The Swiss Watch Industry Is Changing. I Saw It Up Close.

A few weeks ago I got on a plane to Switzerland and over the next 15 days to 17 days I got into nine places that I never thought I'd ever actually get into. Not boutiques, not showrooms, the actual factories themselves. The rooms where people actually make the products or make the base plates. This right here is a base plate from Breitling and this is a galvanized version of the exact same base plate after it's cut out of the blank and then plated that also came from Breitling. So the amount of things that I was able to see is awesome. From my background, obviously you've seen this channel before, my job is in manufacturing. I run my own manufacturing company and so this really hits home for me. To see what these different manufacturers do from Breitling to Sellita, which was an incredible experience. They do things that I never even imagined a watchmaker would have to do. The processes they have to run to run at the volume they do. To Zenith making their own dyes, which is just such a cool process, these multi-stage dyes. So I was really geeking out about those when I was there. To Voucher, which does a lot of the really high-end watches like Richard Mill, like Hermes, like Parmigiani Fleurier, which is the reason why I was in that area in the first place. So the actual list itself, I saw Omega and Biel, I saw Breitling's movement manufacturing in La Chaux-de-Fonds. I saw Tissot's headquarters in The Locke. I saw Sellita, which is also in La Chaux-de-Fonds, which is probably the movement inside your watch. It's the movement inside this watch and the movement inside this watch right here. They're a beast and the building is enormous, which you can see from the shot here. I saw Longines HQ in Saint-Timer and I saw a Nivarox plant where they're making the solar cells for Tissot watches, like the T-Touch and this watch right here, which I didn't even know it existed, but it was just really cool to see that entirely other side of watchmaking. Of making a watch powered by something else. So it's just cool. They're two totally different opposite sides of what I typically saw versus the solar cells, but that was really neat. Now I wasn't able to record inside there, so I have no shots of that, but that was an interesting experience. I saw the Zenith manufacturer in The Locke as well, where it was just really neat. This right here is a shot through the attic that they always talk about in the Zenith marketing, which was just in person, way bigger than I expected and a lot neater than, again, I really expected. I didn't think they'd keep it in the exact same condition and they did. It's a fortune of dyes in this whole thing. So I don't know how they didn't know that he was putting these up there in the attic, but that's a story for another day. Very neat. Very cool to see that. The amount of things that Zenith is still doing in-house is also really cool. And then I went to Parmigiani Fleurier. I got to see Vacher. I got to see the house where Michel Parmigiani works. I got to interview him, which is a whole other side of content. I have about 10 hours of content from this whole trip. So it was a big trip. And then on top of that, I went to Geneva Watch Days, where I saw a lot of watches that I otherwise would never get to get hands on. Here in Indianapolis, we don't have access to that many other brands outside of the typical ones. And so I got to see brands that I would otherwise never even have considered. Now on this trip, my wife and my one-year-old son were with me for all of it. Not necessarily the factory tours, but at least traveling through. And so there was a huge family element to it as well, which I'll touch on in other videos. But that was really core and really nice to have this experience and to share it with them as well. That's just more of the feeling side and the watchmaking side being separate. But my goal across the content that I make around these videos is to show a little bit behind the curtain of what actually happens, what actually is involved in making the base plates and making the components like the balance wheels. What are manufacturers typically working towards? What are tolerances? For example, like a jewel that goes in the main plate, you have to make sure that the hole the jewel sets in is three hundredths of a millimeter smaller than the jewel. So that interference is important. You need to actually slightly smaller so that the jewel will sit and stay seated. If you go to two hundredths of a millimeter, the jewel crack, it won't actually sit properly. If you go to four hundredths of a millimeter, it's going to be too wide. And so then it can loosen, fall out. And so that little bit of tolerance conversation was just really cool because these get milled, then they get sandblasted, then they get deburred and then they get plated like this galvanization here. And so that process means you have to deal with the tolerances of each of those additional steps. For example, when they end up microblasting it, if it hits the material, it could cause the whole to deform not to the same shape you machined it and therefore cause issues with interference. So fine tuning these base plates for each jewel is also a whole other end of developing a movement in-house, which is why in-house movements is a whole other video conversation we need to have about how ridiculous it is to expect anyone to have an in-house movement and how few brands actually have a true like they make everything in-house in their own buildings because it's just like the number of specialties you need to have for each specific component base plate alone is just enormous. And the investment is enormous as well, which you can see from these clips. It's just huge that Breitling's done the scale just to do the base plates. That's not even including the pallet forks or the balance wheels or the mainsprings or the hairsprings. So it's a whole other like side and expense and experience when you're trying to do it at scale. When you're a one-of-one watchmaker or you make 12 pieces a year, you can spend time on those things. But manufacturing at scale is a whole other problem for these particular watches, which is just really cool. One of the other things that I found interesting as well was the machining differences. So Breitling does a basically oil-less machining process. So that's really rare because the bit as it's running in of material will actually heat up and that will cause the bit to dull or work hard in the material depending. You don't want extra heat related to the material. And if you're working on steel, you definitely don't want to have extra heat because you can also increase the chances that it oxidizes. So all of that to say that it's typically that