Episode 138 - Interview with Mike France of Christopher Ward

Published on Wed, 16 Jun 2021 23:38:54 -0700

Synopsis

This podcast episode features an interview with Mike France, the CEO and co-founder of Christopher Ward, a British watch company. Mike talks about the origins of Christopher Ward, including their innovative business model of selling high-quality watches directly online at more affordable prices. He discusses their design philosophy, manufacturing process, and commitment to quality. The interview also covers some of Christopher Ward's recent watch releases, like the C65 Super Compressor and the C63 line. Additionally, Mike shares insights about the resurgence of British watchmaking and the formation of the Alliance of British Watch and Clockmakers.

Transcript

Speaker
Everett Hello fellow watch lovers, nerds, enthusiasts, or however you identify. You're listening to 40 in 20, the watch clicker podcast with your hosts, Andrew and my good friend Everett here. We talk about watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Everett, how are you?
Andrew I'm good. Yeah, I'm good. It's, it's muggy. So I'm a little, I feel a little sweaty. I feel a little anxiety.
Everett Oh no, it's Monday too. And I forgot to put my trash out. It's okay. Then we'll come to like three. They don't, you're right. I just saw the trash truck. There's so many trash trucks that come down our street. There's like 12 houses on our street and it's a little cul-de-sac. And I, I think 13 trips through for just the trash.
Unknown Right.
Everett That's right.
Andrew It doesn't make any sense. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think there's, yeah, it's the same day, two trucks. Yeah.
Everett It's, it's a weird, but they, I think because of where we're situated, they, they don't do both sides of the street when they come through. That's right. They come on different sides of their route. They come through later. Yeah. How are you Andrew?
Unknown I'm good.
Everett I, my voice, finally in my headset finally sounds like I think I sound. You're back. I'm back. You're back, baby. Yeah. Well, great. That's it. I'm feeling good. I'm excited for starting my weekend.
Andrew We're drinking coffee this morning, which is a little different and I'm out, which is a little, yeah, I think I'm out too, but because it's early for us, it's, it's morning time. Yeah. It's eight AM and there's a good reason for that. Yeah. There's a good reason for that. In fact, a really good reason. I, exciting reason they know I'm I don't need to read it on the on the but we've got a really special interview one of my one of my most coveted interviews we've got the CEO and founder of co-founder CEO and co-founder of Christopher Ward we've got Mike France all the way from England here on the line with us Mike how how are you
Mike France I'm very well, Andrew. Thank you very much. And thank you for inviting me on your podcast. I'm looking forward to this as well.
Everett We are so pleased to have you and have been working out details to get you here. So it's very exciting to get somebody like you on who, I mean, when we were talking in pre-show, seems to share our desire for the democratization of watches, to use the term that you use.
Mike France Absolutely. Power to the people.
Andrew That's, that's right. That's right. Well, uh, Mike, you're here. We're appreciative. We, uh, are also really aware that you're an extremely busy man. So I'm hoping we can just get right into it and you can tell us how you became involved in, I'm guessing 2003, 2004 with the company we know and love is Christopher Ward.
Mike France Uh, sure. Um, Boredom, really, was the reason I got involved. Nothing more interesting than that, really. My fellow co-founder, Peter Ellis, and I had recently sold a business that we had been involved with. And there's only so much beach lying you can do, really. And about a month after we'd sold it, I was bored. Literally, I think we're put on this planet to be productive as much as we can be, and so corralled Peter, who's probably a bit more prepared to spend a little bit more time on the beach than I was, corralled Peter and an old mucker of mine, Chris Ward, who I'd been out of touch with for a good few years, but quite recently, in sort of 2003, got back in touch with. He was sort of, how shall I say, he was less than happy with what he was up to at the time. And so on a what's become a fairly infamous or famous boat trip on the Thames around about May 2000, April, May 2004, we decided, I don't know, let's start a watch brand. That really is something to do. And because, and we had, I mean, there was, there was, there was some rationale to it. I mean, we wanted, Peter and I and Chris had spent most of our lives in retailing of one sort or another, but my background was fashion, then into home, then into toys. Occasionally a few footwear as well. Chris had tended to be in the sportswear arena. Peter and I had met up, you know, 15, 20 years earlier, and had worked together ever since. So we knew we probably should stick to something we knew, which was retailing, branding. But we knew nothing about watches, apart from the fact that we kind of like watches. I mean, we absolutely knew nothing about watches. And I've told this story a few times, but we, you know, You need luck, don't you? People, and I consider myself, I've had more than my share of luck, it should be said. And we, what we did know is, or what we did believe, was that the internet was likely to be the sort of, the wave of the future. I mean, it seems odd these days to even talk of it in that sense, but back in 04, the jury was still out. I mean, people literally rang me when they heard that I was going into Watchers saying, you must be mad. You will never sell a watch online. You know, it's not going to happen. Um, yeah, yeah. Um, no, it's just not going to happen. And, and had we not already had some experience of selling, of having the same, some of the same people, it should be said, telling us you will never sell climbing frames for children online. If they, if we hadn't had that experience, we might well have taken their advice and gone and done something else, but we we'd been involved in the internet since 97. We're one of the sort of first retail brands in the UK to, to really embrace the internet. And we discovered that, um, it was, it was, it was growing exponentially and even difficult products like climbing frames for children, big things that you stick in your garden. Um, it was possible to sell those online. So we kind of figured that if that was possible, it was probably, a reasonable bet that selling watches online might even be a little simpler than selling climbing frames.
