What Should Breguet Do Next? Rob And David Answer Your Questions!

Hi and hello watch fans and welcome back to the real time show with me your friendly neighborhood watchmaker Rob Nudz today

I am joined for a mail back episode by our resident provocateur David Vossay how are you today David?

Bonjour tout le monde. Hello everyone. I'm doing great. Good day to the world. Good day to the world. Hello, David's classic greeting today

We are going to dive in to this. We saw we say bulge in mail back. Don't we? To be honest, we've done pretty good

Recently getting through a lot of the questions, but we have some

expansive ones to address today and I am looking forward to chopping it up with you without further ado

Let's get a move on and start with a question that was actually sent in quite some time ago

but

We never addressed it was in reference to the 250th anniversary of Brege, which roughly coincided with the 250th anniversary

250th episode of TRTS and it was asked by Max and Max's question was

What should we do with Brege if we were in charge of it?

So his actual question was what would you do to bring Brege back to its glory or even restore the recognition it had when its

Founder was at the helm now since that question has been asked

We of course saw a seminal release towards the back end of 2025 from that very brand

David is that the right move or would you do something different if you were heading up one of the finest names in watchmaking?

Well, so just to clarify are we talking about what will we have done for the 250th anniversary or what will we do to turn around Brege generally?

What would you do to turn around Brege generally? What direction do you think the brand should be dragged in at this point in time?

Yep, so I think

Well, look, I don't think this is a very controversial take. I think Brege is one of the most undervalued brands in watchmaking and

That's not really the right word because everyone knows it to value. It's not

It's not

Exploded well enough. It's not utilized well enough in the swatch portfolio

I think without having the exact word on offhand. I think we can all agree on that

um

As it was alluded to in the question

Look Brege is one of the most important figures in watchmaking. I don't want to say D most because I don't have the historical background

But one of the most important figures in watchmaking and now it just seems to be sort of there

And in addressing this question

I'm going to use a very boring framework because we don't have a ton of time and it's what comes to mind

But in business school they tell you that when it comes to marketing a product that comes down to price product

Promotion and place the four p's and I think we can certainly say that the product is there. That's not an issue

I think they're stunning watches. They have their own look

Even though they're not for everyone

They're classic and they look like a Bregei. I thought that the second generation Marine was fantastic

I think the uh the redesign was a misstep

But regardless that's what a sports watch in Brege D&A should look like. I think they all look great

So product is fine. Price I think also for what you're getting in the watch uh industry is good

And on the second hand market especially which is something I would handle

I'll get to that in a moment

But there's some great deals to be had on Bregei watches

So it comes down to promotion and place uh marketing. I'm not gonna

Take up a ton of time on the mic because we have a lot to get through and rob all want to hear your thoughts

But even though we think that

Uh

Very wealthy people can just buy whatever they want

That doesn't mean they are going to buy whatever they want like

Very rich people

I have a hard time believing this but I'm not a very rich person

But they exist in this stratosphere where

Like they're just looking for people's validation constantly from what I understand

I mean, that's why one of the watches I love to dunk on which was the Tiffany

Nautilus that came out a couple years back. I think it's horrendous

I just think it says really really bad things

About the state of the world today and people bought it because like they wanted to

Say they were part of a club that they're obviously a part of and I think what Bregei has not done a very good job of

Unlike fpjorn unlike recharmeel unlike any of these other brands

Is creating this desire that like yeah, hey my rich friend over there you have the money for it

But you can't have one I was given one but you're not allowed to have one and I think that dynamic

Unfortunately plays a lot into why they're not doing as well as they should be because they should

They really should they can go toe-to-toe with any of those other brands

But I think it comes down to to marketing they haven't convinced people enough

That it's unattainable enough and they will give them an aura if they buy one

I want an excellent way to frame that answer. I'm gonna piggyback on your

ingenuity there and use the price product promotion and place

Structure to respond to you

You breezed past the product question as to whether it was good or not

I would say that what we saw

In December. I think it was a December on November the chronometry one

Is what Bregei should be doing now? Let me caveat that by saying I don't like that watch very much

