Proof? Walk down the Sydney watch district:
tens of thousands of Omega, JLC, Breitling, Hublot, Cartier, Panerai and
Vacheron sitting quietly on display - for months and years, awaiting
patiently to be placed on the wrist of a watch enthusiast.
'But what about Rolex' - you ask. What about it? Rolex spends hundreds
of millions of dollars on advertising, year after year, decade after
decade. And even Rolex has billions of dollars of watches in stock,
sitting and waiting to be sold.
There are very few products out there that sell themselves. But
even brute advertising has only a limited effect on a potential buyer.
What works better than a glossy full page advertisement, is a write-up
in the form of a 'testimonial' or 'recommendation' or a watch review by a
'trusted watch expert'.
Disguised as a non-advert, it is actually nothing more than a fully paid
commercial message pushed down your throat, coated with a thin layer of
Swissness.
This is how it is, this is how luxury works, and there is nothing we can
do about it. Branding and resale value counts more than workmanship,
performance, horological complexity or even the overall quality of a
watch.
Quite often, I am approached by newspaper publishers
and online influencers who blatantly offer clicks, editorials,
favourable reviews, right down to testimonials. "You have such a
powerful story, a great Australian made watch - and we are ready to
help. Let’s share the excitement with our readers and followers." But I
would rather poke both my eyes with the sharpest Dumont tweezers than to
allow a self-proclaimed watch expert tell my story.
Not because I am blind to see the correlation between money 'invested'
in advertising and number of watches sold, but because those brand
experts have no clue about watchmaking. They have no idea what it takes
to make a watch in a small workshop, in a country with no watchmaking
heritage. Those who are interested in Australian watches, and Australian
watchmakers would not benefit from hearing that story from a
self-proclaimed expert who does not understand it and does not believe
it himself. I'd rather not sell a watch than to sell it with the help of
Judas.
Let me give you just one example.
In front of me is a newly completed batch of dials for MK2. This dial is
the pinnacle of our in-house manufacturing. Titanium, guilloche,
anodized, printed, with in house titanium feathered indices. And it is
perfect, in every way, to the smallest detail visible only under a
microscope. In the entire history of Australia, no other watchmaker,
ever, has produced a watch dial of this complexity and beauty, and
especially not in an exotic material like Titanium. This is a fact. I
can talk for hours about it, I can show you the processes - from design
to final stage of welding the indices - I can show you the machines, and
the people who actually made this dial. I can tell you how painful it
is to give birth to a watch dial. There are thousands of watchmakers in
the world who can make a watch, but only a handful who can make dial
like this one. So why in the world would I pay anyone to re-tell my
story?
For the past ten years, our goal was to make a point. To
show the world - and especially Swiss brands - that we can make a watch
in Australia. Not any watch - but a watch that would be as good as a
Swiss made watch.
We are not there yet - but we have already proven that we can do it. The
results speak for themselves. How many watches we will make, and how
many we will sell is completely irrelevant. I don't care. I could not
care less.
Sales and money does not matter in the slightest.
What I do care about is to make the owner of an NH
watch the proudest watch ambassador. Someone who will wear my watch
knowing that he wears the best, most unique, most special watch ever
manufactured in Australia. That's what I care about. What about you?
Mark II "Curl Curl"
40mm case size. Stainless steel case and leather strap. 11mm case
thickness. Sapphire crystal. Grade 5 titanium anodised base dial, with
guilloche "Curl Curl waves" pattern. Titanium hands and applied
numerals. Soprod automatic movement. 40 hours power reserve.
Both blue and orange available for immediate delivery.
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