Jack H. Row. Jack H. Row doesn't really exist anymore, does it? I mean, there's one guy who likes charming birds and that's the only reason the building still exists. Any other brands? Biggest brands supported by fewest people? We should be a new Met. I mean, we were freaked out the day only. 10,000 watches last year. Yeah, it's crazy.
Let's begin our live show and we will see what actually happens when Ariel gatecrashes it. See if he can gatecrash it sensibly as we do the standings on our Formula One this week. So here we go. Let's clap in three. two one three two one three two one It should really be noted we don't need to do the clapping anymore because the way the edit works now, but it's fun always to see everybody clapping.
I was thinking that last week or two weeks ago, like, why are we doing this? Why are we doing this? We used to need it. We don't actually need it anymore. But it seems like, it seems appropriate. Like, I mean, this is what we do. To raise our spirits a little bit. Get us woke up. All the different time zones we're in, it's really early here. It's like presenting the cork when you order a bottle of wine. It could be a screw-on cap, it could be a non-cork cork in the bottle, but, you know.
If they're doing it right, they will still present the closure of the bottle to you. And it's just about the pomp and circumstance. So yeah, it's a vestigial clap, but it's without it, would the podcast even be happening?
Like an appendix. I like to think of it more as one of those South Korean working songs whereby everybody gets together first thing in the morning in all their suits and they sing. They've got a company song. It just turns out that our company song is clapping. So, yeah, that's this. Well, I think we actually do have a company song, and it starts with a plus four four number. But that's all we can remember. That's the bizarre thing about a company song. It ends with 897. 897.
Plus 44, maybe I should try and change the number. Do you think we can get a really short WhatsApp number that's just plus 44897? Maybe I should try and get one that's like 897897897. Anyway, there we go. Can you request different lengths? You chose the 45 numbers? No, just happened to be the one I had kicking about. The WhatsApp number, by the way, is 07386. We will play the jingle later, probably. way it's 07 386 690 897 with a plus four four in front of it if you want to get in touch
Way too long. I don't know if you can get... I mean, I tried to see if we could figure out one that was the kind of alphanumeric, but... Can we just... Sometimes I see that people register names or company names, maybe on WhatsApp or... even as phone numbers so if you search for a name so how about a search on whatsapp for abtw
W or something like that. I did try that, but by all means have a better go at it than me. Good morning, Peter. We're having a good morning, good day, good afternoon, good evening, and good night, good night, bye-bye. See you later. Good morning, Peter. So, right, while we're seeing if Ariel does show up, let's quickly run over this week's standings in all things Formula One, and it's been a fun week. We thought Richard Mille were...
taking it away and then, yeah, for the one of, like, double-wristing a couple of solid gold Omega Planet Oceans, you know. What? Well, he was a kilo under. What watches would you need to wear to not be a kilo under for Charles Leclerc to get described? I see. That's a great, great question. half a U-boat. I mean, if he hadn't worn the wee thin Richard Mille racing, he would have been fine. Anyway, Oscar Piastri takes maximum points. Oh, here is Ariel. Let's see if this goes smoothly.
Good morning, Ariel. We are live. And I've got a big echo. from you. There we go. It's disappeared. There we go. We're away. So yes, we're live and we're just going over the results from Formula One. I know it's your favourite bit, Ariel, because your finger's on the pulse and what you want to hear after a red-eye flight from Thailand. to LA and it's now two o'clock in the morning to talk about Formula One just
It feels like you're just watching a European race because you're having to do it in the middle of the night. So Oscar Piastri, 25 points for Richard Mio, plus Lando Norris also. Now we get on 18. So Richard Mille are running away with this just now. Mercedes IWC 15 points. Yes, go on. Hold on.
Aren't we, for Richard Mille, since they've got two teams, aren't we adding up the total for McLaren and Ferrari and then dividing by two? And considering Ferrari had a double DQ, yeah, it would be half of whatever McLaren. and netted. So basically, they're just racing like Red Bull, half of whatever points they could have gotten. Yeah, so put it this way, I think, I don't know what that means. Does it mean IWC are still ahead? So we have 27 points from last week. 25 plus 18
Divided by two is 35. And IWC are currently on 42. So yes, IWC are still ahead in the Formula One standings. Yeah, there we go. Mercedes rather than... But the big news is Haas and Williams, still with no watch sponsor, really, really should be right up there. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Williams is going to have an announcement soon. Is he? Are they pregnant back? No, no, no. No. Is this as a result of your visit to LVMH by any chance? No.
Just something I have to remember from a conversation. I wanted to contribute to the Formula One conversation. That's very informed, Ariel. Well done, you. Ariel's taking it away here. How excited are you on a scale from one to 10 about the brand? Without any context relating to Williams, how excited are you that this brand is going to be doing something motorsports related?
Or how appropriate is it for this brand to be doing something motorsports related? Well, I want to use the word underdog, but it's not studio underdog. Right, okay. So we won't have a passion fruit colored livery, I take it. I really don't know what will come with it. It's a more affordable angle for sure. We'll see how it goes. Okay, so what do we reckon? Don't try to guess. It's going to be Japanese. It's going to be oceanous.
Yeah, well, we'll see. Anyway, that's interesting. Watch this space. Right, and other things that have been happening. Oh, how are you, Ariel? How was your flight? Oh, movies you watched on the flight? Any watch content? A blog to watch, watches, watches. I did see something watch related. It was interesting. I saw the Pharrell movie piece by piece, which I don't know if you know about it, but it was done Lego style. So it's basically...
They did like a series of interviews about his life, but those are usually boring documentaries. So they made it all in Lego. And what I found interesting about it is they even did watches on the Lego characters. So all these famous singers and rappers and stuff like that that would normally be known for watches, they did Lego versions of it on their Lego wrist.
which was kind of interesting. And then the Jay-Z one had the Tiffany color, which I think relates to the fact that he was wearing the Tiffany color Nautilus for a while. So that was interesting to see watch culture on Lego, folks. Right.
Okay. How did it go on to their little wrist thing? It was printed. It wasn't a thing. It would be printed where their wrist was. It was on all the characters. I got excited. I could go get some tiny, tiny... wee little Lego man-sized watches, but I guess I'd be collecting Lego.
Yeah, I'd collect Lego arms at that point, and that's a bit more macabre. Yeah, I don't know that you can buy any of these Lego characters, but if there's like a tiny little Lego Jay-Z, I think people are going to buy it. Did they do Pharrell's hat? that giant hat that he frequently wore for a while. Yes. In like 2015. Oh, that needs to be a Lego piece.
Some images there for those watching on YouTube. Was the film any good? Yeah, it was fun. I think it was very artistic. I mean, it's basically... They want to do a film about him. They have a lot of his music in the background. It's just interviewing people. It's very upbeat. It's not particularly, you know, I mean, he did the movie. He's not going to make it like depressing about him.
Oh, I have found a picture of the watch. Let me see if I can open. There's a bunch of them. There's just one. Yeah, yeah. Do they feature the one that he designed for Richard Mail? No. That spaceman. No, the one with the astronaut? No. Yeah, yeah, missed opportunity. Not that I could see. There we go. Here is a picture for those watching. Let's see what you found here.
That's one example of it. But that's how they did the watches on them, which I thought was really fun. Cool. There we go. All right. And how was Thailand? Oh, amazing. And how were the watches? You know, it has this reputation for being a place to buy fake watches. I didn't see any of that. Maybe I didn't go to the right. I was not in Bangkok. People definitely wore their watches. So you see a lot of tourists and stuff like that. I'd say it was overall decent for watch spotting.
