Why Independents?
What are the advantages of buying watches made by independent brands ? This question is a good one, which warrants a proper response. I have been asked many times over the years why I always bang on about independent watch brands (even when I was selling big group brands). I still get asked this question, often by friends and people outside of the context of my retail and wholesale experience. Since I now officially retail small independent brands (online), I can come clean and honestly express my thoughts on the “independent vs big brands” question.
The biggest attraction for me personally, and which I try to pass on to my customers and friends, is knowing WHO MADE THE WATCH. As in, the guys at the workbench putting in the hours to create the watch that ends up on your wrist. Or at the very least, the guys who own the company and deal with the watchmakers daily. It’s all about a personal connection with the watchmakers (or the direct owners, who are often the same people) and by extension, the brand itself.
The majority of the well-known watch brands vying for the watch-buying customer’s dollar today are owned by large groups : Swatch Group - Swatch brand of course, and their kids starter brand Flik Flak, plus Omega, Tissot, Longines, Certina, ckWatch, Rado, Balmain, Mido, Hamilton, Leon Hatot, Glasshutte Original, and the higher-end luxury brands Blancpain, Breguet and Harry Winston. They don’t market all of these brands in Australia, at least not extensively, but they still have their bases covered with the 1st half of the above list. Richemont Financial Co. owns another bunch of luxury watch brands : Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, IWC Schaffhausen, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Panerai, Piaget, Vacheron Constantin and Montblanc. Making up the trilogy of big so-called luxury watch groups is LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennesy), a huge conglomerate owning 70 luxury brands including 6 watch brands, 4 “biggies” of which you have likely heard: TAG, Zenith, Hublot, and Bulgari.
So if you are an average person going shopping for a decent watch anywhere in the world, and are at all influenced by advertising, chances are you will end up with a timepiece from one of the above 29 brands. Or a Rolex (which is ironically a not-for-profit foundation). Not to mention the Japanese giants Casio (3 million pieces per year of ONE particular model, who else could do that ??) , Citizen who own Miyota movement factory, Seiko (who also own Lorus and Pulsar at time of writing) and a few others who get a fair share of the pie, as well as the American-based brands Timex, and the HUGE Fossil group (who bought Skagen in 2012 and produce millions of watches each year). Not to mention literally thousands upon thousands of Chinese brands.
Independent brands, therefore, often struggle to stand out except to seasoned watch aficionados, who discover them through word-of-mouth from other collectors and at shows like Baselworld or on-line forums, blogs, and videos. During my years in Switzerland I was very fortunate to work for a couple of medium sized independent brands which are pretty high-end: Audemars Piguet and Richard Mille. I studied and practised watchmaking with AP and after a couple of years moved to a commercial “watchmaking” role with RM... which quickly morphed into the boutique management role. And of course, I attended the big watch shows regularly and also ran around all year meeting a lot of the independent brand watchmakers – people like Peter Speake-Marin, Kari Voutilainen, Philippe Dufour, Thomas Prescher and the McGonigle brothers... (You’ll find a more complete list at the end of this article). Under the independent watchmaker umbrella, I personally also include people who are not actually watchmakers but have created their own brands by employing, or working with, brilliant watchmakers. Richard Mille and Max Büsser (MB&F) for example.
Audemars Piguet, even though they employ probably a thousand people, are still family-owned, so are technically independent. Richard Mille likewise (although with some big investors)…but these are not the independents I am most interested in. The ones I like are what some people call “small brands”, “Microbrands” or “Macro brands”, all pretty loose terms. With the plethora of crowdfunding campaigns on sites such as Kickstarter, micro-brands can be anything from cheaply produced Chinese quartz watches to painstakingly designed and beautifully crafted timepieces assembled in Switzerland or elsewhere, which any watch nut would be proud to wear. The latter is closest to my ideal brand, and I hope that is reflected in the brands I’ve chosen to represent in the Australian market.
Lundis Bleus is a great example and is basically made up of two mates who are watchmakers and self-taught entrepreneurs who also learnt the far-from-easy techniques of hand engraving and “grand feu” enamelling. Combined with very coherent design principles and amazing dial creation experimentation, the resulting watches are nothing short of superb, even when talking about the most basic Lundis Bleus models (pics on Geneva Blue website, and all over the web!). I challenge you to find a dial which is more balanced and as beautifully executed at the price point (Seiko probably being the closest, IMHO).
Laventure, another example, is a little different to the above but still turning out small-production run watches which are a great value proposition. At 150 pieces per model (50 per dial colour), these are watches which you will rarely, if ever, see on the street. Especially in Australia. They were designed and are assembled by one guy: Clement Gaud, who is the ultimate Land Rover driving adventurer’s adventurer and an all-round nice guy, whom I have known since before he started Laventure.
These are just two…and I hope to be able to propose a greater range of these brands to collectors through Geneva Blue later on. Bear in mind that the prices of the pieces that these companies or individuals present to market, in usually limited numbers, can range from “quite affordable” to “eye wateringly stratospheric”.
I hope I have been successful in expressing my views re independent watchmakers and look forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback.
When it comes to purchasing your next timepiece, try not to just get what everyone else is getting, or be influenced by million-dollar marketing campaigns and Instagram posts. Instead, decide on your maximum budget first, and then buy the watch within that budget which speaks to you most. If you need a hand to decide, let me know!
Links for some independent watchmakers:
Raul Pagès http://www.pageswatches.com/raul-pages/
Vianney Halter http://www.vianney-halter.com/
Philippe Dufour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Dufour
Romain Gauthier https://www.romaingauthier.com/
MB&F https://www.mbandf.com/en
Bart & Tim Grönefeld https://www.gronefeld.com/
Stephen & John McGonigle https://www.mcgonigle.ch/
Greubel&Forsey https://www.greubelforsey.com/
Stepan Sarpaneva https://www.sarpanevawatches.com/ & https://www.sufhelsinki.com/
Ludovic Ballouard https://ballouard.com/
Thomas Prescher https://www.prescher.ch/
Andreas Strehler https://astrehler.ch/
Kari Voutilainen http://www.voutilainen.ch/
Paul Gerber https://www.gerber-uhren.ch/en/portrait/
Sylvain Pinaud https://www.sylvain-pinaud.com/
Lundis Bleus https://lundis-bleus.com/en/