but that means it is strong, there's a strong reaction, and then we be there will be people on the other side who who love it. Yeah. So I I have two questions coming out of that. One is: have you ever made a product that you didn't like but you knew there was a customer base for it where you you said, you know, this isn't for me, like I don't connect with this, but like I know there's customers who will and like it's important that we serve those customers. Yes. I mean I w it's it's not I think the way I want to to develop the brand, but sometimes you have to do that because otherwise if you if I only do watches that I like just for me then I really limit the the market. Um one watch we did was the uh the skeleton for example. I think that was um it was not the the watch I see as being the the mo the best example of what Mozart is or Mozart will be. But I think it's part of of the the creation process is to try things, try different things. And I mean there's a there's a line where in in in a way that says that's where we want to go, but we need to try things outside those uh around this this line and and going a little bit out out of our comfort zone and try things and see the response and then get inspired by by something else and and some are successful, some are not, some I like, some I don't. Um but I think it's important to try. If you stop trying, then you die. Yeah. Yeah. I mean on the on the other side of this, you know, you talk about having a relationship directly with your customers, and that's a thing that I think most people don't realize is relatively new in watch making. Like, you know, if we look even twenty years ago, twenty five years ago, most watch brands, big and small, didn't deal with their customers directly. Like it's this very strange like wholesale network that the watch industry has run on forever. Um, so you know, customers talk to retailers, retailers talk to watchmakers uh and and brands. The ability to connect with your customers directly must give you a whole set of of both opportunities and challenges that maybe watchmakers didn't have to deal with or didn't get to deal with uh twenty, twenty five years ago. Is is that something that you guys are are conscious of and think about? Well definitely I but I think it was there before. It's just it was there a hundred years ago when you know you had creators in the atelier in in Switzerland or France and people would travel the world to go and order their watch.. True And then they would go and pick it up six months, a year, two years, three years later, or the the the the person who was producing the watch would travel the world to deliver it to their the people. At that time it was not as easy as it is today to travel. The chance that we have today that we might not have had 25 years ago was uh was the the digital media today i we as a lot of small independent brands connect with our customer much more easily than we used to. I think all those platforms um you can use them just to throw images at s at people or you can use them uh to create a dialogue. And I think that's the way we look at it and say how do we engage, discuss, uh resolve problems, uh sell watches, I mean Instagram, Facebook, uh any website is that opportunity. And we try to get as uh as authentic as close as possible to c to the customers through those media, being ourselves answering, you know, I get all the emails at info at H Moser for example, and then I funnel them to the right people or answer myself if if I feel necessary. So I know what's happening, I know the opinion of the people, there's a problem, the best way to solve the problem is to have somebody like me or or Nicholas our head of sales or somebody air answering right away rather than trying to to have somebody in the in the market um who cannot take a decision uh trying to uh send a standard this uh answer to that. So we really see that as an opportunity to to to get closer to the people and um and and we'll we'll try to do as much as we can to um to develop people in the team that has that philosophy. I wonder what what's what's maybe like the most unexpected or surprising thing that you think you've learned from dealing with customers that way. Like what's what's something a customer has has told you or asked you about that was was maybe the thing that like most surprised you and caught you off guard? I think it's I mean there's there's a there's a there's a few themes that come up all the time and you you can you can uh you can see trends for example uh in for a long time all people would talk about was precision, you know, what is the precision of expected precision of the watch? Uh a lot of people were buying their witchy and testing and testing and testing and asking questions and trying to understand the uh uh the parameters to uh to to ensure the the highest isochronismus and stuff like that. And I was that's what that was interesting because also some of those things I didn't know. So I had to go to my team and ask questions to be able to answer. And there was a big trend on that. Then we c we s we saw, and I think that's where I think it's the last couple of years with the the rise of of CPO resale value. Resale value was something that that that came up more and more in question. So you know if I buy this watch, what's gonna be the price in two, three years? You know, it's difficult for us to assess. The only thing I can do is I'm doing my best to ensure that the that that value in two or three years will be uh will be as high as possible. So I think there's a lot of those