I just basically had watches with straps on there that you could go swimming with that were going to be good for, you know, humidity. So like no leather straps, no bracelets, just a bunch of like nylon and rubber. And what was the general chat? Lots of reports this week of the watch industry hitting bottom. That's a good thing. In terms of sales and residual values.
Was everybody depressed? I've been saying that exact same thing. No, why would they be depressed about it? Remember, there's this huge side of the market which is obsessed with people spending more than they need to on watches. If you eliminate that, there's still a watch hobby. There's still a very thriving watch hobby. This discussion about what watches are worth, I'm sorry, it's toxic to this hobby. It's not part of this hobby.
It's a different hobby altogether. So yes, there were some of the usual suspects there that are in sales because there are not enough media people there. So half of them are salespeople. But people are still buying watches and people are going to want deals on watches and that's okay. This idea that they're an asset, it has to die. This idea that you're thinking about.
How you're, the watch you, or anything you bought went up in value is stupid. And it has nothing to do with, with, with orological appreciation at all. I'm not, it just, it's an invasive thing of this hobby. And it's like a bad habit that otherwise real watch lovers have found themselves in where they keep thinking about the value. I'm told I should look at the charts. Things are going up.
Go back to just being into watches, everyone, please. You'll be happy with it. Just like Pharrell says in the song. Okay, well, let's give a little bit of focus on this, which is around a similar theme. A podcast. for you all to listen to once you've listened to this one which David and Ariel basically Ariel interviews David industry reality check David give us the highlights and if you could possibly explain to me why the picture of you I'm getting Star Trek vibes.
It feels like that's a part of the jumper, not a bag over your shoulder. He was a beatnik for Halloween. I was thinking more Steve Jobs than Star Trek. It's the thousand yard stare into the distance. It's his model pose. Here I am in a slightly... I don't think I was aware.
I don't think I was aware of this picture being taken. This is from last year. I think last Watches and Wonders or something like that. I look forward to this year because at least I can look presentable and have pictures that last at least a whole year for me. I'm living off these pictures for a year. That's what I do. I'll show you what it means. I'm getting this kind of vibe from it.
It just feels like there's a little bit of this going on. I am wearing a silly outfit to Watches and Wonders as long as we all wear it. Yeah, this is perfect. What did you call it? How do we get these for the team? Whatever it is, if it was the velour tracksuit that Rick had in mind. Nobody wants to go with my ideas because they're all too pajama-like.
Does Philip Ryan want to sponsor? I feel like blue python skin motorcycle jackets might be exactly what we need. No, you can't move your arms and all that. We're doing photography here. No restrictive clothing, guys. Okay, so a very light and breezy top with a respectable sleeve and then like parachute pants. I just want to dress like I'm at the gym, to be honest. Not out of a fashion sense. That's the most practical way of going to that show with what we do.
It's hot as hell in there. We're constantly carrying gear. We're always sweating. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to use your pants to bounce a flash? Okay, that would be nice. So we'll wear all white. Sorry, dude. I thought you meant bounce the flashes and you're bouncing up at the end. You mean bounce as in bounce the lights. How are you bouncing? We'll look like the Bee Gees. It'll be great.
The metallics help with bouncing it off your knee. David's going to wear a solid silver jacket. Could you do that, David? Looks like you're wearing a jacket made out of mercury. maybe not mercury but otherwise it looks like it so tell us about this podcast then David what was the most what was the best point you made on it I have no idea. We recorded it in January, so it's long since I forgot. We know that the watch industry was up to something back then.
Oh, yeah. Nothing good. The question is, will it still be relevant? Is it the sort of thing you could record in January and not put out until 2027 and it would still seem entirely relevant? People will be writing their dissertations out of this. It's 40 years from now. Superlative, Ariel and I, that's it. We're just trying to correct the wrongs, David and I. When we have these chats, we try to examine what are people talking about, maybe how they should rethink things.
You mentioned bottoming out, and I had been talking to a couple of people over the last couple of weeks where I've estimated that the industry has bottomed out, which is a positive thing because that means there's a new baseline upon which we can grow. It's a very complicated time, but I think the larger thing that David and I are trying to discuss with the industry is stop having this short-term decision-making. This is a long-term industry.
So when you have a marketing, don't keep changing it every couple of months based upon sales and performance. That's not long term. Long term is we're going to spend on marketing or personnel or R&D or whatever it is consistently. for several years in a row, ignoring these market ups and downs and dips and things like that, because it causes all these problems.
This idea that they have to constantly have their finger on the controls and make adjustments for products and production like that based upon just... their feeling, not even actual what's going to happen, just their feeling what's going to happen for the future.
has become quite problematic in the industry. And I think it's also quite related to the types of managers. They're going to the business schools. They're learning about the short-term decision-making. They have no ability to comprehend that those lessons have. utterly no relevance to the watch industry like 85% of the time well that leads us on to this which is a latest article from you Ariel which maybe also speaks to
is stuff really relevant in the watch industry? Unsustainability will be the new chic in luxury in watches. And this speaks to the tokenism, possibly, of... Maybe rightly so, because I don't think the Washington is particularly polluting to start off with. But tell us about your conceit of this article. Yeah, this is an interesting topic. So several years ago, we started seeing... More and more.
messages directly related to environmentalism and sustainability. It sort of always had been there, but sort of like buy this expensive watch and we'll give a little bit of money to this charity and we'll all just feel good about ourselves at the end of the day. Then it more... into more the company itself is sustainable. The product itself is environmentally friendly. And it got further and further down a rabbit hole where people were being asked to spend
huge markups for things that were invisible. The strap, maybe it was, it used to be plastic bottles picked out of the ocean. Maybe it wasn't. We're just going to tell you it was. It just started getting weirder and weirder in what brands were expecting people to pay for, for these, you know, sustainability messages. And I started to examine this behavior because it never sat with me comfortably.
Don't get me wrong. I'm all about sustainable practices where it applies. You want sustainable practices in those high volume things like food and toilet paper and clothing, not something which was to be. excessive by nature, which is luxury. And so what I've identified is there's all these marketing people in the luxury world, younger people who studied marketing at school.
did not understand the difference between marketing mass-produced items and luxury items and are applying these things that consumers want to the wrong category of goods. And so what we had is this sort of uncomfortable notion that, of course, you're spending a lot of money, but we're not going to hurt the world. No, when you spend a lot of money, what you really want to do is get is.
have something rarefied, have people that did a lot of effort. The idea of handmade is not sustainable. You cannot scale it up very high and get the same feeling out of it. You want it to be low scale, which means that it's...
somewhat inefficient. And efficiency is the enemy of luxury. I've talked about this many, many times. Luxury things are not supposed to be efficient. Otherwise, you've confused what the hell it is you're talking about. So what I believe is we're going to have a more natural return. To excess.
being what defines luxury, sustainability and environmental and all that is going to return to where it most applies, which are large scale things which are not supposed to be rarefied or occasional goods. And rich people, as we know, could... care less about these things. Maybe it makes them feel better than the day, but everything they buy, everything they do is unsustainable. There's almost no rich people we know of who really do anything that you and I would consider.
caring about sustainability. So I've identified that this mentality is not associated with luxury watches. And this whole exercise in trying to pretend like this industry needs to be sustainable and they're going to charge more money out of it, it's fizzling out. Good effort to those that did it, but I'm sorry, you were focusing on an effort for the wrong industry.
