A Moment in Time: Watchmaking at the Start of the 21st Century

[Music] i think if anyone in the watch industry whether it's a dealer a collector or an auctioneer would have fallen into some hibernation type coma in the year 2000 and sort of like snow white you would kiss them awake in the year 2020 and say can you please go back to your job or do as a collector what you've done before i think they would be completely lost the flavor of one second is completely different today than 20 years ago 21st century watchmaking has been so liberating for the watch industry in many respects and then suddenly 20 years later we find ourselves after 16 years from the launch of global fallacy it's really been quite a journey mercedes basil there's a lot of nostalgia with me these days [Music] it's really the environment around the watchmaking community which has changed so much in the year 1999 and 2000 was when the big bang of the watch industry occurred it's become a big business it's become very high profile and even if people don't know or like watches they're aware of it they're aware that the watch business is something we all our our kind of generation of online folks represented this change from what the industry wanted the media to cover to what enthusiasts actually cared about that kind of exploded the enthusiasm for watch collecting and this transfer from a mechanical piece to a piece of art has really happened in the last 20 years [Music] well of course a lot of things have changed in 20 years but uh even before that the the changes were preparing i think we've seen more effect in 20 years and our possibility you know the creativity and innovation is something that has really gathered speed also and a lot of it thanks to independent watchmakers if we speak about the rise of independent artisanal watchmaking um was the contributions made by george daniels here was a man an individual who with all his own personal endeavor could make a handmade watch right this was flying in the face of prevailing convention that period of time but then in switzerland you had philippe dufour francois calabrese early nineties francois paul juan coming on board and then in the mid mid 90s felix baumgartner with martin frye and with our with the the adventure of global foresee was not just about building a brand it was really about the inventions the innovations bringing something new opening new chapters new avenues for mechanical watchmaking pushing precision bringing back that hand finishing and it's interesting how at that time all these like really these people that we uh kind of uh look up to right now as you know horological gods if you will you know you could just pick up the phone or write an email and order one of these pieces collecting independence is about you know your enthusiasm for a watchmaker as an artist uh your enthusiasm for his uh pieces as an artwork and also it reminds me a lot of uh kind of in renaissance times you know as a patron like you know the medici family was a patron of the arts you're really sponsoring and kind of directly impacting this watchmaker's ability to make his creations [Music] when i started in 91 we were all crazy geeks speaking to crazy geeks and we're like a few hundred speaking to a few thousand nobody was interested in mechanical watchmaking so it was pure passion pleasure um defending something which was undefendable i still have that today in independent watchmaking i still feel that craziness that that passion for something which is exceptional which is beautiful and human in independent watchmaking the big change is the rise of the superpowers uh it's the rise of the super brands except for rolex already in those days there was no very big brand in the span of 12 months all these large industrial watch manufacturing groups occurred the next thing they did was then integrate backwards as well as integrate forwards we saw during this period of time the aggregation of component suppliers into these groups and we have seen the integration within the manufactures of many different crafts that were that were before only made by independent people and typically for example this is also the case for decorative crafts metadata this is for example enablers or geoshare engravers that was the the best way to ensure the development and also the possibility to to train new people rather than to to have only independent artists who could disappear one day or another audemars piguet has indeed increased our in-house production but we also continue to rely on suppliers in a very meaningful way part of that is the preservation of these small independent companies here in the valley deju and also in the in the surrounding area because we too are a supplier we too supply movements and components to other companies so we have great sensitivity towards the importance of keeping those small companies independent once the consolidation of the industry at um the manufacturing level had been complete the next step was to essentially close that last mile gap with the end consumer over this period of time we saw the proliferation of standalone boutiques by what brands we shifted from from a distribution mode which was very much into wholesaler agents in countries into a much more a word which is much more about uh retain so i think it changed quite a lot i also believe that at a specialist multi-brand watch retailer because of the fact that we are diversified in our brand offering we are diversified in our geography it lends itself to the ability of our specialists to then be able to compare contrast watches in a very different manner than you would if you walked into a single brand boutique and i think every brand and every watch tells a different story in itself and being a collector you want to be part of all these different stories and narratives i think that the time of massive communication budgets for luxurious watch brands is over and that we are back to a sincere horology probably again thanks to to the independent but but also because customers want to know what they're buying