what's interesting is to see those those those trends. And then you have people who ask you crazy questions. I mean we have every second day somebody who wants to create a a s uh unique watch. And it goes from, you know, you did a watch in cheese, can you do a watch for me in chocolate? Or you can you can have like, oh I you know, I I have bought this watch ten years ago, can you change the dial? Or s I mean it's it's yeah, you know, I would like to have a a uh a a unique dial and and and then it's a discussion trying to explain to people what it means in terms of cost because it's not just buying a dial, you need to produce a dial, it's a special series, it's a lot of cost behind it. A dial in a watch, even a high end like us, if you just produce it as part of a batch, maybe cost $200, right? But at the end of the chain, with with with all the that what it involves, you can charge we we might have to charge ten thousand dollars to that to that person and they don't understand it so there's a lot of discussions around those those things but if you explain and you you show what it means then people understand and do you guys do unique pieces for clients yeah we actually actually we have a a lot of people travelinground the world coming to the manufacturer to sit with with us, with our manufacturer and and and design things. We cannot do everything, but we can do quite a lot of things. I mean we have we master a lot of techniques uh in the movement as well as on the dial side. We don't modify much of the cases except engraving, but we do or we've we've done some incredible dials. Uh I mean recently we had somebody who wanted a sunset fumadais, for example, from Japan. He came and we you know we looked at different pictures and techniques, animal, and and and and it's a beautiful piece. I would have never had the idea to create that, but together with somebody who has already a few Moser and suddenly said I want something very special that which is really me then we sit down, it takes time, but I think it's worth it for for us and for him. How do you balance that sort of like your brand identity and the customer's identity in that? 'Cause you want you want the watch to be what the customer wants and what, you know, it reflects their personality, but y you also I would imagine want when somebody else sees it on their wrist, you would want it to feel very Mosery. The younger you are as a brand and the less established, the more you will tend to accept what customers say and what they want. And the the stronger you get, the more you try to impose your codes. Yeah. The dream is I mean, you need I mean you you are the brand and we are protecting the brand in a way, so we should do we should be the one deciding. Yeah. Um but you know, sometimes to be honest, uh you have to be uh as a small brand, you have somebody instead is ready to pay a lot of money for something very special, even if it's not my taste. To be honest, sometimes we accepted things where I was like, mm, I wouldn't wear that watch. But yeah, I mean we have seventy people and uh Yeah sometimes you accept those things. Yeah. And even if it's not the watch that I want to see on the on the cover of the next uh we'll ask you before we do anymore yeah uh yeah I mean I think that that speaks to a reality that a lot of collectors I think they're more aware now than maybe they were a couple years ago but you know a lot of enthusiasts and collectors um you know don't think day to day about the kind of like financial realities of this like it's a business you know this this isn't um you know a whole bunch of people with patrons up like doing their their artwork late at night. L thisike is this is a business and there's economics to it. And you know, when a brand comes out with a watch maybe that a particular collector doesn't like, it's very easy to jump on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook or whatever and say like, oh, this is terrible. Why would the brand do this? Why would they devalue this? Blah blah blah. But it's like 'cause they need to stay afloat. Like they need to, you know, and there's To be honest, I don't think there's any brand, maybe maybe Rulex now, I don't know, that would refuse doing unique PCs to certain customers. Even the biggest brands have those big, big, big customers where yeah, they they'll say yes. They won't admit it. Yeah, but it's but they would. It's just hard. Like if somebody shows up with a big pile of cash and says like if it's if you want it, it's yours. It's it's hard to turn it. For a brand like ours, we might say yes to s smaller collectors, but for bigger brands uh they would as well. But for to much bigger collectors. Yeah. I wonder so so you mentioned that one of the things is as you're as you're a young brand you can be a little more flexible in your your design codes and sort of like what your sort of essence and personality is. But I think one of the things I've I've always liked about Moser is is you very quickly sort of established a personality and established some design codes and I wonder how you A kind of figured that out relatively early and two how it's how it's evolved over the last maybe five, seven years? Well I mean we we we are a young brand yes or no. Uh I mean w yes the brand was is is new because it was relaunched. Right. But uh and the the the new brand had new codes to be to be that's that's true, even though there's a few things that we we we kept from from before. Back in 2012 when I when I took over, I didn't feel it went that quick to figure out the identity of