you manufacture, you mill things with oil, lubricants, which is what you can see at Zenith and what you can see at Voucher as well. Both of those CNCs are using oil as a lubricant while it's milling to keep the material and more importantly the bit from getting hot. Breitling does it oil-less, which is really interesting and entirely different than what I expected. I do have to research a little bit more as to exactly how they're able to do that without ruining all the bits. But it's an interesting whole other end of way that you can manufacture something that I thought was really interesting. Third, one of the things I found interesting was where automation stops. Almost all these different places had some level of automation because it's just normal and important. And one of the things I talked about with every single manufacturer was the expectation that a watchmaker or even the thought that a watchmaker would hand make every part is silly because the part would be worse if someone was making it by hand than if a machine is doing it like a CNC. Finishing and hand assembly is still something done that most of these manufacturers, they've tried to automate. Like Salida mentioned that they've tried to automate some of the assembly more than once, but it just doesn't beat a person. There are certain things a person is better at. And seeing the difference between those two, seeing where that line ends is also a really interesting part of the entire tour that I did. Then after all that, I had Geneva watch days. I showed you actually my camera rig in a different video. I can link that up above to see all the different stuff that I brought. This is not particularly the lens, but this is the camera body that I brought for the whole trip along with a whole rig of stuff. I will be paring it down on the next type of tour that I do like that or the next trip I do because I found what I used and what I don't use. I don't typically work outside of the studio. This is about the first time I did it. And so it was a whole different experience to sort of do that. And some of the shots worked out. Some of them didn't, which you'll see as I go through all that B-roll. But through Geneva watch days, there were really four brands that I wanted to mention here that really stood out to me. The first one is Universal Geneve. Now I mentioned it in the Instagram post that I did and some of the stories that I did. But Universal Geneve's watches, I had not seen the entire like lineup of watches and I was able to see all of them back to back to back to back to back. And so I got to see the Polerouter. I got to see the Nina and the Evil Nina from their Compax line. I got to see some of the higher end Polerouters, like the gold models and the stone dials. And every single one of them that I saw from them, both the date Polerouter, which is wider than a 37 millimeter no date Polerouter, the bracelet integration, even the aesthetics of the bracelet, the look of the dial, the typeface, the Nina actually has lacquer hands, which is different. Normally you have, you know, silver or polished hands or even painted. If they're painted black, they're like matte black. But a lacquer black handset was just really cool and different. A microrotor in a chronograph, which is not as common, a microrotor in a normal movement happens, but a microrotor in a chronograph is a whole other line of things. And I need to better understand where they're getting that developed because I find that intriguing and interesting just because chronographs are naturally thicker because of the extra rotor on top of everything else. So more microrotor chronographs would be a big thing for me. I'd love to see that. In general, I thought everything was really well conceived. Like the price point is something everyone can argue about whether or not the price point is too high or low, but it's very clear what Breitling is doing. They want to have Universal Geneve as the more expensive option because obviously Breitling owns or now House of Brands owns all three brands, Galet, Breitling, and Universal Geneve. And they're trying to price structure. And George Kern talked about this in a panel that I was sitting in and I asked him this question. I asked him about price stratification and obviously that played into the strategy of why they have these two new brands, one higher or more expensive than Breitling and one lower or less expensive than Breitling, which now has the tag obviously manufactured by Breitling on each Galet watch in order to bolster I think the value expectation. Basically it's like Tudor. You're getting the feeling that you're getting a Breitling for less money. Now I think Galet has a whole other brand aside from that, like a whole history, a whole like design language, and a lot more things that come with that brand than just Breitling for less money. But obviously the fact that it's branded on the back of the watch manufactured by Breitling, they're still trying to use that to help bolster that lower priced option of the three brands. Point is Universal Geneve was incredible. I absolutely loved the pieces. I have really been thinking about the Polerouter since I left that visit with them and just continually thinking about how much I like that design. So it's definitely something that I have my eye on and I really love the idea of having one of those just because I really liked the look of it. I genuinely loved it. And so if I can get one in the studio, I'd love to show it off here. Otherwise I got some pretty decent shots with their PR team and I'm going to do a follow up video specifically on Universal Geneve. The second brand that really stood out to me, and really this is just a price thing because I did see brands like SpeakMarin, like Grubel Forze, like Day Batoon, like Gerald Charles, like Gerald Genta. All those brands are like high end, really expensive watches. And that's not typically what I talk about on this channel. I'm still going to mention them. I'm probably going to do a whole roundup video of Geneva watch days. If you guys want, let me know in the comments below because it takes a while for me to get through all the footage. But Galet is within the price range of what I typically talk about. What I'm comfortable spending money on and I think what most people are comfortable spending money on. And so I thought from that release standpoint, and I can do a separate video just on Galet as well because I have a lot of footage and I'm hopefully going to get some models from my local AD. But I thought that the release was well handled. I do think the designs look very similar to Breitling in some ways. And I think that the ones that really stood out to me are the ones that are like the classics, the Galet classics family, just because I