is something that we want to know about what's the trick so you have to give access to part of the trick like any good magician would do but you also have to explain how it came to birth i think the internet made possible the the access to what is watchmaking to incredible large audience and i think it really changed totally the the world of watchmaking well it all started with the forums time zone and purists they were the first actually communities who helped us get known and actually connect us to people who are actually interested in it there were a lot of local collectors in the bay area who were gathering together like you know once a month for a luncheon on the weekend i remember i was at ming's in palo alto and people would bring watches and share and you know get together and uh talk about uh their hobby you know and it was interesting because that also kind of coincided with uh my interest in independent watchmaking because at the time um the purists was like the place to discuss you know i think cutting edge or avant-garde watchmaking including the independent watchmakers then came the bloggers and we owe again uh so much to them and and then came social media so it's been like this for a better part of 20 years where one community has helped another etc etc again i don't think we would be where we are all of us without those three types of communities [Music] odinki from the beginning was a place for me to express myself and then when i quickly realized that it was it was a great kind of lightning rod for other people like myself and yourself to kind of gather and discuss this topic and become kind of part of a community and so i would just go there out of my own interest and i'd bring a little sony you know handheld camera and a canon s90 or s95 and take photos with me and then i would just post them online and people would love them and you know and i think you know that that was what allowed this thing to kind of really flourish in the early days which was that i was not influenced at all by the the other you know kind of editorial properties out there because i didn't know they existed or the industry i didn't know what a publicist was i didn't know what a press junk it was i didn't know that there was marketing around any of this stuff i was just writing about the stuff that that i love [Music] the importance in this business is firstly having an audience but not just a large number of people but also uh the right people not not necessarily people with money to buy expensive watches but people who appreciate watches people who who know what you're writing about who who are intelligent and how they approach the hobby here's the thing he didn't make money for the first three years i was in grad school you know i was taking out loans to kind of get things going um and i think you know that has allowed us all and now you know the magazines have kind of followed suit of myself and ariel and frank and robert yan and others of course and said like hey like we should look at what consumers want we're not going to dictate to them what they want we're going to listen to them and if they want to see another you know another snoopy speedmaster we're going to give it to him and this time it's not going to be a limited edition because was so much demand for the first one most of the large online media platforms or magazines have become retailers i in ways large and small and at the same time more broadly speaking this convergence is happening in other segments of the industry as well watch retailers now most most of them have their own in-house magazines online auction houses have their own in-house magazines as well so it is it's a this convergence is happening through all segments of the industry i remember the first watch auctions i attended um i would say it was maybe 95 dealers and percent collectors versus now i would say it's you know maybe not 95 but 90 collectors and 10 dealers you know it used to be kind of an inside thing where the dealers would go and buy and sell in the auctions and then bring stuff back to their collectors but now it's kind of democratized and available for everybody i think the awareness and the respect that watchers have garnered since 2000 has increased and that is because we're no longer a community of maybe a few hundred nerds who come in person with a paddle to bid in an auction but today there are tens and tens if not hundreds of thousands keen crazy passionate educated watch collectors out there the more players we have the more fair and balanced it is the more we can say after an auction now specifically speaking the more correct a price is it's not just two giants battling it out but a price that is broadly supported by a large community you know the the base has also has also grown in art 40 50 years ago a young man 25 years ago was not so much interested in art it came maybe later the collectors were much older today collectors are 20 years old 25 years old 30 years old so we are in this trend the watch industry is also in this trend and social media enters easily into the millenniums better than any other advertisement so in the past when we didn't have social media at that level we had obstacles to reach the young generation now thanks to social media the young generation is up to date like anybody else i think 20 years ago um the watch industry was really the preserve of a much older generation of enthusiasm collectors today watch enthusiasts watch collectors begin as early as uh in their teens so we have uh many clients many enthusiasts who are uh beginning their journey in watch collecting as early as 15. now the average watch consumer that we see on our side and probably the same for revolution and probably the same in your auction etc are quite a bit younger you know we're talking like early 40s sometimes late 40s if we're talking you know bigger bigger pieces and sometimes you have people in the teens you know teens and twenties we see is a lot of these brands right now are relying on um historical elements of some of their watches or