Mozilla. Yes, minimalism, ingenu ingenuity in the movement, those kind of things were there. The forms on the on the side of the case uh were elements, the shape of the hands. But I think um it it takes time. It takes time, it takes as I said before, you need to try things outside of your comfort zone to figure it out. And we not try to go into those concept or the uh try new colours on the fumade dials we would have never found our our way. I think what is important is to say we need to find something that is different, that is us, and and stick to it. I mean um I think I remember my my father when he was at A at A P s he said, you know uh, when when a lot of brands were starting to create um the Royal Oak was not selling in China, for example. When there was the rise of the Chinese buying so many watches, a lot of people said you should do uh you know the small rose gold seviled e And rather than adapted to the market, they stick to their their thing, they stick to their line, and it's the market that suddenly fell in love with those designs. And I think that's that's what we need to do is uh is find our codes, make sure that they they're unique, they are different, and and eventually the market will uh if you do if if you do your job right, eventually a certain market will will uh will accept it. Yeah. That's what we've been trying to do with Moser. I think we were very lucky that uh I think it it came at the right time because colors are quite trendy at the moment. I don't think there was 10 years ago that we would see so many colors now that's that there and and with our fumetis where with the colors you have this vintage sexy modern uh touch which is also very uh uh 2020 i mean vintage is really dans l'air du temps as we say in fr in French and we have a lot of those elements in our watches. So you need luck and or maybe it's a little bit of feeling of anticipating trends because you stay atunced of what's happening. I don't know, but um but what is important is to stick to it. Yeah stick to one line but try things, be different, fail so as much many times as as you can because you're gonna learn from those those those things. And that's the only way to uh survive as and and and develop as a small brand. Yeah. I mean you mentioned the Royal Oak, which is you know one of the hottest topics I think in the in the industry now is you know everybody's kind of seeing the trend toward Royal Oak, Nautilus, even even the Rolex sport watches, you know, everything is steel integrated bracelet, like, you know, probably a blue dial with some texture on it. You know, it's it's it's really kind of a a homogenous market in some ways. Um and while you guys did the the Streamliner, which has an integrated bracelet, it's very different from watches like, say, the Royal Oak or the Nautilus in in a lot of ways. Um you guys predominantly make dressier watches. They're on straps. Um they don't have that sort of like 70s sport watch look. Um how do you sort of like stick to your guns in this market? But we are in a way. When we f when you look at the brand and say, you know, we need to develop, we want to explore new markets, what do you do? You go into ladies watches, it's very difficult, it's it's it's different world. Felt like for Moser it's it's not easy. We started with very dressy, then we had the pioneer which became a little bit more sport, dressy watch. I think the next natural um direction was to go into uh I mean we all saw it five years ago and that's why we all coming up at the same time with the same kind of watches, we saw that trend of everybody asking for Royal Oak, Nautilus, uh and and uh the the sport steel watches from from Rolex. So you feel I mean that's what that's where the market is going. We we need to adapt, but everybody has this different take on it. And I think the the Mother take on that segment is how can we keep what we are before that with those dressy watches, with those dials, with those movements, take a bits and pieces from what the market wants, which is integrated steel bracelet, and create something that is unique. And um to be honest, in 2012, on my desk when I took over the role of uh CEO of Moser, I had drawings of an integrated bracelet steel watch. Because my predecessor had anticipated that as well. But they all looked like the uh engineer from IWC, which is you know, uh uh almost like a sister company next door in Shafausen I was like we cannot do that. Yeah we're gonna be double the price and nobody knows H Moser. So we need we need to to restart and continue and try, etc. And it took years to find a design that we felt yes, it's an integrated steel bracelet, so we're tapping in that segment, but it's not like the others. And we're very comfortable and very happy with what we we're launching because I f I feel it's in the the approach of Moser. We try to be different, we try to be singular. Some people might say, as I said, I hate that watch, but for that we have hundreds or thousands of people who love it. And I think that's the only way you can try to create something that maybe in 40 years we'll say that's an iconic product. And there are not many since uh you know the 70s and the Genta designs that can claim that. I think there's uh maybe the Octo from from Bulgaria which, is really a nice design, but also was originally from uh from from from Genta. There's what Richard Mill has do has done, maybe uh Frank Müller has created also something something very special, but there's not many others and the only way you can achieve it is as we said is to create like this