think they were more core to what I expect from the design aesthetic of Galet to look like. Some of the other models, like the Flight Officer, I believe it's called, and the other like chronograph style watches do look very Breitling-esque. Now obviously they have a Breitling movement in the back. I think they have the B01 movement in the back. And so that's part of the reason why the design layout, like the look of the tricompax is built in there. But I still think that like the typeface and the colors chosen and the font styles are a little like Breitling, which again, I think they did on purpose. I don't think that it's bad to do that, but I do think that that's why it looks that way. And I'm not as big a fan of those designs as much. The Flight Officer was a really nice looking watch and I still think for the price, there's some value there. And we can have a whole conversation about that in separate reviews, but they're classics I really loved. They're a little expensive in my mind for a three-hander watch, but that seems to be the market these days. And in the end, the price of something is just what the price, the market's willing to pay. And so if people are willing to pay it, then by all means. I am iffy on it. I think that the yachting version watch, I really did like that one. That I think is the best one. And the black with white, you can see it here. Those two models I think really stood out to me as the ones that looked really nice in person. And they're the ones when everyone was flooding the watches to try to get pictures, the ones that people were fighting over to try and pick up and take a picture with them. So that's the two big brands that really stood out in my mind. When I do the Geneva Watch Days like roundup, I'll mention some of these other brands. Jara Perigo stood out to me. I'd never seen a Loreato in person. I really enjoyed seeing that. Chepec stood out to me. The people were really nice. The watches were beautiful. I loved their like newest Vendome watch, but it's $114,000, so no wonder why I loved it. But I did want to mention I did like that watch quite a bit. David Kando is doing some wild stuff, so I'd love to talk about that in a separate video. But the crown integration, the look of it, the spherical, like very, very neat. But the two other brands that really stood out to me that I absolutely love either what they're doing or who I talk to were MB&F and J.N. Shapiro. And the two reasons for each of those. So J.N. Shapiro, it's because they're actually making everything. And I didn't know that. They're a U.S.-based manufacturer. J.N. Shapiro was a teacher for a long time until I think like three years ago from talking to Nicole there. And they are making every part of the watch now. They're making the rubies. They're making the hairsprings. They're making the mainsprings, as far as I understand. They're making the barrels. They're making the base plates. They're engraving everything. Like they're doing everything. So when it says U.S.-made on the back of this watch, it is actually U.S.-made. And from someone that's here in America in manufacturing, I love to see that. It's slow, like small production and therefore very, very expensive. They have to offset the cost of R&D and the cost of each of these fixed-cost machines in their watches. So their watches are really expensive, but it's cool to see that someone is willing to do that and excited to do that sort of investment. And so I'd love to work with J.N. Shapiro more around their watches and figure out how U.S. watch production, movement production can be industrialized over the next 20 years. The other brand that really stood out to me was MB&F, and that's because of two things. One, the people there were outrageously great, like just the most easygoing. Some of these interactions, you can tell that they're either well-off or they're trying to present the brand as a high-end. And so they're very semi-stiff. Most people were personable, but semi-stiff, very formal, very informal at MB&F, very kind, very normal conversation. It's very hard to describe without you actually being there, but just awesome. Loved that. Great experience. They also had amazing lighting up there, which I don't know that I really captured well enough in my video footage, but the lighting up in the little gallery where I sat and looked at the watches was great. Their whole MAD series, I think, is exactly what the watch community should be hailing around. I actually bought one of the MAD 3 watches because I loved it so much. Two reasons. One, it's celebrating an old watchmaker and all the different models that he has developed over his time. And most people don't know who he is, but he's behind a lot of designs and watches. And so I loved that celebration of him. And in doing it with a model that is at a really good price point for what it's offering, that jump hour with it, the wandering minute track, really cool aesthetic. And for $3,000, it's a good price point. It may not be the best watch in the world. It's not an MB&F watch, meaning like a $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 watch. But for what it's offering for the price point and in its celebration and their press material showed him holding the watch, I just thought it showed that they actually cared, that like they didn't let the marketing get in the way of wanting to present the message that this is to celebrate this man. And so I just, I really loved that. I just thought it was really sweet and special way to do it. And to do it in a watch that I think is also just like a great watch. It's a cool looking watch. It's very restrained for MB&F and MAD, the brand MAD now. It's very restrained for them, but I loved it. Great price point. Great watch. Great people. Really cool experience. So that's not even all the brands that I met with. I met with other brands also, but it was just a whole visit. Like there was so much to it. It's hard for me to go over in one specific video. I'm planning to do four or five videos separate from this one talking about movement integration, talking about manufacturing, all sorts of stuff, but I'm not entirely sure what exactly I should cover. So please let me know in the comments below what sorts of videos you'd like to know out of this particular visit, and I'll try and compile your guys's responses to get an idea of exactly which ones I should make, which ones are most popular, which ones are most in demand. So please let me know in the comments below. I genuinely am trying to figure out what videos to make from the 10 hours of content that I have coming back from this trip. So please let me know down below. Other than that, please subscribe. Still trying to get to 100,000 subscribers, and I'll see you in the next one. Take care.