This is Ariel Adams with a message about Citizen Watches. Did you know that for years, Atessa models have been the best-selling titanium watch in their category in Japan? Citizen debuted their very first titanium case in 1970 and has spent 55 years perfecting the high-performance material for watchmaking. Since 1987, the Atesa family of timepieces has been where Citizen has showcased their latest and greatest technology.
This includes the masterfully durable and lightweight super titanium case and bracelet material, as well as miniaturized communication technology that has allowed its light-powered EcoDrive hardware to communicate with atomic clock radio waves. or global positioning satellite signals. A Tesla was born in the high-paced commuter metropolis of Tokyo, where being on time is just as important as being stylish.
Atesa is a mature companion for booking a bullet train to enjoying omakase cuisine with friends and is always fully made in Japan. The latest 2025 Citizen Attessa EcoDrive satellite wave GPS watches introduced ceramic bezels and a brand new case and bracelet shape. When Citizen merges its greatest inventions with thoughtful design and beauty, the result is Attessa. Explore the full range on the Citizen Watch website now.
Myself and David about three years ago sat in a very large room with very few people in it talking to Breitling about sustainable diamond. No, was it gold? Sustainable gold. Gold and diamond. Has that message ever been heard from again? I think what they did is that they have... Last time I checked, I checked it actually a couple of weeks ago. I think they've...
implemented that sustainability to all their gold watches or at least many, many more. I was surprised to see that so many of those watches listed on the website had this little... a logo or whatever else to indicate that these are sustainable, which is not where it started. It started with just one reference and now it appears to have been implemented across the board. Don't quote me on that.
But it appears, from what I recall, it was really close to that. So do we think the brands internally are still on a sustainability drive, but they're just realizing it's not? really the sales tool they thought it was and so they're speaking about it less or is it just that whenever a brand needs to produce a green watch they feel the need to mention the environment because the watch is green
Discuss. I think there's... There's a new generation of customers coming into play who are young and who were brought up with an eye on nature and on sustainability across what they eat, how much they travel, whatever else they do. hyper-rich probably don't care, but I sort of disagree about the latest generation of luxury shoppers being just like their parents were, irrespective of how rich they might be.
Ripley, any thoughts? Have you ever bought or felt more encouraged to buy a watch because there was some sustainability message to it? No, I mean, it's always nice when they are. I mean, if two completely identical products and one kills the environment and the other doesn't, okay, great. I'll go with the one that doesn't. That just seems right. But I'm not buying watches like I am like water bottles.
or paper towels in my life to the point where, you know, I'm buying a handful of these things a year. They're very small, so I don't care if it's made out of ivory. We're not talking about, you know, kilograms of this stuff a year. They're very small. They're a luxury.
purchase. In most instances, I don't need another watch ever. And so, you know, when it's so such a small... object and you're not buying it with the same frequency and it's not really disposable to begin with you maybe you'll put a new battery in it or get it serviced but this isn't something like the water bottle that has its life until the end of
you drinking it, and then it goes into the trash. It's not really the thing I'm willing to pay a lot more for, let alone, like Ariel was talking about, disproportionately more for these invisible things. All things being equal, it's nice when it's... When it's sustainable, it's a good message to support, no doubt. But as it pertains to luxury watches, as you move higher and higher up the price spectrum,
it becomes less and less important. If you're buying a $200,000 Hublot, this isn't something that you're buying 36 of in a pack at the grocery store and you're doing that each week. It's not like it's okay for it to be not as sustainable, but I just don't think that's remotely close to what the top values or what the top priorities are when people are paying $10,000, $100,000, $200,000 for a walk. watch. I just don't know if that's really the thing moving the needle as far as making the sales or
whether it's just something that's nice to have once they've already committed to buying it. I'm going to bring up another observation. Thank you for saying all that. And I'll probably get pilloried a little bit for saying this, but I do think there's a correlation. The time when we started to hear about sustainability was around the same time that the industry started leaning more towards female consumers. Not that it wasn't ever, but there was a big shift towards it.
Actually, part of that result's been great. The entire Blog2Watch team has just loved a lot of the ladies' watches we've seen over the last couple of years. But part of that has been asking not just female consumers, but the females' industry, like, well, what do you want different? And I guess they...
pulled around a lot. And it's known that female buyers like to tread softly, don't like to hurt the earth, are a little bit more sensitive to this idea than men tend to be. And I think that they... Meaning the brand said, oh, in order to sell more to these people, we have to do what they care about. Men are interested in sort of feeling macho. Women maybe are interested in helping the world or not hurting it more.
And so I think that's where the sort of core idea came from that they want to focus on this. But it's just turned into a statement. Sustainability, environmentalism, it doesn't really mean anything anymore. And what they're trying to do is virtual to, I think. this sort of feminine buyer sensibility of like, you can spend without feeling guilty, which I guess makes sense. But, you know, men just like women want to spend to feel good.
And I think that they just went overboard. And I think it's very difficult to ask a female buyer, like, what do you want on a luxury watch? It's the same as asking a man. They're like, I don't know, impress me.
Asking someone what they want when it comes to music or a movie or art or luxury clothing is very difficult. They'll say, I want something nice, but they don't know what it is because they're not the artist. It's the industry's obligation to... come up with things that excite people rather than ask them, you know, what kind of expensive, amazing luxury good do you want to buy?
As we've talked about this many times, if you ask consumers, they'll do the Homer Simpson car. That's, I think, such a great example. Even though that was, I don't know, 25 years ago, 30 years ago now, that that episode came out. And so I think that's where this came from. And I still think that to a large degree, and I've met a lot of.
females in this industry who want to add something to their job. They come in as a marketing or PR or something like that. They want to add something to the job. They want to do something different. Maybe this appeals to them, but they just don't realize. It's a great message. It has nothing to do with the space.
There are tangents to it, like those limited edition watches didn't go support a charity or something like that. But this idea that people are going to buy one watch versus another because the metal is more sustainable, you're supposed to buy one forever. What do you care? It's not a can of soda that you're going to throw away.
where you care about, oh, this sort of adds up. So again, I don't want to blame one mentality or class of people, but I think we all agree that looking at the chronology of how this happened. it tends to coincide with this. They've experimented with it. And I think the result is that men and women don't care about the sustainability message. And if you want to make women feel more comfortable at luxury purchases, there's probably some strategy different than men. I don't think this is it.
Well, it's as well Guy's not on the show this week because we've just gone and driven a cart of horses through his entire business model. Although I wonder if what he's doing is slightly different because it's based on the whole thing rather than a... oh, it's got a strap that does this, but all the other straps we've produced at the company are all from rare snakes or something. Yeah, I mean, it's also the price point.
Yeah. Like if you're selling a watch for a few hundred bucks and you're like, Hey, it's sustainable. We want to start a discussion about, you know, working with sustainable materials. Okay. That's fine. If I'm spending $300,000 and the soul, like the so cool. feature on this watch is that it's sustainable, like, that's not making justifying the price. I think the way that it should be implemented is a company does something really cool and
Aside from all of the sustainability stuff, that product could stand alone on its superlatives or its design or what have you. And oh, by the way, we're increasing our use of sustainability, but this isn't going to be the prime message for it. Kind of like how, you know, if this is what Breitling's been doing.
just slowly expanding its use of sustainable gold. Great. That's been absent of the press releases as it should be. They announced that they were doing it. They've continued to do it. And what they're telling us is new and exciting about the watches relates to the design, the movements, the materials. Everything else other than the origin of how eco-friendly the metal is. Yes, if you're buying your Aorus dive watch and then jumping on your quad Mercury Midnight Express powerboat.
to go diving with it. It probably cancels it out, the environmental message, versus burning 12 litres of fuel every minute. as you powerboat across Florida Bay. So yeah, maybe it's more of a holistic approach. Anyway, the other way of being more environmentally friendly for watches is only to buy one watch. And one place... whereby you're going to be able to buy a lot less watches than you used to. Never suggest that. And this is in Watch Pro.