I think it's a bit grotesque

It's a bit ugly not as refined or elegant as I think my

Might emotional connection to Bregei suggests it should be however

I also wasn't a huge aesthetic fan of the marianne twine and I still think it's one of the greatest

Timepieces of all time and that is the standard to which I would always hold Bregei

And so I think that

Since Max asked his question

60 odd episodes ago

And sorry for taking so long to get to it Max. It's uh

It's been a busy period

Bregei's done the right thing Bregei has dropped a product that finally

positions Bregei where it should be in terms of

the industry hierarchy

Now it doesn't matter to me that that watch is not hugely commercial because there won't be that many of them

And they'll be even well not fewer they will be

Almost as few people who can actually afford that piece

This is perfect for me for what Bregei is

So product

I think there's too many Bregei's and I think they're too

accessible

And I mean that in terms of ubiquity and also in terms of price the second point

In most cases we want people to buy our watches because the people on the street wearing our watches are

The ambassadors in the real world. They are walking billboards. They are

Testimonies till the day they die because obviously they want to justify why they've just spent and in order

A amount of money on something completely unnecessary

I don't think Bregei's should be able to be bought by it barely anyone. I think that they should be

Really the truest of all halo

Products and halo brands for the swatch group. They should be a marker point

That trickles down in terms of reputation or gain to the other swatch group brands. It should be

Developmental powerhouse. It should be swatch groups formula one

But not in any way crass or over or showing mold of who blow

I brand we both love so don't take any of those subjectists as as negatives

Now promotion you're absolutely right. You nailed it. Nobody gives a flying

F about Bregei

Nobody nobody gives a flying to be on about Bregei. I should I say probably a bit more decorous

They need to get to that point. How do they get to that point?

By not letting people by the watches now normally this is not my strategy at all

But Bregei is not a brand on an island. It is part of an ecosystem

It is the number one brand of the swatch group or at least it's supposed to be

But it isn't I hear more about Tisso than I do about Bregei

There should be more Tisso's on risk than Bregei's but there should be more chatter about Bregei 100%

Because what the swatch group has there is a license to exploit history

And if we know one thing about watchmaking and successful watchmaking brands is that exploiting history

Is a great way to sell products and to raise your standing in the minds of consumers place interesting

Barely anywhere shut down the boutiques turn down all the

Turn all the Bregei boutiques in term

Our passion stores or like multi-brand swatch group retailers or Hamilton boutiques or Tisso experience stores whatever

Do something with that space and pull Bregei back into the workshop

I want a tiny little

Atelier in the Swiss mountains. I have to drive an hour and a half through winding roads to get to to be able to stand at the shoulder of a Bregei watchmaker

And observe mastery in motion. So that for me is what Bregei needs to do

I think that the recent release has been the stepping the right direction at long last and long may it continue any more points David

No, totally agree. I think those were great complimentary points

And I would just say that this question comes up comes up a lot in the context of a blomp on another swatch group

Brand I think you've probably the case that VCE which is another group. It's not the swatch group

But I think it's in the same boat. So the watch industry seems to get in its own lane

And some of the brands have been left behind and

They shouldn't be they deserve more than that. So hopefully we'll see see that happen soon

So move on to the next question. This is the first one from Lawrence

We might have time to get to a second from him. Thanks for sending these two in

Again, it's a question. We need to address rather promptly because things are changing

They're not quite as devastatingly impactful as they were a month or two ago

But Lawrence asks can the tariff war cause supply chain distortions that pose an existential threat for smaller and direct to consumer brands

Take it away

There's a lot to unpack there

Rob correct me if I'm wrong

The Swiss watch industry

Was 39% and they've been lowered to 15% as my understanding

Yeah, that's I think that's about right. It was either 39 or 35

But it was absolutely prohibitive. I think there was a couple of different tariffs and taxes working in tandem

Yeah, it was horrible

So the

This gets really difficult because

We were asked the question asked for independence and

What you have to understand is that

Tariffs affect goods

Going into the US

So the first question you have to ask yourself if you're an independent brand is where does your revenue come from now?