Andrew Yeah, the logistics alone of shipping and packing, you've reduced all of that headache.
Mike France Well, I mean, absolutely right. And the logic that we apply to what sort of business might we want to get involved with, we said early on, internet and internet only. Had enough of bricks and mortar. Seems like a really wise decision these days. Well, yeah. But I'm not sure we were that wise. But we sort of knew that we wanted to get internet. And then, well, what do we do? What do we sell on the internet? What we wanted was something that could be shipped around the world, that was possible to sell on a global basis. That kind of ruled out sofas, So climbing frames. So, yeah, I mean, we also need to be reasonably small. That led us to, well, what about jewelry and high value? Because we didn't want to be busy fools necessarily. I mean, churning out millions of T-shirts wasn't really something we had in our psyche. So it needed to be of a reasonable high value. That sort of led us towards two things. One was jewelry. I'm in touch with my feminine side. but the other two just weren't. So we ruled that out fairly quickly.
Andrew You haven't, you haven't told the Mike that watches are jewelry. Have you?
Mike France Well, no, no, no. That, that, that secret just between you and I, they don't see that. And so we ended up thinking, well, we like watches. There's nothing, as you know, nothing as universal as time. Um, and therefore it's deemed that this was, it fitted all of the, all of the, uh, all of the criteria that we had. And we just needed to go and find out a bit about them, which we did. And we were very fortunate in meeting people, having access to things that possibly would have taken many years for most people to access. And that led us to the business model and what we believe to be a gap in the market, which was high quality premium watches at a retail margin of times three multiple. with no compromise on quality, using the business model of the Internet with a reasonable view about the profit margin, an honest view about the profit margin, to pass all those advantages as best we could back to the customer. Your point in your intro about the democratization of watches, it felt to us when we had learned some of the multiples that people were applying to watch costs, Well, frankly, it really isn't overstating it to say we were disgusted by it. I mean, literally, we found it offensive and still do, to be honest, because there are still plenty of brands out there who are absolutely laying it on with a trowel. And therefore, this whole thing about luxury luxury, whatever luxury really means, is something that we wanted to try and redefine and bring as many people into that sort of visceral pleasure that we all know exists when you own a fine watch, when you have it on your wrist, the sort of pleasure that is almost impossible to define, but gives you something beyond just a functional item. And that was the spark that led us on to the journey that we've been on sort of thing.
Everett So it sounds like the real, where you guys needed to pick up speed was in the manufacturing. You had all that other business acumen bringing it into it. What was the manufacturing background that you guys brought to the table? Or was that where you had to really generate some momentum quickly?
Mike France Well, we had to get knowledge quickly. I mean, I had been in previous lives, you know, both the CEO of the Early Learning Center, which is our previous business, which was a, you know, quite a big toy business. So, and we had our own, we had our own manufacturing, design and manufacturing operation in Hong Kong and then into China. And prior to that, all of us had been involved in various aspects of clothing, footwear and home businesses, all of whom, all of which had manufacturing as its core. I was a buying director for a large blue chip retail business in the UK, a couple of them prior to even getting involved in toys. So we had a kind of an understanding about manufacturing, but what we didn't understand at all is the manufacturing of watches. And it was quite a shock to us to discover actually, I mean, we were introduced by people we knew. I mean, one of the benefits of coming in with a few scars on our back from other industries was that we had people who we knew who were involved previously in the watch industry. And apart from providing us with mountains of marketing data that allowed us to really get our heads around the scope of the industry circa 2004, they also introduced us to a number of manufacturers. I don't know You know the story in terms of the class of 32, as we call them. There were 32 Chinese nationals, Taiwanese and Chinese nationals, and a few Thais, I think, who were taken by the Swiss into their bosom in the mid to late 60s and taught all of the arts, dark arts of horology. These guys then went back to their, largely went back to their home countries, and some of them became very, very, very important. Several of them were also in charge of the branding for some of these major brands in Far East Asia. So we were given access, including access to first costs that you would never normally get to see because a friend who had been a member of that class of 32 introduces to his friends who had also been members of the class of 32. And because of trust, which is what all relationships ultimately depend upon, they were open with us about what was going on. That's where we discovered that actually many of the major brands, particularly in the sort of mid-sector of luxury, let's call it between the sort of £2,000 and £8,000 or $3,000 and $10,000 sector, were A, using many of the manufacturers that we were being introduced to in China, that kind of interesting. Secondly, that they were all often using exactly the same componentry. This, bear in mind, was before ETA stopped the resale of the movements into Far East Asia. So you're able to buy Swiss-made movements directly and ship them to to Asia.