conceptual music that nobody will well not so many people will understand and like right away but after a few times you listen to it, it it sticks. I I always compare it with Pink Floyd, for example. The first time my cousin made me listen to to Pink Floyd, I was like, what is this? You know, uh you know I'm not I and thirty, forty years later, I I still listen to that. Whereas all the the music that I liked at that age, maybe I was you know ten, fifteen, I don't listen to it anymore. Yeah. But that's because it's it's different. It's yeah it's it's conceptual. Yeah. It's interesting to to pair that with what we were talking about a little while ago about like the business realities of this, right? Like you need something that's gonna bring in money now 'cause you have a company to run, but at the same time you're trying to build something lasting. And I I would imagine that on your end it's kind of this this push and pull to figure out like how do we do something that the market will respond to now so we can keep our seventy people working um while also kind of looking to like what this means 10 years from now, 15 years from now, fifty years from now? Yeah, but I mean it's as you say you say it's a business and which we like in the watch industry to talk more of the the glamorous, the passion. But we need to run businesses, we need to make money, we need to make sure this it's profitable. And and yes, you need to create things that bring emotion but at the same time my dream is that I don't need to relaunch a new product as we we did la last night, every two months have something new. The big brands, they rely they they have a I mean, maybe eighty, ninety percent of their business is recurring products, recurring revenue. Small brands like ours, more than fifty percent is based on novelties. And that's that's huge. That that means I mean our teams are working hard on creating new things. Uh and that's why we limit them quite quite a lot, but increase slowly the the number of of um of the limitations so that we're not constantly creating some something new. But that's the reality of being a small and independent. You need novelties all the time because we don't have big marketing budgets to do advertising to promote things that are here for uh forever. So the best way for us to get out there is to is through PR and PR is driven by novelties and launches. So that's why we forced to do that uh all the time. But my my dream is that you establish codes that eventually are so repetitive that it becomes this iconic design that people remember. It sticks into uh their brain. And I and I hope the streamliner, because it's different, has the potential for that. It's more potential than just a round watch. I think the chance that we have with Moser is the fumedial. Because the fumetile, whatever the the design of the case, people remember and re- and recognize. It's true that uh in the last couple of years we've seen many brands do uh using uh fumidias as well so it's becoming less and less moser but uh to the point where some people say oh are you trying to copy that or that brand I'm like it's been you know ten fifteen years we're doing this but you I wonder what what are some of the other opportunities and challenges of being a smaller independent watchmaker? You know, I think people hear about the big brands all the time, and and the idea of independent watchmaking has been a big, big thing over the last you know, 10 years. Um, and I think there's a lot of support for independent watchmaking. But I I wonder from your side of things, like what do you see as the things you have to do differently, positive or negative, versus you know, somebody like one of the big guys? Well start with the negative. I think the negative beside the communication, not having the budget, I think access to distribution is uh is always a challenge um because it's true that I means small brands are usually less stable financially. You know, a lot of people are scared, you know, do I want to invest in a small independent brand? There's been a few that disappeared that could lose money. So you need there, I mean it' its's a lot of work for for us also as a family to show you know we're not there for the short run, you know, we're trying to build something very long term and we have the financial resources to do that and uh and convince the people. I think that's been very essential to our growth as well, not only the product, but also having a family behind that is from watchmaking and that can really show what we want to do on the on the long term. But otherwise it's very complicated to open new doors. That's one. The opportunity I think is is as when when you're small, you you're very agile, you're very reactive. You can take risks that big brands cannot because either there's too many people deciding or because it's it's difficult for them to go outside what we said before their DNA and the and and the the codes, etc. I think we can do that. So you can grasp an opportunity much faster. And and I I uh every time there was a little bit of a crisis in the market, that's when we had the the best ideas and and the best opportunities. I think right now the market is is suffering and we're constantly discussing about what can we do differently, being the way we launch products, there's no fares anymore, then there's way other ways to do it. How? Let's think. Because I think it levels much more the the the playing ground with the with the bigger brands. Digitalization has helped small brands a lot because if I cannot compete on the number of