I've kind of asked this here and there

And it turns out that for a lot of brands. Yeah, the US is a huge market for them

If it's not that shields you from it

The other thing to keep in mind is that

Tariffs don't necessarily make their way to the consumer. There's ways that can be mitigated

So the retailer for example might

Eat margin the brand might eat margin to keep market share. I mean there's all kinds of strategic options that you can

That you can come up with that don't necessarily mean

That you're going to take that impact right away now having said that

If you're looking at large brands versus smaller ones a lot of those flexible options that you might have if you're part of a big group

You're not going to have actually if you are if you're a small company

You're just going to basically be given the terms that you're going to have to work with

And and make it work that way

the other thing I would say

is that actually I'm not entirely sure

And it's yeah, this is very regional

But if we're talking Switzerland specifically

It's not really the tariffs like the Swiss Frank. It's the currency issue

I mean the Swiss Frank is really expensive

And if you look geopolitically at what's happening with regards to the dollar and what might happen and we're going way off topic here

But I think because the watch industry supply chain is so globalized

I'm not entirely sure the tariffs are the

The biggest or it's certainly the only thing to watch out for I think that the currency exchange is going to be an issue

Going forward as well

Yeah, the Swiss Frank is ridiculously strong at the moment, isn't it?

We always used to tie it one for one to the euro

But it's actually accelerating away from it now. It's no longer a simple conversion

Uh, some good points. Yeah, what I've noticed big brands doing is actually establishing entities in the US to avoid the tariffs

Which is all well and good if you have that kind of financial cloud

Impossible for many smaller and D to C brands

Uh, to answer the questions to simply yes, it could definitely pose

An existential threat to smaller brands

I know this from a personal perspective of the brands that I work with the vast majority

Well, that's a majority. I'd say almost exactly 50% of consumers for every brand I work with bar 40s

Our US-based fortress is very strong in the Dak, Germany, Austria, Switzerland region less only US at the moment

But hopefully it will grow when they get their strategy locked in for North America, David

Yeah, just one comment so it's interesting Rob that the 50% is the number I have in mind as well

Yeah, I think of what like if you asked me to guess a breakdown

It's usually 50% US so it's interesting to hear that the other thing though when you mentioned entity

Now obviously entity is not workshop

But the the reasoning behind these tariffs was that it would bring manufacturing back

Now, let's just set aside the incredible difficulty of uh, re

Uh, resuscitating a US watch manufacturing base because there was one before there isn't now

But it reminds me of a move that

LVMH did with Louis Vuitton so they actually opened a workshop

So I grew up in Texas and I think the workshop was somewhere near San Antonio

And it brings to mind this idea like do people want made in America Louis Vuitton bags?

I don't I don't know because so Rob we talked about this on a previous episode. How much does magic count

Magic counts for a lot in the luxury goods industry

And I'm not sure that and this is looking farther ahead

50% of revenue is a huge thing to protect

Let's just for the sake of argument assume that many brands got together and said let's make a facility

We can share so we can bypass some of these tariffs

I don't know

And US made I think made in America. This is my personal view

I think made in America is not going to be as positive a label as it was before

But even if you set data side a watch that's made in Switzerland

And there was sold as made in Switzerland is supposed to be made in Switzerland

That's part of the magic and so these tariffs actually could be counterproductive

In the case of a luxury good like a watch

I mean there's a a hidden

Problem for the Swiss or Swiss brands or any brand

purporting to make Swiss watches

huge amounts of their components come from the far east and

It's the origin of the component that needs to be declared on the import documents to the US for them to assess the tariffs