And demonstrates maybe a strategy that's starting to appear in Bucherer. So this is Bucherer's store in Westfield in London. Westfield is the UK's largest shopping centre. And this is a multi-brand. Boutique, run by Bucherer, therefore owned by Rolex, and which two brands, now that they've had their big refurbishment, are no longer present in this store? Cartier and Omega.
So instead, there is now a full floor of Rolex CPO used watches, along with some used watches from IWC and Moser, etc. Are we finally seeing... the crown that is Rolex going, you know what? As soon as we own these shops, why would we retail one of our biggest competitors and just sell more Rolexes? What do you think? It's hard to predict. I think that, no, I mean, look, Watch Pro likes to try to find these angles.
That one store came out and is like this is not indicative of a trend or a strategy. It's speculation. I don't think he's quoted anything from Bucharest saying that this is a fact. This industry, because it lacks a lot of actual information, likes to make a lot of guesses, which has become its own sort of editorialism. I won't call it journalism.
Look, there's been a lot of questions since Rolex acquired Bucarer as to what that means for the other brands that Bucarer carries. And so people are looking for little hints. Ah, we got your Rolex. You're trying to attack the competition. Maybe yes, maybe no. I wouldn't take this as that. I think that Rolex does particularly well. Rolex, we know, does not like to be around other brands, whether it's in Bucharest or any other retailer. But I wouldn't assume that this is...
a purge of other brands. I simply think that they're experimenting with retail concepts. We know that over the last several years, especially since the pandemic... All retails, for the most part, have invested heavily into themselves, remodels, new locations. It's not that the world needs these stores. They know what to do with them.
But they're just trying to figure out exactly what to do with them because we know that they're more comfortable with investing in retail than things like advertising and marketing. And I think also worth considering is these are big companies that have...
rules and stipulations for what a bricks and mortar retail environment is going to look like for their watches. You can't be an Omega AD and completely display the watches however you want and have the signage be whatever you want. So this could be an instance. where Bucher wants to do something with layout, aesthetics, space allocation, any of those things that govern what a... physical space is going to look like. And that might be counter to what Cartier or Omega has designated for how they
have their watches displayed. We don't really know all of these intricacies of what one party wants to do or what wouldn't be the other, but I could also see that being something where it could just be about the amount of space or how the watches are displayed or the coloring. of the signage in there, you know? Cause I mean, if you walk around to a lot of multi-store boutiques and you look at like the Breitling,
It'll have the same kind of sign that you're going to find in any of the other ones. And look at the photos in the Watch Pro article. That's a very different boutique style aesthetic than what you see in some of the other stores. And that just literally... if not gelled with the bright red that we see throughout Omega and Cartier's signage.
You're all being incredibly generous. Surely it's just somebody really... We live in America. There is so much tinfoil hattery going on right now. I can't put another one on this week. We got stuff under the pyramids, the government... Oh man, no, no, no, no, no. That was funny. That was funny. I saw the pyramids like, David, bring some European reality to the fact that Rolex has just gone, why would we sell our competitors?
I don't know. It's interesting because Rolex sometimes likes to pose as though they were the great equalizer, the brand that actively invites all to watches and wonders. goes out to the Hayaks for dinner and invites them back to Washington Wonders and then gets upset when... they don't go. So it's kind of... Have you seen the interview with Hayek? No. Go and hunt out the latest interview with Hayek from Swatch.
It gets into politics, the politics of Glass Hooter, the politics of the world. It's a fun read. Keep talking, I'll try and find it. Please do. That sounds like... Yes, it's a good... I already had a coffee this morning, but who knows. You know, I find it interesting that... given the lack of interesting watches to talk about or collector topics, a lot of the media just sort of like focuses on quasi-industry coverage and a lot of guessing. And I realized it for the audience.
You know, if I was them, I'd mostly be in it for the watches. It's sort of like with sports, like you got to watch, you see who wins or loses. And there's like the really deep, like, what are the managers saying? What's going on with the summer of this player? Like, it's so deep. I wonder. how much actual interest there is in the consumer body. I just, you know what I mean?
All right. Oh, wow. It's in Der Spiegel. Unfortunately, I can't show you a thing because I'm not logged on. Why does he not have his own line of vests? I think the only time I've ever seen him, he's had a vest on. So I'll give you some... I can give you some highlights from our friend at Screwdown Crown. So in response to talking about the Earth phase complication on the Moon Swatch, which is particularly proud the quote is...
Don't we all dream of seeing the earth from the outside? This watch explains that the earth is dark when the moon is full seen from the moon. That's poetic. Dreaming is allowed. Yeah, okay. And then talking about Vladimir Putin, if you want peace, you have to talk to the enemy. We don't want to talk to Putin, but we talk to all the other dictators or despots all the time.
All those swatches in China, guys. So yeah, it's worth looking at. Pretty sure we're trying to talk to Putin. I don't think anyone's like, no, no. He's just a really good liar. And then on accessible, I wanted to touch on this later, but we'll touch on accessible luxury. So this is kind of sort of the opposite.
to what you were talking about, Ariel, but not on the environmental side, but about just making things more exclusive. Let's take fashion brands, Chanel, Hermes. If you don't have access to expensive bags, you can buy a cloth. or perfume. Every person, even if he does not have a large income, gets such access. In the watch industry, entry is typically denied. You can't buy anything from the brand world of Brigitte.
Patek or Rolex for 50 or 100 francs. So what do we think? Swatch Group's going to come up with some low entry versions of their luxury goods. I think is maybe what he's suggesting. Or not watches. Like I don't necessarily want a $50 item. It's not a watch at $50 from Breguet. So what are we buying at this point? I don't necessarily just want something with the Breguet brand on. So does this mean Swatch Group is going to start selling fragrances, cosmetics, and sunglasses? Is that what's coming?
Well, Omega did have their sunglasses, which are cool. They've got the Constellation fluted bezel. Oh, yeah. I mean, they don't... There's such a simple message there. People want nice stuff, just not at any price. Yeah. So go and check out Screwdown Crown if you're looking for a translation of that article or if you can read it in Der Spiegel or have the... Oh, Boris is suggesting an Oma...
Omega branded toothbrush. Yeah, I can see that. I can see that. It's made as in plastic as the Moon swatches. Bronze, titanium, expensive toothbrush ever. Yeah. And Boris is also showing my kind of cynicism about, yeah, sure, Omega and Cartier said, don't like the colour scheme, so we won't bother having watches sold in the largest mall in the UK. So there we go.
Rolex wants the Rolex store there. Cardi can have a store there. These brands love having their own space. We know that. Well, you see, you're reading my mind. And again, we're actually on Watch Pro here. which is this. Has watchmaking's direct consumer model had its day? So is it all coming roundabout that just as Rolex are getting into being a bit selective about who may or may not be in the stores that...