pages I invest in the Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times because I just don't have the money on the digital side, by creating interesting content, creating things that put has the potential to go viral to get more visibility, then we play kind of kind of uh a game with the same weapons with the bigger brands. So I always tell my team I want to be the best in on the digital world in the digital digital world, because we cannot be the best in the in the rest. So that's where we focus. That's where we try to be innovative. Try things. Again, fail, try other things, try to grasp the new technology, try to understand the big data, try to you know to to do the best customer service, customer service uh really uh relationship management uh that that we can because it's so difficult to get new customers that once you have them you need to really treat them like the the they they need to be the the the kings. They need to be appreciated. They need to understand who we are and that we we care for them. Mm-hmm which is true. And um and I think that's that's that's pretty important. Yeah. You said that you think the the you know, kind of disappearance of the shows this year, uh Basel and and Watches and Wonders, I guess, um levels the playing field. You think that's a good thing for independent watchmakers. I think some brands will disappear, unfortunately, but I think it's it's gonna be a live experiment. In a sense of I think for the last ten years everybody think every year, do I really need this show? Yeah. But everybody's scared to take that risk. Except when you're AP or Richard Meal, you're so big and you have your own boutiques, then you can take that risk. Yeah. But for us every year it's like it's a big investment, you know, of course we meet a lot of people, of course we can launch, but we're part of many. Is it worth it? Can I spend the same amount of money on doing other things and get the same result? I don't know. Well this year we are we'll have to do to find out. So um it's an opportunity. Interesting to see. And right now we you know we just launched our CPO platform uh on our website uh faster than we we anticipated because we said you know if there's no show we need to do find other channels to also uh present the products to get access to customers and many other things that we're trying to do differently this year. Yeah. One one of the things you've said is, you know, you're not afraid to take risks uh and and it's about communication and I think you've launched a number of watches over the last couple of years uh that it seems like that's been a part of the watch from the very concept. So there's obviously the the cheese watch, there's, you know, Swiss Alp watchch. the Swiss Alp Wat Um when when did you first get the idea that you could create these kind of moments through creating a a product that it's not it's not that it's it's a novelty, it's a real product, but it's a product that has this kind of like concept behind it that's gonna grab people. Well I think for me the idea when came when we went to when I was a kid, I went to the um the motor show in Geneva, which is a big motor show, and when you go there, you don't want to go and see the the standard stuff. You want to see the concept cars, the things for the future. So think that you know they're trying something that probably will never be on the streets. But it's cool. That's what you want to see. And and then I my father would take me to sihh and and before to buzz the world and i was a bit frustrated that i couldn't see much more i remember like when there was once um uh ap launched the the the concept um for the royal Oak, you know, the the that I think that was the first concept. There was a hologram and I was I found it very cool. And that's what people want to see. There there needs to be something stunning, different, which might not be commercial. And for Moser, I felt that when we go to those fairs and I launch another new collection, it's just it's just lost in the middle of hundreds of launches. So rather than doing that, we need to find something that expresses a message that stands out, that is more artistic, creative, that sends a message, that makes people talk about the brand, but the same time is not exactly what we sell. And that's when the idea came in the in the beginning. We got lucky because the Swiss Alp Watch was a huge success. Um remember we launched it with uh the first time with Hodin Key back in two thousand and sixteen I think. And we I mean internally we didn't even believe in it. We didn't think it would be such a big success, and so many people would talk about it. And that it would really I mean, still today, a lot of people come to me and say, Oh, the first time I heard about Moser was with from with the Swiss Alpwatch or with the S the Cheese Watch. So, you know, we're doing more than that, but the people discovered and otherwise they would have never heard of it. Yeah. And I think it's important that when people come to those shows or want to hear what's happening there and to have things that are crazy, that are different, that it's not just oh we changed the dial on something that already exists. And we try to continue to do that and to create like these concept cars that people want to see and not just uh the standard things. That's standard thing, you can go in the stores and see them. Yeah I think this is a little bit what Artbasel also is is is all about. It's about you know those crazy uh concepts those crazy uh art pieces and I think that we're missing a little