And they don't do it

particularly well they break it down into things like

The watch which includes like the case and the

dial and hands and movement and no case dial and hands

Which of course can be made in different locations

The movement is separate and then the bracelet I think is separate as well

And you have to apply nominal values to each of those components and then the tariffs are assessed

thereon

so

If you have your cases made in Asia

And you're buying your movements from Switzerland and your bracelets

We bracelets are also made in Hong Kong, let's say

You have to declare them separately and so

It's not just the Swiss tariffs that matter for smaller and D to C brands

It's also the Chinese ones because

Most of their stuff honestly, let's face it if we're talking smaller and D to C

Which is what the question specifically asked about is coming from there so

It is an absolute minefield

Interesting you should say you're feelings about American made now

I assume that that doesn't apply to every product

So for example, I'm a fan of Eppertsfield, you're a huge fan of Ralph Lauren

We would like these things to be made in the US right not in Paris

But Louis Vuitton would like to be made in Paris

So I think this is a broader question about outsourcing

Which we've talked about before ideally every country would sort of stick to its roots

But obviously as they want to grow they got to keep costs down. I mean there's all that

But this is the real-time show. Let's keep things real

I sound American, I am not. I will not buy anything

As much as I can avoid it, I will not buy anything from America at this point in time, which is January 2025

For reasons that I think anyone else out there can guess

I did however pick up on a comment online

Where someone said I think in the future we're going to move away from made in America

And more towards like made in California or made in Portland or made in wherever

And I can see the appeal behind that

I can see the appeal and with regards to Ralph Lauren

I think that's probably a separate episode. I think Ralph Lauren

Represents what America aspires to be which that's naive without being naive

I think there is something very like nice about that

Which is why I think Ralph Lauren's done well

But yeah, I think made in America is going to be

Have its own set of connotations in the same way that Swiss may it has its own connotations

And in luxury goods those connotations are very important. That is most of the product

Very interesting. I would I would be so compelled to buy things if they were made in xyz state

Right, so if if someone said oh you want to buy a Pendleton rug and it's made in Portland, Oregon

I'd be like wow yeah

That feels like I'm I'm supporting a craft

If I want to buy some turquoise jewelry and it's made in Arizona

It's like yeah, I absolutely want to support that

And taking it to watches that was shine all this big push like apparently in Detroit

A lot of people have have watches because that was their thing was like and in fact going back to cars now

I think it was Dodge like there was a big Super Bowl commercial year years back and the tagline was brilliant

It was imported from Detroit, which I thought was fantastic because it gets to the heart of everything

And so yeah, I think there is there is some interest in sort of really honing in on where you're from to separate yourself from from the larger connotations

Isn't that funny? I love America. I've always been a huge America file

That's maybe more of a controversial thing to say now than ever before in our lifetimes at least

Um, there is negative feeling towards the states because a lot of people in Europe don't agree with a lot of the policies that have been implemented in Trump's second term

However domestically successful they may end up being we'll see I guess in in time

But nobody has ill feeling towards specific states that I'm aware of I'm sure there's in interstate rivalries

You know maybe someone from Tennessee doesn't want to buy something from Kentucky or something

I don't know or like Alabama or an Arkansas. I've got some beef. I don't know whatever

But what I mean is if you say it's made in America and you go to let's say we go to 10 people on the street a cross section of society and say

Would you buy this good? It is made in America, which implies of course it's benefiting the American economy and people in America

I bet you a lot of people would say no, but if you went there and said this is made in

Connecticut

This is made in Nevada. This is made in Idaho

I don't think that anyone would come to that question with a preconceived negativity. What do you think about that?