Bukhara as the multi-brand retailer sales. Those brands that invested heavily in the mono brand store are now seeing just how expensive it is to employ salespeople and own property. and dilapidations bills are starting to come in, boys. Rick, I need your advice here. This is some real advice. I'm sitting, I'm zenned in to give you advice. So I have this problem where I talk about all of these things when I see them, which is in advance of other people.
seeing them I usually see them before they become problems and everyone else only cares once it becomes a problem so the problem is I talk about these things long before other people talk about them and then by the time it becomes conversation it's like I'm over it
You've moved on. How do I revisit this once other people pick up what I've been talking about sometimes years in advance? Yes, I've been talking about this particular issue myself for a wee while because I know how expensive it is doing this kind of stuff. So... on the one hand then give us your thoughts are we going to see a pullback from this model and a reinvestment in uh companies like watches switzerland and other
you know, effectively mom and pop retailers that know how to sell watches or, Ariel, give us the prediction for what we're going to be talking about five years hence. What's the next problem? I can't track all those variables. But what I can say is that when brands feel that the market is growing and it's easy to get sales they will try to sell direct they're like oh this is easy we can do it ourselves
When it becomes more difficult to reach customers, they become more risk averse and then they sort of fall back in the position you're talking about, which is we'll just make the watches and we'll have third party authorized dealers sell them for us. That's the wholesale model.
opposed to the direct to consumer model. And I think we started identifying even two or three years ago that major brands were starting to see more value in the wholesale model. And you see this fluctuation, even the retailers know it. They're like, One year, the brand's like, we're too cool for school. We're going to sell ourself. Two years later, they come crawling back, guys. We need some space. We're closing down our store.
answer the question, yes, Tag Heuer is starting to sell sunglasses again. Brand new collection, and they themselves lament the fact that they haven't been able to afford telling you about them, but they are quite nice. So I do think that there's going to be a huge shift back to the wholesale model, which includes...
stripping down some of this investment. But these brands are stubborn. They develop their CRMs. They have their stores. They even told everyone, we're going to be direct now. So I think the question isn't whether or not they're going to go back to wholesale. It's what's their backpedaling strategy.
Some have always done it and can just lean into that more. But for the brands, like let's say an Adam or Piguet, when they have to go back to wholesale, which they ultimately have to, how are they going to do it from a PR perspective? That's what I'm curious about. Yeah. It's fascinating. Why, when you could sell all of your product wholesale, like Audemars Piguet could sell everything they produce wholesale.
Would you buy property? And the headache of that, trying to just make that little bit extra money. I can tell you why. I know exactly why. It's just mad. It's a little bit different than that. Well... Okay, I won't name sources, but what it really has to do with is wanting to make sure that that customer not only buys your product, but keeps buying your product. What people don't talk about a lot is it...
If you're the type of person that saves up for a long time to buy a $5,000 or $10,000 watch, you're not buying watches that often. The really, really rich clients buy a lot, sometimes like more than once a month. And so the brands... it's not enough for them to sell one of their watches. They want to own the relationship because they believe that by owning that relationship and making a friend, that person will buy from them like several times a year. And what happens otherwise is...
more natural tendency to sample around. I'm going to buy from this brand and I'm going to buy from this brand and maybe I'll go back. But the natural tendency that consumers want to do is not remain that brand loyal. And so that's another reason why I think this is all going to come apart is because consumers want to sample around. They want variety. And brands are like, no, you buy for me. I own you. Keep buying for me and only me. And that's a natural conflict of interest.
In 1862, Franz Ludwig Loebner began his career making precision timekeepers in what would become Germany. Settling in Berlin, he received an official clockmaker's mandate from the king and quickly gravitated towards the then-pioneering technology of creating precise instruments to measure short durations of time.
In 1881, Loebner was already an exclusive mark thanks to their ability to mass produce chronographs able to measure one one-hundredth of a second. Just a few years later, they developed a clock. able to measure one one-thousandth of a second for sports and scientific purposes. Loebner continued to be a recognized German leader in precise and reliable high-accuracy timekeeping into the 20th century.
They were among the first to use highly precise electric switches to trigger their mechanical measuring devices in order to overcome the limitations of human response time. Loebner has now been revived for a modern era. The company continues its long legacy of creating precise and beautiful timing equipment for today's demanding users. The Loebner Steel Racer features a novel chronograph-focused dial with an eccentric reading of the time and a slide. crown guard system.
The time-only Loebner Sledge model features a smaller 100-meter water-resistant case and a new inner rotating timing bezel system. Learn more about the history of precision timekeeping instruments and the new Loebner Sledge model. Obner Wristwatch Collection at lbnr.com. Question, we had the analysis which David brought to us a few weeks ago about the quantity of watch sales.
Now, I don't know if anyone's familiar with the world of bookmakers, but there are many bookmakers whereby they are entirely dependent, you know, the shop you would see on the high street on one or two customers. What percentage of Rolex sales do you think goes to a very limited group of people? And same with the big brand. Do you think some of these brands are literally dependent on half a dozen people?
As you say, just buying three or four of these a week or a month, you know, is Audemars Piguet not really selling 40,000 watches a year? It's actually only selling to 1,000 people, you know. There's a lot of that. Look, I mean, Rolex is obviously well distributed. It's a slightly different story. But I think Audemars Piguet is a much better example of them wanting to own the relationship to sell multiple products over the lifetime.
Again, I've heard a variety of different figures over the years, but some of these clients purchase anywhere from five to maybe 20 watches a year. That's a huge amount of money. And for them to go to you with that money versus some other brand can make a huge difference. So I think it sounds like a joke that there might be some brands that are surviving from a few dozen people, but I think it happens a lot.
Top five brands that are supported by only a very small number of people. Beauvais, Jacob & Co., anybody else? Jacob might have more customers than Beauvais. Jack H. Row? Jack H. Row doesn't really exist anymore, does it? I mean, there's one guy who likes charming birds, and that's the only reason the building still exists. Any other brands? Biggest brands supported by fewest people? We should be a new Met.
trick. Apparently Zenith. I mean, we were freaked out. Zenith! Zenith! Yeah, it's crazy. Crazy. Right, Watchers and Wonders is coming up. We are planning at the moment to do a live show on the Tuesday evening, which is the first day of Watching Wonders. So tune in for that next week. We'll try and get something online to tell you what it is. But we need a proper scoring system.
to decide who is going to win Watch and Wonders. We've put it out to our WhatsApp group and we're looking for your feedback as well in the chat. on the podcast, on the YouTube channel. Ariel's already looking confused because he knows nothing about this because he doesn't pay attention to WhatsApp because he was in media at the time. So our scoring system so far is basically...
You can earn points for producing a brand new watch, not related to anything you've made before. So you get 100 points for that. You then get minus one for every time you use the word legacy, heritage, reinterpretation, or inspiration in any of your marketing to do with it. Okay? You get a minus five for the use of the word pro, extreme, or particularly you get a double...