bit that in the in the shows in general and that's what the I mean if you if we were a little bit more consumer focused, that's what other brands would do as well. And uh and we it it became so successful that it became uh for us something that we wanted to do every year. Uh I think it's on the ninth of January that we launched and then we said okay, let's let's continue the trend. I mean some people said it's it's it's gimmicky or something some it's not serious for for uh for us what is supposed to be a serious brand. It worked for us. So I will c we'll continue to do that in different ways. One year it's yes, it's a cheese watch, but next year it might be something very technical. Maybe one day it will be all about isochronism, it will be another message. But it's something that will surprise people and I think that's important. I remember there was the the one year there was uh a bit of of controversy over the Swiss icons watch. Is that something you can talk about at all? Yeah. How did how did the idea for that watch come about? And then can you kind of walk us through uh the process and the the rollout and kind of the putting it out there and then having to pull back and and that whole that whole saga. It's much easier now than uh two years ago. But um yeah, I mean it it was actually two years ago. Um the idea came well we you know the Swiss Alp Watch came out. I think two thousand fifteen I I there was in January this problem with the Swiss franc and I wrote to the national bank and that's the first time where we kind of people were talking about Moser in a different way, just oh they did a nice perpetual calendar. And a year later, exactly a year later, we launched the Swiss Alp watch. Everybody was talking about this watch. The year later we did this the the the cheese watch. Everybody was talking about it. So my team was like, my and I remember even my father, who is the chairman of the company, said, Oh, you know, you should do that every year, or at least I mean, you should you should you need to have an idea like this. So I started brainstorming myself and saying, Oh, you know, what could be the next thing? And both the Swiss Alp watch and the Swiss mad watch had a little bit of controversial angle. I mean some people didn't like the fact that we were criticizing SwissMade and we were stating our per perspective on it and removing from our watches. Um so it was a little bit of you know tension, some people liked it, some people s didn't like it. So at the end of the fair in two thousand and seventeen, um I talked to my team, I said, you know, I have the idea for next year. That's when I had the idea for the Swiss Icon. I said, what's good this time is that everybody's gonna love it and everybody will be with us because it's uh it's an homage to uh to creativity and stuff etc. I didn't explain yet everything in there. I was still drawing the watch on my uh notebook. And for for and my brother is still laughing about it. He said, You remember when you told me Yeah the watch is called the Swiss Icons was a watch that we created the the the idea was to take among the big brands in in the watch industry what we believe are the the most iconic elements that really made those brands very successful and and became like the icons of of of an air of an era and we took uh yeah something from uh rolex, bateg, ap, etc., and and created what people call the Frankenstein watch. I think a lot of people have dreamt of uh had the dream about this watch but never uh ever done it. So we did one unique piece about it. And really, seriously, honestly, the the idea was to to pay tribute to those big brands who made the the the Swiss watch industry. We made a big mistake is we we try at the same time to to say, well, on one side in this industry we have that. We have p brands that invest in development, very creative, have have unique features. And the other side you might have brands that don't produce anything and all they do is marketing. And we created a movie that was kind of going after that and saying, you know, there's a lot of bullshit and very little development for certain brands. And the problem with that we faced is that because we were in our you know small daily thing and doing it on our own, no agency, nobody helping us, I think we the message got confused and and got mixed up. So uh the big brands we were actually praising thought we were calling them out and they got pretty upset. And uh so we launched it uh as usual on the beginning of January, just a few days before the fair, and um and seriously we were we were not expecting any um negative reaction. I was blind. I was completely blind. And the next morning, I usually when when we do that, we launch it's at midnight. I I have my phone off and then the next morning I wake up and I I I check what people are talking about. And it was rather positive. I think uh we were looking with my brother. I was on the phone here, I think he was in Hong Kong or in Dubai, and I was like, Oh, did you see on the the Hoddinkey post a lot of uh positive feedback, etc.? And we were super excited. We were like, wow, we did it again, and it's it's becoming viral, etc. And suddenly I remember around 11 in the morning I got a call from someone. I saw it on my phone, on my phone, I was like, oops, shit. And yeah, then uh then we had to put it out. And um And I think we learned uh from that experience that yeah you need you need to be careful. I mean uh of course you you need to be opinionated and you shouldn't you know follow all the codes and the rules of an industry