I think

People nowadays like I'm from Texas. Texas has an outsized reputation

I mean, that's that's part of their thing

And people would still make the connection. It's in the US

But I do think however that in a couple of years time if we're trying to get over this as we're hopefully getting over this

You have a much better shot at removing an obvious barrier by by doing that. So so yes

I think it's I think it's an interesting way of looking at it

You know sometimes when you talk about where you're from you remind me of my ex-girlfriend. She had an American

Mother a French father was born in London and grew up in Canada and so within like one sentence

She'll be from one place or another depending on who's winning at what sport at what time she was Canadian or French or whatever

It was great for me because I got to go out with four girls at once, but um you are

Where are you born?

So I was born in Singapore traveled around a bunch

raised raised in Texas and I am half English and half French. Yeah, okay, right

So that's it. If anyone gets confused about David's origin story

That's it. It's a it's a cool one. That's for sure born in Singapore a half French half English American raised well

Um, I have a couple of things to say firstly. It's January 2026 not 2025. Sorry to break it here. Yeah, you're right

Sorry, you're right. So you're here. Yeah, it has yet and

My big point about this it's it's a little bit

Glib but I would say this tariffs aren't about tariffs. They're about

Confidence so a lot of people buying watches

Have a lot of disposable income not everybody, but I'd say most people buying you know

Watchers in the four five figures have disposable income. They could probably afford the tariffs

But they don't want to pay him for a couple of reasons one they feel they're getting a bad deal

Uh, two they don't know if what they're buying will hold its value if the tariffs disappear then instantly the price they paid is overmarket and

three they

literally

See the monetary difference and say one no i'm not spending that extra cash

The biggest one for me is this idea of confidence is this idea that

The market is not performing as we want it to everything's destabilized. It's concerning

We don't know what the future holds even I have stopped buying

Things and instead decided to hold much more cash now. I've ever held before in my life just uh

Buffer myself against someone certainty in the future. Of course. I can't I don't know if I can trust all the banks that my money stored in either

I don't know what's going to happen there, but you know

It's conservative as I can be I am being right now and I think that that is a huge problem because

If the tariffs disappeared overnight or when they dropped to 15% we saw a lot of people sort of step up to the play and buy

But it didn't really return to pre-tariff levels

And I still don't think that that 15% is

monetarily necessarily the reason I think it's just people are being cautious and stepping off. What do you think about that?

No 100% look

You know the post-World War II order and we're gonna go way off on a tangent here

But the post-World War II order was built on the idea of trade and I had a history professor

In in in high school who I still remember he said

If countries trade with each other they don't go to war with each other or like the the Maxine with America's

Two countries that have McDonald's in them don't go to war and that's being broken apart

And to me it makes no sense because the whole point of trade is that I can do something well

I can't do what you do well

But hey, let's work something out where we can both come out winning and the point of these tariffs as they're applied now

Because there are way there are reasons that you would want to apply tariffs

I mean it's not because they're there. That's the problem

But it's because the tariffs as they're applied now

Are a signalling somehow that the US has gotten a raw deal

And they don't want to trade anymore and so to your point Rob the tariffs are not being put up

Because someone's dumping into the US. They're not being put up because they're protecting

Some industry that's critical to the US infrastructure

They're just being put up as another way of overturning the world order and that's why things feel uncertain at this point

I mean trade is everything right

I was thinking about this the day I was listening to a podcast about the Norman invasion and I was thinking imagine living in a time

And maybe we don't have to imagine too hard at the minute where you could just go in and take a nation by force

You can never sleep well

If you've taken something by force someone's going to come for you at some point

It's the only sustainable way to build a society or even a civilization if we should aspire to that is to work with other people for mutual gain

There is no point if you think about it on a macro level

It's crazy the disparity of wealth in the world that billionaires haven't figured out

That holding all that unnecessary wealth and it is unnecessary because only so much you can do with money

Is only gonna bring

Fire and brimstone to your door eventually like share it like lift up the world

How are we in a situation in 2026 where we have major powers just running into nations and taking them by force

It's bizarre

This is where you know we're keeping it real because what we're saying but now I get us invited to many Swiss boardrooms

I don't think but

Yeah, I guess to close the point off for our because I think we might have one or two more questions left

I do want to say that what you've raised is interesting because

The original question was

How will these tariffs affect smaller brands?