Andrew Nobody was even really aware of the urgency of tightening up the ship because there was no risk of leak. And in fact, legend would have it, you can confirm or deny this, the story as I understand it is that Christopher Ward is the very first ever online only watch company.
Mike France Yes, I think that's true. certainly when we launched in June of 2005, that was the case. Um, and so the, you know, the redefining, I mean, the redefining of the business model, I mean, the internet already existed. All we did was apply it to watches, um, and accessing the, um, accessing, um, manufacture and a manufacturing base we had assumed would be difficult. It turned out not to be very difficult. Um, and you know, we set off, we made some, you know, some terrible mistakes. I mean, you have no idea how little we knew about watch manufacturing. I mean, we, I employed the first designs of our, these weren't the actual finished designs, but the design company who had been involved with our branding at ELC, a really, a really great team of people. I had never been involved in designing anything other than toys and clothes and stores. And I said, look, guys, we want a fresh look. You know, we want to approach this market in a new way. You know, we're internet only. We're the first out there to do it. You know, we've got to bring some real freshness to the ideas of what watch design looks like. And they went, yeah, fantastic. You know, let's get on with it.
Andrew So we said, right. Every designer's dream.
Mike France Every designer's dream. They created some outstanding designs, I have to say, and I've got them in a file somewhere. One day I'll put them in Loot Magazine and we'll all have a good laugh. Everybody can have a good laugh at my experiments. But what we and they hadn't quite figured is that really movement will dictate what the dial can do and look like. So they're creating the most incredibly complex dials on a watch face that they assumed we would be able to sort out. And so did I. And some of the very first conversations we were having with our manufacturers were very interesting. I think they thought we, literally, I think they might've thought we were slightly mad. And then my first idea, and I remember sitting, because we first started off, you know, doing everything, it was Swiss movement rather than Swiss made. It was 08, 07, 08, we moved to Switzerland. In one of the very first meetings we had with this watch brand, watch company, watch manufacturer, assembler in China. I'm famous for being at a flip chart. I like a flip chart. The idea was, and by the way, a few years earlier, you might remember this, you might be too young, I don't know, but I had queued up for my iPod when it was released in Hong Kong for three hours to get my iPod. I still think that was one of the greatest inventions known to man.
Andrew Quite literally revolutionary.
Mike France Yeah, I would say. It changed my life. I just thought it was the most incredible thing. It also occupied zillions of hours of loading all my CDs into it for many, many, many months.
Andrew Yeah, yeah.
Mike France All of which was then supplanted by streaming technology. But Apple had been had been one of the first to, I was buying Apple. I, that's the second iPod I bought. I bought directly online and it was shipped X China. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, that's, that's the kind of just in time supply chain that I've been used to. And that's what we discussed with our friends in China about, look, what we want is we've got an incident, this internet, this thing called the internet. We're going to be selling our watches off it. Yeah. Okay. Um, An order will come in. We will transfer that order down the line to you. You will then assemble that watch within the day. And before the end of the day, you will ship it directly to our consumer, wherever that consumer is in the world. Well, silence. I mean, I think I don't know what sort of weed they thought I'd been smoking. But they definitely wanted some. They thought we were absolutely stark raving bonkers and or British, which sometimes the two things coincide.
Andrew Yeah, maybe not. Maybe not inaccurate in either instance.
Mike France Yeah, maybe not. Maybe not. But the fact is, I still think that's a I mean, they just kind of after a few flip charts of me trying to explain how you get just in time, if Toyota can do it, with motor cars, surely you guys can do it for a little thing called a watch. Actually, actually it is an idea whose time will come and I hope that we might be the first to do it. It's also a really interesting insight into the, I believe, and it was only later that I kind of worked this through really, really interesting insight into the nature of the watch industry and the conservative approach and the the resistance to change that that industry has really exercised for so many decades. And is only now slowly, slowly beginning to evolve. And so, you know, there was no way any of this was going to happen. But then they were also sure that we would be going bust within months because no one would buy a single watch. And we had Our biggest difficulty was convincing them to give us shipping terms because they didn't think we would sell any.