Minus points if you misspell it. So if you spell extreme using an X, that's cardinal sin. You had a good time with this, didn't you? I did. Well, no, this is not suggestions we've already got. This is not just my suggestions. Suggestions are all right. So we're looking for your suggestions, more suggestions. Is there an algorithm which can do all the calculations in the background? Because I do not want to be doing this math. I think we'll just ask chat GPT to rate one.
watches and wonders at the end of the day. It's been suggested you should get a minus one if in your marketing, this was Jake, you use an exploded view of the watch, which instantly means Ulysses and Ardana are already on minus scores. any bad use of apostrophe, apostrophe abuse in your watch name. And if your watch name is more than three words long, you start.
getting minus points for every additional word that you use if it's over three words. Any other valid ways of measuring watch brands for watches and wonders this coming week? So most of this for you is about word usage, right? We haven't even touched on the booths. Minus 5 if your booth is identical to the year before, plus 10 if it's a slight reworking, and then plus 50 if it's an entirely...
new booth that we haven't seen before. New booth will be reliant on you guys who are going there to tell us all about it. I'll give you one. Lots of points if someone has a brand new model name. Model name. Not like coming out with an old model name, but like just a brand new name. They got to get a lot of points for that.
Okay, but again, minus points if it's more than three words long or if there's apostrophe abuse in the name. I don't know the apostrophe abuse, I'll give you that. But sometimes the names just have to be long. I'm a little bit more forgiving on that. Apostrophes? What brand's the offender on the apostrophes? No, no, Jake seemed to think that it was someone.
Probably. Also, Jake, I think it was that suggested that if the precious metal two-tone or gem set version of the watch is more than twice the price of the original steel version. then it should also be penalized. David, any good ways of assessing Watch and Wonders coming up? What about the swag? Points for swag, surely. Oh, swag points. Minus... That ship has sailed many, many years ago. Disclosing price to be asked. Oh mate.
So if you don't disclose the price in advance, you get minus points? Also, if during the meeting it watches the wonders, when you ask for the price and no one has any idea, that's information you need to have prepared. Okay, so we're going to need you to be sending this information back. live on the day gentlemen on the whatsapp group we'll set up a 2025 watching one of those whatsapp groups if you would like to join that whatsapp group you need to get in touch with the show either by whatsapp
And we'll read that out. We'll not give the jingle just yet. It's going to be like Harry Potter that night. Five points for Hublot. Minus five for Tag. It's going to be crazy.
Apparently, Seiko have got a... Seiko Divers, apostrophe, might well be the criminal, but Seiko aren't at Voices of Wonder, so... Well, I suppose Grand Seiko's... I don't know. Anyway... plus four four seven three eight six six ninety eight nine seven or podcast at a blog to watch dot com or reach out to us on whatsapp at rick tiktok or at a blog to watch if you want
an invitation to the 2025 WhatsApp group for a blog to watch, then that would be grand. So any other final comments before we move on to some Hitmas maybe? Anything else we should be judging? Judging the quality of the food, the service, I'm just thinking the quality of the carpets. Anyone that refuses aerial access to the stand. Boss a gazillion.
Plus a gazillion for anyone. So listen, watch brands, if you want to win Watchers Wonders, all you need to do is refuse aerial access. I think we should honor the brand. Ariel, it's your choice. It will be your call after the fair to pick the brand that has upset you most, and that's minus 100. There's always one. Minus 100. Or two. Yes. We're just not sure which one is going to be. Will it be Chanel again?
There's got to be a 50-50 chance. I also reckon there should be an independent aerial judge, which is you get points if you watch Brand Ambassador actually. turns up to the show, but you get minus points if Ariel's never heard of them. It's a big world out there. I don't know everybody. Where was the boy from? Was he Congolese? Where was the musician from?
Oh, yeah. Oh, the HYT one, right? Was that HYT? If no one's heard of you, yeah, minus 10 if no one's heard. If no one on the team has ever heard of the person, minus points. Okay, the whole team. If no one on the team has heard of you. If the people on the stand who are selling the watches don't know who the brand ambassador is and just think he's a punter when he wanders on the stand, then you get many spots. If the whole team's never heard of the person, then...
They're usually good about that. I find that with some of the forward ambassadors, they just don't tell us. They're just going to assume we don't know. Sometimes we do, but most of the time, they just don't tell us at all because they know that we're just going to roll our eyes or have no idea what they're talking about. Right, let's move on to some Hitmas maybe. And the first up this week will be this. This is...
Something new from resins. Resins type 7 watch. I think the three watches we're looking at are all kind of reworkings of something, but different materials. Resins type. Seven. We all know about resins. Ariel, David, Ripley. What's your experience of hands-on with resins, and particularly this oil-filled version, which gives you completely zero reflection? I'm happy that some of them are actually able to tell the time, and that is one wide bracelet.
It does look just a speech chunky. From a proportions perspective, this is Cognitive Disney City. I mean, so much about this. It's like, where do you wear this? Who wanted this? Why did it need a bracelet? Why did it need that bracelet? Movement's fine. So wait, does it have... It would be hilarious if it had like a rotating diver's bezel because then the whole thing rotates as well, right? I don't think the dive bezel rotates. No, they have the dive watch. They have the diver. Okay.
and it's used for 36,000 Swiss francs. Oh my goodness. On that basis. It's just like a hybrid. It's the hybrid of like resins, bracelet watch. We got a hybrid for you. Yeah. Okay. Well, there we go. So is it a hit? Is it a miss? Or is it maybe one, two, three, go? Maybe. Oh, four maybes. Why is it a maybe? Because we like Ben Wildard. He's a nice guy. All right, okay. So it's all about the personality of the person. Yeah. What's wrong with that?
And they're cool watches. I want to meet someone who wears a resins on a daily basis. It's not just owning one. It's like you wear a resins on a daily basis. I want to talk to you. I want to hear what that's like. They're cool watches. I think the problem is that these have started out expensive and only just remained expensive. They always claim that they put all the money into R&D, which is fine.
Maybe next time make something that is more original than this. But I think the problem with this is it requires so much storytelling. The amount of marketing this brand needs is intense. compared to the zero marketing they have. And so the problem is, is it just sort of like, they're continuing to yell.
where there's not enough people that even understand the language they're yelling in. I mean, just understand what's going on in the movement and all this. You look at this, you're like, oh, that's cool. And they look at the price, and you're like, in most people's brains, that does not connect. They immediately dismiss it, and they never re-approach it. This brand, I think the problem is they needed to stay very original looking. I mean, it's got to like...
Everything about it's got to be very, very residence. This one, they're trying to like blend in other things. And they have to keep explaining why it's worth spending $40,000 on this. And they just haven't been able to do that. Maybe they don't have to. If they sell all of these, then why not, right? Look, we go there every single year. We know that they grow barely. Benoit is still ripping his hair out trying to get stuff made.
They've basically been in startup mode for quite a long time. They've made a lot of improvements and the product is definitely better now. But this is the classic example of a brand biting off more they can share with the resources that it has. Could be. I wish we could get these at like one-tenth the price, but it's just not the case. It's a great watch that many people want, just not this price. It's a smartwatch dial waiting to happen.
Yeah, this was when I first heard of residence, I was excited because I thought, well, these are expensive now, but maybe they'll... make a more budget-friendly version once the novelty is worn off. But as Ariel mentioned, and more expensive. And now it's like, look, it's cool. I like the brand a lot. I think it's a cool thing. This is by no means my favorite one of them, but it's like as much as like a gold Rolex, like a solid gold Rolex, you know, it's, it's a completely.
it's past the point of like horological fun. It's now into like serious money. And that's a very competitive price point for something that has, it looks like a very flat, non-ergonomic case and all of that. Like it doesn't look good on any wrist shot, I guess. I guess that's another thing that I'm sort of struggling with throughout it. I don't see a single one where I'm like, yeah, that looks really organic and comfortable on the wrist. Rick, you're on mute.