Well, I think actually they're going to affect everyone because of this idea of uncertainty

Because of the fact that people you don't buy luxury goods when you feel like personally threatened

So that's the first thing and the second thing is as far as the distribution of wealth

That is how the watch industry has survived and made its made its money last couple years and we talked about this a lot

We'll save this for another show, but I think that could be it's undoing in times like this if you're only catering to one

one specific segment

It's a it's an operational risk

We shall see indeed moving on to a question from our dear Richard

He says we've quite a bit of talk especially on her dinky about watch sizes

Is it not just a question of fashion and as it goes

Fashion is cyclical. Do you see this as an opportunity for entry level micro brands?

I suppose let's just add some context to this what Richard is probably referring to directly is the fact that in the past few years

We've seen a trend towards smaller cases being made because there was a vocal cry for that whether it came from a

Majority or a very vocal minority or not is questionable and now we are starting to hear a little bit of chatter about bigger watches returning

So David, where do you stand on the subject of watch size?

So this is something we've talked about a lot Rob you even have a formula for for this to an extent

So I look forward to hearing you explain it again

But look my thing with watch sizing first of all is objective, which is that

I use the tutor blackbay because it's the one that always comes up like people say oh, it's too thick

Well, no, it's just it was designed a certain way. I mean when you're making a watch

Everything has to be tooled specifically

There's all kinds of decisions that to be made so someone made that decision for a reason

And if you don't agree with it

That's it's it's tough, but it's not too big

It's it's sized for whatever it need to be needed to be when it was designed

Having said that I did I have heard

This was years ago when this started to come up someone made the point

That if you look at fashion brand so like raflor for example or any one of these sort of companies that makes

clothing accessories they offer different sizes

So why could a watch company not offer different sizes and tutors a great example they have done that

Omega is doing that a bit more

But there's no reason that a watch should have to exist in one diameter now obviously there's proportion

Issues, but you can work around those you can have

Different diameters and as far as that's the second point third point is does this present an opportunity for microbrands

I think yes the whole point of a microbrand is to serve a niche

So if you want to get attention today for example

And I was just thinking allowed let's say rob I come to you and I'm like I'm gonna make men's watches

30 millimeters and under and I'm going to design them in such a way

That the size is almost an afterthought like I'm gonna use colors or shapes or whatever that whatever happens to be

But my thing is going to be small watches that is what I'm gonna do and that is gonna be my calling card

Yeah, it's totally possible to think of a scenario where that could happen

Absolutely, I mean I have two brand concepts and I've taught

Sparingly to you about them because you know, I don't want to distract us from the goal of recording the real-time show

But one of them was to make a watch that was inspired by a 31 millimeter Kinsler that I wear on a forced embrace

And I call it my granddad watch

The name of the model I wanted to call it the opa which is

German for grandpa

Because OPA for some reason it looks like a watch name because it reminds me of ARP saw something like it looks like

It sits well on the dial and I thought I could make an entire brand based around just

Getting guys to wear 31 millimeter watches again, and there's a surprising number of occasions when I go to this like right now

I'm wearing my glasses to recognize

Chronograph 1970s right in orange and it's a pretty big square watch

It's massive on the wrist in comparison to a 31 millimeter manual and Kinsler

And yet I wear both watches and I wear them both frequently depending on the occasion

It's a dream with a suit with a cuff, you know, because I like button cuffs

I'm not a French cuff guy

So I like him on the smaller button so that they're nice and fitted and they don't ride up on my arm too much

And that Kinsler slides right underneath it so

You're absolutely right there's there's a market for the very small, but there's similarly a market for the very very big

And I think that it's just a question of brands

Finding their lane and producing products in it

I do not agree with every single watch being available in every single size

Unless it is designed to be exactly that and that's my second brand concept to have