going back to historical designs and kind of refreshing them and bringing them out for a more modern audience and you know that approach while it's hit and miss sometimes i will say generally when the brands care enough about something and do it the right way usually the collector's audience is very receptive to that i think that's the key difference is we can pull from the whole scope of history today we could project into the future we can have techniques from the past the audemars piguet concept in 2002 demonstrated that a high-end watch company still committed to hand finishing could remix a watch in a completely different way where those traditional barriers between case style and movement dissolve and you end up with something entirely new entirely novel that had never been conceptualized before that had never been thought of before so the 21st century has been about this combination of very innovative design pulling from cues outside of watchmaking culture and bringing that into the culture of watchmaking the re-editions this vintage flair has been super powerful and trendy for the last years here at tag hoyer we have treasures in our pockets that you can come here to enjoy in our museum in la chutfun but most important we also have our pockets full of ideas that come from our research and development center that are things coming from brains that has never been thought before so um i think we are super well equipped for the next at least 20 years this is this is the hublot from 1980 and that is the facelift in 2004 which means 24 years later we have brought to hublot a facelift on the look so people said what a great name bam and the name is worldwide the same pronunciation and then people said what a strong watch how macho bum and then a few said hey but this looks like an ap like a royal oak and we said no it looks like a hublot look this is the river 1980. it's just a facelift and then people said wow clever and then the success was huge you know one of the things is that a watch is really like a beautiful piece of artwork that you can wear on your wrist you know you could be very stressed out at work or whatever and look on your wrist and see this nice daytona and kind of uh you know brings a smile to your face or whatever i think that um you know the watch industry collectible market is still you know it's on very solid footing and we'll continue to attract more people to it and also we'll see values continue to arise [Music] in philosophy is young and to be so young and already so close to perfection from the tradition is extremely uh interesting it tells us that young people can also master the art at the ultimate level it's an evolution of tradition and if tradition gets evolution that's the best way to keep traditional life if tradition is only repeated even at the best level it's a repetition so tradition has to move has to evolute has to adapt has to connect i just think we have to get back to individuality here and respecting other people and i think i think we can do it you know i think that this world is is going through a rough patch we can say at you know at scale uh and i think you know as the tides kind of continue to kind of move forward we we hope that a more respectful tone kind of returns to certainly not just the watch industry but but the world at scale it's not a business for us it's our life it's the way we express ourselves um none of the people i'm close to ever started a brand thinking oh i'm gonna be rich i'm gonna make any money that's absolutely not the point they did it because they needed to express themselves and it's a very very difficult world creating a mechanical timepiece as complex and as beautifully made as we do in the in the small independent brands is hugely complex with very little means i don't think 99 of the people who actually even enjoy buying the pieces realize how difficult it is and we we need to stay together we we need to to huddle i mean it's a bit like the penguins on the arctic it's so cold that if you don't huddle together you're going to die of cold and we we intuitively realized that that we actually of course we're not competitors we're friends we're people who help each other we are part of a much bigger market and planet and if we don't syndicate a little bit we will just you know be one thing among others that you can buy but no real purpose and no not showing the beauty of our art and our craftsmanship [Music] what we hope is for the watch industry that the passion will continue the magic of the mechanical watch will still be able to be appreciated around the world and spread it's it's a positive mission i mean you have to think that for global foresee we have been able to uh to build a team here of over 100 passionate people who can all uh follow their craft their their profession and and grow with that we have quite a lot of young people so we are renewing that on the way and certainly for robert and myself the idea is to really um is to really secure that and to be able and enable that to to continue uh far into the future because there's so much to do the important thing is that traditional hand finishing remains in place we can't lose these skills and lose these talents if one generation misses they're gone so i love futuristic form language i love seeing us push further in terms of design but the methods by which those watchers are created have to remain with traditional techniques in place we cannot afford to lose that expertise lose that knowledge because that's the soul of high-end watchmaking the big changes are that people have realized that you buy a watch for other reasons than to retime we produce soul on the wrist we give soul to the wrist we give eternity to the wrist we give beauty to the wrist we give status to the wrist so we are the best partner for people [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Phillips Watches

Views: 36,953

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Id: QEJDsn_-haE

Length: 26min 0sec (1560 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 28 2020