Maybe we could read it. Yeah, sounds amazing. We need a slow motion of you like, what? She's pressing the button. Yeah, it's a jangly watch. There's no way this is staying. you're going to have to fidget with this all the time repositioning it on your wrist there's no way that with the size of those links that you're going to be able to get this to fit satisfactory and not be rolling up and down it's just
They made something pretty downright ugly. Yeah. Well, yeah, I just wish. That's an ugly case and bracelet. There's no other way to say it. It's an enthusiastic maybe. It's a please do better. Please do better because you're capable of so much more. I mean, it's such a creative company. They run out of ideas already.
Welcome. Maybe it should be the new Panerai boss. Right, let's move on. That was an all-round maybe. Let's look at this, which again is kind of similar. Is this too late to the same party? This is the Kronoswiss Pulse One Watch ushers in a new era for the brand. What do we think? This is Kronoswiss's... usual efforts in regulator style but again now as a metallic watch
integrated bracelet, the whole nine yards. Are we liking this? What do we think? What do we know about it? Anyone had a chance to try one on or see one? Or try on a Cronus list recently? Kronos was yes, but I haven't seen this model yet. We will see it soon. I mean, it's cheaper and better looking than the other watch.
True. Well, is it better? Well, it does feel very different. It does feel very different. It certainly fit better. There's no doubt about that. The bracelet does look particularly nice and the movement also looks good. on this watch. What is its price? They're all screaming at the back. Its price is 13,500 USD. They're thereabouts. So what do we think? Give it a hit, a miss, or a maybe? One, two, three, go. Hit, maybe two hits. And a may, two maybes. Ariel, why'd you settle on it being a maybe?
I just haven't seen it yet. I'm intrigued, but I need to make sure that it's comfortable. I need to make sure that it makes sense. Unlike the residents where I immediately knew that there's an issue, this one I'm mostly curious about.
It's the first time that a bracelet like this has been available from the brand. It's the first time they've done anything. It's not just a bracelet on their case. It's a new case. I mean, everything about this is new. It takes a regulator concept, which is... something that they've leaned on a lot, which I think they do better than Louis Arard, to be honest.
And there's just a lot of interesting stuff here. So this has the makings of everything I like. Unique parts, a lot of design elements, a lot of interesting curves, a very deep dial with a lot of levels to it. Reserve final judgment for being on the wrist. But this is a far better statement piece. And again, oddly, vastly more practical than the Reslons. Look, it looks great. Ripley, you have a hit. Yeah, I gave it a hit. Again, it...
Could wear terribly, so reserve the final judgment until we see it in the medal. But based on the photos, it appears to be far more comfortable and ergonomic. than the resins. I'm giving it a hit because I like the way it looks and I have to applaud them for doing something tangibly different than what we...
have come to expect from them. But there's a lot of motifs here that sort of echo their design codes, the texture on the bezel, the crown, case shape, what have you, regulator. So I like this. It feels like a very modern, different. take on a chrono Swiss. And when you consider it's less than half the price of the residence, you know, it seems like a good value prop at this point. David?
Yeah, I gave it a maybe. I think it's quite a lot of money. It's a big chunk of money for a chronosphere, but I also respect the fact that it all appears to be fully bespoke in a way, which is rare. even at this price point. I love the fact that there are brands and designers and engineers out there who go out and create something like this. Whether I like it or not, it's a subjective thing. But it's objectively...
a big project and something that they have realized. So I think that's very cool. Boris is just commenting about, well, please stop already with Integrated Base. I think I've come up with another scoring for Watches and Wonders. What's the minus points going to be for producing the same watch, but just with an integrated bracelet? It's even worse if they use the word integrated. Okay, so anyone that uses the word integrated, what do you think, a minus 20?
We are going for the integrated trend now. That bracelet better look extremely different. Can't look any, no cohesion. Start contract wrestling case. That's right, we won. The bigger the gap. Maybe we should give it like... Different color, different material. 100 points per millimetre for the gap between the lugs. and the bracelet or strap so the bigger the gap the more points you get so the completely incoherent bracelet in case you're gonna you're gonna be on a winner
Good stuff. Right, finally, we have a quick choice. So you can choose between Hypness maybe on the new Formex Essence Ceramica Skeleton or the... RZE United 8000 Titanium Digital Watch. Gentlemen, cast your vote. Which would you like to do a final hit miss maybe on the RZE? Or the Formix. I'm here to talk about all watches all the time. Yeah. Let's go watch the deep.
It just sounds better. RZE sounds better. That's fine. We'll go RZE. Ripley, you reviewed this. Tell us about this RZE titanium digital watch. It's cool. They made a digital watch. It's their first digital watch. I wouldn't consider it a G-Shock. like competitor it's really more of an alternative it doesn't have nearly the same extensive functionality that you expect to find on a like a full metal g-shock where it's got you know solar charging radio controlled timekeeping this is like
F91W style functionality, your basic modes. It's all made out of hardened titanium with the same stuff they use for their... The rest of their watch is that ultra hex coated stuff. It uses an interesting multi-component structure, suspends the movement inside a shock absorbing module holder, sapphire crystal, 200 meters water resistance. They've tested it in a very Canadian manner. They've attached it to hockey pucks, put it up in the north.
Take it to the book and see if it gets into America. Yeah, it's fun. If you go look at their Instagram, they're dropping it from heights, running it over with trucks, doing some fun stuff with it and surviving. It's a lot of fun. It's really not expensive. I think part of why I consider it a G-Shock alternative rather than competitor is it really doesn't have a one-to-one equivalent within G-Shock's lineup. Price point, it's kind of like a standard.
uh, kind of mid tier model. Um, they're introducing it like, I think $169, 360 or something, if you get the bracelet, but, um, If you get a full metal G-Shock, you're looking about $500. You get a lot more modes. You don't get the sapphire crystal. But by the time you get up to full titanium and everything, it'll be $1,000. It's a vastly superior timepiece when you get to the...
functionality of that G-Shock. But again, this is something that's priced more on the entry-level side of G-Shock's collection, but it delivers a full metal package. And it's a lot of fun. I had a great time wearing it while I was here. And do we know if it's supposed to be RZD UTD or RZD United 8000? No, no, UTD, like Universal Time Digital instead of like UTC, UTD 8000. Oh, and one other thing. to note, it's their bespoke digital module and they warranty it with a lifetime warranty. So if...
Obviously, this isn't like, oh, ETA 2824 type of thing, known quantity. It's their bespoke module, but they do stand behind it. So there isn't really a precedent for what that module is going to look like, but they do stand behind it indefinitely. Cool. Love it. Hit miss maybe, folks. One, two, three, go. Hit. Hit. Maybe. Hit. Ariel, why'd you only give it a maybe?
I like the development here. I think that it's fantastic that small companies are investing in digital screens, completely different world than mechanical movements or analog movements. So that's why this is such. Hopefully this will inspire more of it. But my expectations of digital watches are super, super high. Casio and Timex and some others have a really great product. So the consumer here... both likes digital watches, but is also looking for something slightly impractical.