As a single watch design that's available in multiple damn it's very close to one another

So you get a perfect fit the whole idea around it is more tailored in the watchmaking

And I hopefully will expand that brand and release it in the next couple of years when I have some more free time to focus on it

I think that's a great concept

What I don't think is a great concept is having the oyster perpetual in

29 31 34 36 39 41 and whatever else they may feel

The need to make it because I think that watch loses a lot when you stretch it and contract it across those diameters

I do think that designs

despite obviously

Being able to increase or decrease them proportionally retained exactly the same proportions

I do think they have a sweet spot for the style of the watch and

For example, I think a date just is too big at 41. I think it's perfect at 36

and I would say a

brightening

Avenger at 43 is absolutely fine. I wouldn't want it at 36

I mean it just you could shrink it, but it would look ridiculous right

Certain things need to be certain diameters and I just think that brands need to remember that and remember who they are and

To ensure that they are offering products that people want to buy but not that every brand should try and offer every product that people want to buy

Not necessary

So yes, Richard there is absolutely an opportunity as David said

Microbrands exist to fill these niches and they can be very specific and they don't need a huge volume of sales

To make it work if there is a vocal call for xyz

These are the brands that need to fill it

So yeah, let's let's hope that we see some some more variety

Next question, um, I know you're on the clock here, David, but we we maybe have time for this one more

This is from Andrea. She says

Rob frequently talks about his love of German watchmaking and David is known as a french watch

Finatic as I'm new to the hobby

I don't really understand how these styles differ from Swiss watches

What are the key design aspects if there are any and why do you love the watches you do so much so David

It's I think it's an easier question for me to answer, but I'll start with you

What is a french watch and why do you love them so much?

You had to make that the last question around like the differences in horrible schools with the g's all right, okay

Look, I think

That the best analogy might be

clothing like in the US there is a stereotype of what a European looks like and these are stereotypes

I'm just speaking in extremes to make a point and in Europe

There is an image of what an American looks like and they're both western areas like Europe and the US have a lot in common

But the people look different you can get different objects that serve the same functions

So like if I said an American car you might think pick up truck if I said European car you might think Volkswagen Golf like same thing very different

And so that's when it comes down to

Uh and Rob I think I know what you're alluding to when you say German watchmaking simpler, but when I say french watches

There's definitely a

A design

What's the word there's there's an emphasis on design and part of that is just because like the industries have been torn down

So you can't really do as much as you could in Switzerland or maybe in Germany

But there is definitely a french

Design if you look at icons like the opnale knife the refl

Jet fighter. I mean all kinds of sit the Citroen DS like there's a french aesthetic, which I like

But also for me, it's just

Yeah, like I'm sort of jealous sometimes of

Someone who lives in Japan they get to where a saco like that's their watch and I want that for myself

And that's not that I can't appreciate other countries contributions, but I'm french

I want to see the french do cool stuff. I'm english. I want to see the english and the british do cool stuff

Um, and I think the more watches we have out there the better, but in terms of differences

You have to remember there's same things, but there's different styles and different

Technical desires and I'm gonna turn it over to Rob because I think Germany's probably the most obvious

Example of of differences in style and technical emphasis as well

Yeah, I do agree that it's much easier to define German watchmaking because I think the

The history is clearly defined like it has a starting point basically with Ferdinand Adolf Langer

And he was a huge fan of her three quarter plate or the three quarter bridge

Which was very common in pocket watch design, but not so common in

Swiss movement architecture

So German movements

Traditional German movements they look quite different from Swiss stuff the french is probably more of an aesthetic flourish on the exterior rather than technical

traits that they still carry forward to this day

Also the use of German silver or nickel silver

In movement construction in Germany was quite common brands like Langer still follow it

We see it used sparingly around the industry side to ankle although it sounds German is actually a Swiss