that is sometimes very conservative. But at the same time you need to be um you need to be professional enough to um to do it right and I think we didn't do it that that that time. And I think it was a good lesson for me that yes, my responsibility is to build Moser, but the mo the biggest responsibility that I have is to protect Moser. And I think on that on that point we went too far or or not professional enough to the point where we should have tested and make sure that people understand what we were trying to say and because you can piss off a lot of people that are way more powerful than you are. And and that's dangerous. Yeah, for sure. Um I wonder do you do you still always have like some idea going in the back of your head for for what the next year's uh sort of talking point will be? Yeah, I mean there's a lot of topics where we we felt you know we there's things that are related to the watch industry, sometimes even completely out of it. Um what's good is now we have also people help uh outside also sometimes telling us uh no don't go there. And we had discussion about you know at some point was um uh about Me Too or corruption in our industry and stuff like that to to call that out but some people said yeah you have to be careful. Yeah that's a that's a mindfield. That was before the s the Swiss Mad Watch, you know we were talking about we made a movie where we talk about the things that Swiss claim to be Swiss but are not really Swiss, like Heidi et cetera. And at some point we said, you know, but you know uh Roger Federer is uh is actually um half South South African or something like this. I think it's father and some people said no. He's he's so strong, it's such an icon you cannot touch. So now we we're more careful and we ask um for people to tell uh give us feedback and we try to do things differently. We had actually um uh some a concept that we wanted to present symbolic watch also this year at the fairs that people will wa will have to wait, but it's very different from what we've done in the past and much more technical and less about the symbol. And uh but it's something that again I want people to come and say, Oh, have you seen that watch? It should be a little bit like I don't know if you remember when uh when Max created that Harry Winston the Opus series. I remember going to Basel and the first thing people would talk about is like have you seen the Opus? Yeah of course. And I in a in a way I wanted to be the opus of the SIHH when people would come and say, you know, have you seen the crazy concept from Mozart? Nice. But the risk is you need when you're on the edge, on the edge, sometimes you're on the wrong side of the edge. Of course. So speaking of Max, I know uh you have been working with Max on something pretty special. Can you tell me anything about it yet? I know I know it's not coming out for a little while, but we all see him as, you know, one of the precursor in the among the independents and kind of leading the pack. And uh I think there's a mutual respect that that I hope. I think that's probably fair. I hope it's not just on my side. But um but we worked, yeah, we did quite a few things together. We supply MBNF with our hairsprings uh and they are one of the only brand that really is open about it. Uh actually if you visit our manufacturer you'll see pictures of Moser and MBNF. Oh nice. You know, Max is known for his collaborations, his friends and we're proud to be one of the friends. And what's interesting about what we're doing with them I think is to show that independent brands are not uh uh playing against each other. We're more trying to do things together in the way we open doors when when I open a door and somebody sell tells me which what do you think is is uh another brand I should take, then we we would recommend MB and F and say because I think we are very complimentary and and you know, working on projects together on the developments and potentially on products. Um I think is is a good example of how brands can collaborate. And I think we will see more and more. What uh uh Bulgaria is doing right now with their uh uh Geneva Watch Days, together with BrightLink, together with uh G G P um uh Ulyss Nardin, MBNF, us, I think is a good example of that is a few people facing the same issues. How can we you know, work all together in in finding an another solution. And I hope there will be more and more in the future because this industry has been a lot about, you know, groups fighting each other, brands, trying to get more space. Hey, they have one squ square m inch more sp visibility in the window, why don't hire have it? And that's not the way it should be. I think we should have more collaboration there. Yeah, I wonder I mean that's something I'd I'd love your perspective on as as an independent in the industry. You know, we've seen the the fragmentation of the trade shows over the last couple of years. So now we essentially have LVMH has its own thing, Swatch Group has its own thing, SIHA or Watches and Wonders is now a mix of Richmond and Independence. Brightlings doing its own thing. Baselworth. It's like it's so fragmented. And now with with Seiko and Grenseiko doing their own thing, that's on the other side of the planet. Ultimately, the the people this most affects are the the retailers and the media folks who who now have to be everywhere. You know, we're we're feeling it for sure where our travel schedule before everything got halted this spring looked insane. You know, we had people in every corner of the globe every week. And you feel