And so that's where I want to see them go further here. It's not just add functionality, but, you know, do design stuff that these sort of outdoor Z-watches wouldn't necessarily do. So I'd like to see where this category is in five to 10 years from now. I think it'll be a lot more interesting. I generally support this, but it's not ready yet in terms of size or design or value proposition, where for me...
it's going to, you know, dethrone something like a Casio, which just, you know, just does this so freaking well. But I think it's great that their enthusiast community is starting to get into digital screens. I fully support that. Rip play. Yeah, it's a hit. I mean, I have to applaud any brand that's doing this on a small scale independent level. This is their first draft of it. I think they did an admirable job. It's a lot of fun. I mean, I think if you were just wanted the... most just...
functional watch for the money, you'd get a $40 G-Shock and never look back. But that's not what watch enthusiasm in collecting is about. You're looking for fun things. And this was a ton of fun to wear. It takes standard 20 millimeter lugs. I put it on a like... yellow leather Jacob and Co. strap while I was wearing it. And that was, you know, just the right amount of irreverency. How do you have a yellow Jacob and Co. strap? Yeah. Oh, if I had to tell you.
There's someone swimming with the fish. Without his Jacobic goat. David. Easy hit, I think. It's brilliant looking, good focus on legibility, probably very comfy, a bit too thick. you know, well-priced. I just love everything about this. This watch, this is a sort of watch for 369 that makes all other watches that are more expensive than it. just look ridiculous. I mean, you know, if you look at an eight or $10,000 chronograph or whatever it is,
It's a joke compared to this. I think sometimes we deviate too far from basic values such as legibility, good price, wearability, modern materials, all the rest of it. And this just, you know, drives that point home and says, look, you can get a titanium base that, you know, watch perfect legibility, accurate movement, robust build quality for 369. And they are making money on it. So what are we talking about?
Love it. Yeah, love it. Looks cool. It was a choice between this and the Formex. Does this have the same articulating case as the Formex does? Does it bounce in the same way you're saying Ripley when you had it? It's disconnected to the case to protect it, but does it have the same push function? No, no, no. It's a solid titanium case. The bezel's separate, case back's separate. It's a shock-absorbing internal mounting system that holds the movement.
It doesn't have the fidget spinner quality of the Formex suspension case. Having seen this, I'm now going to suggest our final watch and wonders. Anyone that launches a digital watch... at Watches & Wonders automatically wins Watches & Wonders. Is there anyone likely to produce a digital watch at Watches & Wonders?
They can't automatically win. They get a lot of points. Would auto win? No, it's going to be like the casket round two and they're going to, you know, you can't give that like an auto win for something like that. No, it needs to be okay. Only Rolex will get an auto win for doing something like that.
okay so is there anything as we conclude that would automatically win watches and wonders for you if you're going across there next week you've got a long flight I expect good reports on what films you watch But what would someone have to do to go, you know what, you've absolutely nailed this, Ariel.
Yeah, really got to flatter the Blog2Watch team. We're talking some serious travel perks and stuff like that. The swag, I mean, it's going to have to return. In essence, bribe us into submission, yes. we're always open to bribery at least we're honest about it unlike everybody else Ripley what's someone going to have to do to win Watches and Wonders for you or is it just about filling your pockets with cash
Ripley appears to have frozen. So there we go. David, the unfrozen one. Well, just strike a pose. Madonna all over. I froze too. How is someone going to win Watches and Wonders for you? I really don't know. I couldn't tell. It's very difficult. It's an uphill battle. I'm looking forward to seeing who loses less than the others. I look forward to a bunch of conservative nonsense and not much creativity.
Whoever gets creative wins in my book. I mean, is this the fundamental problem at the moment with watch shows is actually everybody's a loser. No one wins. No one wins at this game. Is everybody just different degrees of loser? Hopefully not. I mean, we're all kind of, we're waiting for the drama, you know, whose CEO won't be allowed into whose booth, you know, what crazy things can happen. There's always some nonsense like that.
A fight? When was the last time there was a fight at Watches and Wonders? Has there ever been a stand? How have you been going for years? We just don't know about it. Punch up in the background. You must have heard rumors. You know... There's got to be some joke about a luxury fight. Like it's not very physical, but it's some other type of strange standoff. I don't know what it is. Don't you touch my leather jacket. Something like that. I keep seeing a thing trending. You see these...
I don't know what it's called. We need a luxury duel. What would a luxury duel be? Bring back dueling. Bring back dueling. Somebody that produces it. It's not Epi. Who is it that produces the revolver? Le Pen. Le Pen, yeah. So they must be at the show somewhere. So we'll bring a couple of them along to the main concords. Finally, on Watch and Wonders, do we know if anyone's been moved? Like, who has been suggested on mind? Hermes, handbags at dawn.
From Boris, that sounds about right. Who do we think will have been relegated to the furthest corner? of watches and wonders like who's everybody just walking past because it's so far away because it's extended this year there's lots more space being taken up who gets who gets the worst pitch I think Brentmont is still upstairs in the corner
Bremen upstairs the corner. Ripley, who's getting the worst pitch at Watches and Wonders? The worst what? The worst pitch. The worst... Yeah, as in the worst location. Is that an... Oh, yeah, Bremont, Bremont. I mean, I think Bremont, pitch, I think like a field or something, but no, Bremont, yeah, you walk in, you're trying to get to wherever you need to be and you walk straight past them and, you know, you're...
It's probably Bob and Mercy. You walk straight past David Bremont as well. I don't think so. We walk by Bremont when we come in, right? Or we don't? I don't know. I think we do. I think people do walk past it. I think it's pretty good. There's two entrances now. It's more confusing than we want to admit. Okay. Everybody loses again. Everybody loses. It's all different. It's probably the bathroom. Cue for the toilet. No, it's like three floors down. It's impossible to find.
Oh, and that's another way you can win. If a brand has a toilet in their booth, a convenient one, plus many points. Toilet and Booth. Yes. It's amazing what you end up rating. I'm going to write all this down, you know. So Toilet and Booth wins. So if anyone's listening to Bremont, get on to the local Swiss Portoloo hire company. Get a toilet in that booth. And you're on, you're on. Okay, this is a good suggestion. I like this. It is a little bit amazing.
that they have the grandeur of some of these booths. There's like planes or boats suspended in the air, and they don't have a toilet. It is a little bit curious. Yeah, 94070 on the chat. The Watch and Wonders winner is the one that creates the best Cubitus mockery homage. So the one that takes the mickey out of other brands. Which is normally Moser if they're going to try anything.
So wins, watch the winners. Right, that is us for this week on the main podcast. If you would like to tune into the live show, you can see it. A blog to watch weekly live, generally around about half past seven on a Tuesday morning UK time. or you can hold off and either watch us on Spotify or watch us on YouTube later on in the week, or indeed just listen on whatever podcast you have. Get in touch with the show. I think it'd only be appropriate to play this bit of the show out with you.
with the usual jingle so yeah from us to you have a great week bye everyone anyone that plays this at watches if you if you're at watches and wonders and you come up and play this tune on your phone to one of the guys they'll give you free swag Someone's got to make the ringtone. One of these like blasting.
We'll have one of these like desktop layers or something like that, you know, like 80s style and we'll just be rocking this level throughout the whole life. Can you get just the last bit, the Cartman thing and make it so it's like that's someone's notification sound on their phone? Oh, I'll send it all to you. You can just add it. So every time we mess with each other on WhatsApp, it's like eight, nine, seven. Some drugs is mad.
People at the brands are totally confused. That's the goal. We like confusing people at the brands. Good stuff. Right. Well, that's it. So, yeah, we will speak to you all again soon. Do tune in next week to our live show from somewhere to do something to do with Watchmen. We'll give you some random scores and someone will win and someone will lose. Goodbye. Bye, everyone. See you when we reemerge from Watch Land.