Brand in the German speaking part of

Of Switzerland and they have

German silver movements as well, which do install some of those like older traits. I love the look of it

I love the warmth of German silver. I love the

The robustness and the very technical feel of a three quarter plate

It can be said to be less artful, but you know there's a lot of space for great finishing and in Glacierter

Just 45 minutes from where I am sitting right now

They tend to decorate the plates with Glacierter ribbing which is the German version of Geneva striping

And of course for those that didn't know this actually played a function

It was effectively a dust or dirt or oil trap

So that when the watch

Shostaid an impact or there was dust ingress through the crime when it was

Open or when oil skipped out of a jewel cup

It wouldn't run into the mechanism and actually be caught in the plate and sits still there

So it wouldn't interrupt the function of the watch

And for me that just adds a little bit more security in theory

I mean, you know everything in watchmaking is really a theoretical gain at this point because

in practice

A lot of the incremental

Changes we make to things like the

Escapement or you know jewels or finishing to to try and trap dust or dirt

So marginal they're almost negligible

But it's it's a theoretical exercise and one that I really believe in and one that I adore and

Yeah, I think I'll always be a German watch

Lover for that reason one brand. I just want to touch on because it does confuse me somewhat

I mean touch for them about this actually is two teamer their top-end stuff

Which you know David you and I had a three-hour long conversation about two teamer in Geneva and we came up with some wonderful

Wonderful ideas for the brand we talked about extensively from an aesthetic perspective from a movement

Angle they are extremely German. I feel from a case design

Perspective they feel more French because they're more flowing they're more artful. I want more

To tonnestism can you say that?

To tonic nature. I want it to be more German. I want it to be more angular more straight lines more hard angles

And I feel there's a disconnect between the interior and the exterior there and

I'd be interested just to know just as a final thought from you

What what you think would typify a French

Case you can use any brand any example that you want to give Andrea an idea of the kind of thing that you're talking about when you say a French design

I'm going to do that. I just want to piggyback on something you said

So German watchmaking there's an aesthetic, but I think the technical aspect is huge

So if you look at brands like Zin de Moscow

They're just interested in offering the best because why would you not and why would you not have your watch?

Go down to 500 meters and be totally scratch resistant

I mean, I really respect that and the aesthetic is not for everyone

But if you're engineer-minded like I am or if you're or you know if you're trained watchmaker like Rob

There's a lot to respect in terms of like this can do the job and then more

And I would just say that as you go through your watch appreciating journey

It'll become instantly apparent the more you see the more you're going to be like oh, okay, this probably comes from

Here they're there

In terms of a French watch

I'm just trying to think is there a defining

Is there one defining aesthetic

um

It's easy to cheat and say well Breguet was French and so a Breguet is French

I don't think it's that so much if you asked me today to define what a French watch looks like

I'd say actually

Off-putting in the sense that not that you may not like it

But it's going to look really different from what you would expect. So a lot of the french companies

Oh tree lobe. That's a great example. So Rob you and I saw tree lobes watch

The movement's amazing

But it's just it's it doesn't look like anything out there because they just kind of said like

We're French. We're going to have French design

Another example would be like Hermes the H zero eight and really any Hermes watch. It's designed

To be avant-garde in a design way

That's the word yeah, that's it. Yeah

Cartier is a Swiss brand, but their French originally

So I think anything that looks off the beaten path

Um, I wouldn't be surprised if it were French. It's not to say it will be

But I think the avant-garde nature of the case design is is something that is very French. Yep

Interesting. So pushing the boundaries basically just exactly what we expect from the the hive

Hot couture houses of Paris and

Beyond

Very very good. Okay. Well, I believe we have to wrap things up there for this

Relatively short, but I think information packed episode David

Thank you for joining me on the mic

I look forward to having you back again to answer some more questions because we actually went through about half of the ones that we had lined up for today because

We're chatterboxes, but that's I hope what you tune in for please tune in again

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