Horolonomics

I recently learned that the CEO of Audemars Piguet Americas (APA), Ginny Wright, was departing the legendary watch brand. A tabletop model of the AP "Starwheel," photo taken at AP House NYC. The new CEO of AP Americaa will be Louis-Gabriel Fichet, who joined AP in 2020. I learned about this development from an online watch publication whose editor opined on the matter . I feel obliged to respond to that piece because I think it reveals some concerning biases in watch industry coverage, biases which will only diminish if we talk about them openly and honestly. There were three critiques of Ms. Wright's time at the helm of APA that jumped out to me. First was the allegation that Ms. Wright suffered a "sudden removal." Subsequent to this critique, Ms. Wright posted on her Instagram account that she is "returning to the world of prestige beauty and stepping into a global CEO role." Moving from a regional executive position to a global one is not ind...

Last week, Icebox / Swiss Watches GA, a third party retailer of pre-owned watches, officially acknowledged receipt of a lawsuit filed by Rolex USA in the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia - Atlanta Division. A screenshot of the Icebox / Swiss Watches GA retail location Source: Rolex's legal filing. The cause of action for Rolex's lawsuit against Icebox / Swiss Watches GA is "Trademark Counterfeiting, Trademark Infringement, False Advertising, Designation of Origin, Descriptions, Representations, and Unfair Competition." I've previously covered lawsuits of this sort filed by Rolex against independent retailers who sell modified watches. But this one is an order of magnitude different. Icebox / Swiss Watches GA has some very high-profile clientele. For example, a YouTube video from five years ago entitled "Post Malone Buys Rolex For 21 Savage & Autographs A Bugatti!" has over seven million views (the video content is pretty ...

Anarchy is a society without laws. AI generated image of a law rendered void. I sometimes wonder if watch collecting is a near-anarchic niche given the number of laws and regulations which are normally reliable but often weakly enforced when it comes to watch collecting. Take, for example, theft of a $20,000 car. According to the Insurance Information Institute, 85% of stolen cars are recovered. You have decent odds of retrieving a stolen car. Or, if your insurance company disburses cash to compensate the victim of car theft, then the insurance company has a very good chance of getting stolen cars back, selling them, and maintaining lower premiums as a result. I don't know for certain, but I strongly suspect that a stolen Rolex Daytona ref 116250 worth $20,000 is recovered far less than 85% of the time. For example, The Watch Register claims to have over 100,000 stolen watch serial numbers in its database. Over a decade, it also claims to have seen the recovery of 4,500 watc...

Of late it appears that the Kering group is steadly withdrawing resources from watchmaking. Gucci's watchmaking office in Switzerland. Source: Google Earth. Kering owns Gucci and a number of other brands. In January of 2022, word broke that Kering had jettisoned Ulysse Nardin and Girard-Perregaux . Management acquired ownership and has been operating the brands since then (unless there was another, subsequent, private party sale of ownership stakes). The most recent step on the path to a reduction in Kering's watchmaking footprint appears to involve Gucci Watchmaking. News broke last week that Gucci's watchmaking office in Cortaillod, Switzerland has notified the trade union for watchmaking that the brand would like to dismiss 25 employees. The brand and the union have started negotiations regarding the possible layoffs. Such steps are usually the last that a business will take, typically only under the most challenging and fraught financial circumstances. As I wr...

A number of principles are foundational to the watch industry and watch collecting. Screenshot of a Timex advertisement from the 1950s. One of these is, no doubt, the preservation and perpetuation of heritage. Brands with a longer legacy often maintain archives overseen by someone with a title like "Heritage Director." Some open museums in order to share heritage with the public. Vintage collectors connect with these archives and museums, which further perpetuates interest in and enjoyment of collecting. The list goes on. It was with this context in mind that I learned that the United States, and Connecticut in particular, has an import watchmaking heritage property which may soon disappear, never to return. That property is the Timex World Headquarters in Middlebury, CT. Ground level view of the Timex World HQ. Source: Bellapart. I first wrote about this property in 2023 when I learned from local news that Timex had sold it off to a local developer. This wasn'...

Watches and Wonders, the annual industry trade show in Geneva, is now squarely in the rearview mirror. AI Generated image. As is so often the case in the modern era, though, it leaves behind a lot of digital "breadcrumbs," such as Google Local Guide Benjamin Spiegel's relatively glowing review of the convention space. One particular trail of Watches and Wonders breadcrumbs serves as a barometer of enthusiasm for watches and watch collecting. That's what this post is all about. Through its Trends service, Google provides a window into search activity on its platform. I've used Google Trends data as applied to the watch industry for a few articles in the past (on this blog and for a piece in Time and Tide, for example). Out of curiosity, I pulled the data on "Watches and Wonders - Topic" from Google Trends and I think there are some interesting patterns in the data. Let's begin with the raw data. The first Watches and Wonders took place in 2...