like you have to go. And yeah, and and not even just feel we we do have to go. You know, we we can't do our job well without going. And if you're a retailer that carries twenty five brands across the groups, some independents, whatever, like instead of taking two trips to Switzerland a year, you know, in in January and in March, April for SIHH and Basel, you know, maybe now you're going six times, seven times, maybe you have to go to Japan also. It's like it really if you're it's nuts and it's yeah, it's it's not not bad, but uh it's nuts and nice. It's both, yeah. But if you're if you're like a a medium sized retailer with a medium sized team, you know, how how do you do that? I mean it costs a fortune. It's you still have a business to run. It's it's really I I wonder what you think about whether it's ultimately a good th I think it's a bad thing for the industry. I think again we s we need to w work all together and uh this industry is not growing that much anymore, you know. I think we need to find ways to um to facilitate all this. I think the the solution for me is more more brands together but then traveling the world and then go and do one small show in in uh in the US in Miami, great weather, you know, good time. One in Dubai, one in Geneva and maybe one in uh in greater China. Smaller size, cost efficient, you don't have all those fancy parties and and things like this. I mean it's easier for us to say because we don't have money to finance all this, the big groups they like to maybe to do those big parties. But I think that's not what people want. I think today you need to get as close as possible to the customer in the market, limit the the the travel for for the press, for for the retailers and um and work together. And um I mean I was surprised when I heard that you know Basel rescheduled in January next year, knowing that it would be difficult for SIHH to find dates at the same time. So why don't they work together? I mean, frankly, it's a pain for everybody. And I think by trying to play against each other, they will destroy each other. Yeah. And that's not the the objective there. It should be about the survival of an industry that you know is still finding its uh finding its new grounds and being threatened by uh connected watches by a generation that might not want to buy watches anymore. Uh we don't need people fighting each other. We need as an industry to work together and and make sure this category continues continue to grow to grow. So with that with that in mind, I wonder with so many things in flux in the industry overall, like what's what's next for Moser? Like what direction are you looking in and sort of what star are you are you using to guide guide the ship? Well I think we need we have potential with already what we have in terms of products. So I'm not looking too much into creating, I mean with the streamliner now, I think we have the the range that we want and continue to develop nice movements, but I think we have we have amazing potential with what we have. So we need to to be better closer to the customer, as I said digitalization, we need to to make sure there we um we we we work even better. I think e-commerce is one one way to go as well. Something that I always said no. I think uh we we have great retailers and they they support us. That's evolving as well. I think a lot of people are going online. I see a lot of retailers taking less and less risk and the risk cannot only be on the on the brand side. And some play the game and some don't. Some expect that they will get almost like the watches on consignment and we cannot do that. I mean I don't have the possibility to do that. So I need people to say, you know, I have the customers for that, or maybe I'm not sure, and then uh but I I need it it because's part of what the brand is offering. And uh so for me at the moment we're exploring a lot of those things about again digitalization, master new new technologies and uh going uh on the on the e commerce style in parallel to opening boutiques because I think uh people experiencing the the brand universe is is very important. We can bring people to the manufacturer but that's you know that's Shaftaus and not everybody wants to come and we have an amazing museum. Shophouse's lovely. I know. It's a lovely place. Yeah, but not everybody's ready to come all the way there. So we try to bring it to the people and you know, we have the big waterfalls, we have the beautiful manufacturer, you can see the hairspray, you can see everything under one roof and and the uh you have big museum in our castle and stuff like that but again it's in Schaffhausen so we need we need to develop concepts to bring that to the people it's the consumer experience again s keep the human uh human dimension, I think you mentioned that in the beginning is really get in touch, meet the people. I want to know as much as possible, my my customers, the owners, and make sure they're happy. Continue to make sure the the the value of our products Nice. Well we'll drop the info at uh H Moser email address in the show notes. So if people want to reach out to you, they now know uh they'll they'll get that email right to you. I'll answer to them. Amazing. Uh thanks for joining us. I'm uh I'm pretty excited. I know we're gonna go check some products out after this that people listening to this will see soon on uh hodinky.com. So be sure to check that out. But uh thanks for coming by. Thank you. Please This week's episode was recorded at Hodinky 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. |