Andrew But there you go. So you do eventually convince them that this is a workable business model. And in 2005, you, Christopher Ward, releases its first watch. That's a moment in time that I think a lot of people would like to have experienced and Lucky for us, we've got a guy who did experience that. You know, as they say, the rest is history. But talk us through that moment, you know, or maybe that series of moments where this thing goes from the idea of a bonkers couple of Englishmen to an actual going concern where, hey, this might work.
Mike France It was all our brilliance that really... Of course. Yeah. If only. I mean, to be honest, things were pretty slow to start with. And we began to think that people, they may have been right, that you couldn't sell watches off the internet. And then towards that very first Christmas, suddenly seeing orders from no idea at all as to why. And it was only post Christmas we discovered that what had happened is we'd taken an a single-page ad out in a British newspaper called The Independent. And a guy called Dave Malone, who lived in Tasmania, somehow got to see this copy of The Independent and our one-page ad, which was of our C5 Malvern automatic watch, which had an S2824 as its power source. And at a price that we knew was very competitive, but he turned out to be a major member of timezone.com, which back in 2005, you know, I mean, before social media just completely sort of ramped up, timezone.com was the number one place in the world for watch nerds to go and discuss watches. Yeah. And Dave was a major player in that. He was a very, very well-informed, well-regarded poster. And he bought, he saw this ad, thought that we must be clearly illegitimate, that we were lying because there was no way we could produce what effectively was the same sort of spec as let's say an IWC Portofino at the time. Right. That was selling at a less than a tenth of the cost of a Portofino. And so he bought one with the intention, understandably, to expose us as the fraudsters that we clearly were to our eternal good fortune and to his, more importantly, to his credit. And he got the watch and because he knew watches and he took the back off and he realized it was a genuine Swiss made Etta. As you can tell, there are certain markings which allow you to know this stuff if you know.
Andrew And certainly at that time, the sort of super clone industry hadn't really developed.
Mike France No, not to anywhere like it became, as you say. And so Dave Malone wrote this huge post on TimeZone saying, in his view, he uncovered the best value mechanical watch the world had ever known. We had no idea. I didn't even know, we didn't even know time zone existed. I mean, that's how naive we were. And of course, because Dave was a well-regarded guy, a few other people started to go, well, if Dave thinks it's the best value, I'm going to have one of them. So people started all over the world buying Malvern automatics. Apparently, and we only found this out later, apparently this fledgling tiny little watch brand with idiots like me in charge of it who knew nothing really about the watch industry back in 2005 was being talked about on the world's largest watch forum more than Rolex was in the run up to Christmas 2005. It's just bizarre. the order started to tick up. And then there's a guy who, um, the, the, the, the guy who owned time zone turned out to be a chap called Michael Sandler and Michael. And we became good, good Jones later on. But at this point he thought we were paying people to write. And of course, what then as other people bought, bought our watches and they were posting fantastic things about the thing, mushroom and, um, Michael, Michael again, reasonably, it seems to be, because he'd never heard of us. Assume we were paying these people. It's called shilling in the internet world. It's a poker term, isn't it? To shill is to have somebody in the poker game who's frauding you, essentially. I mean, we didn't even know time zone existed. And it wasn't until a chap called Hans van Hoogstraten, a Dutch chap, you'll be quick to discern. contacted us. Michael had thrown him off TimeZone, along with a whole host of other people, because they kept posting these positive things about this bloody brand called Christopher Ward, who was obviously paying people. Out! Out! Off! Off! Do not darken our TimeZone doorstep again. So one of them, Hans, was so frustrated and so infuriated by this, in fairness to him, he rang us up and said, look guys, I've I've just been thrown off time zone for saying nice things about you and your watch. And we went, what? Time zone, who? And that's where we started piecing it together. And Hans said, the reason I'm ringing is, would you mind if I set up a forum about Christopher Ward? Because there are a lot of disaffected time zoners who think what you're doing is really interesting. And we'd like to set up a forum to discuss it. Well, what? Are you sure? I said, you know, well, yes. I mean, we said we said, well, look, you know, the only the only way we'll do this is if it's truly independent. You know, you must run it. We will not influence at all. But by all means, anyway, I mean, not thinking would last more than a week or two weeks at most. It's still going. It has thousands and thousands of members. It has been And they're also, we know about 10 years later, Hans, understandably again, had had quite enough of running this forum and financing it himself. And he wanted to go on and do other stuff. And so he said, look, would you like to buy it off us? And we said, well, yeah, we'll fund it. But we don't want any editorial involvement. And have you got a team that you can... a guy called Kit McEwen, who had been a follower of ours for many years and a big poster on the forum, took over the moderating of the forum, and it's gone from strength to strength ever since. And so, as I say, luck plays a huge part in anybody's success, if they're honest, and we had more than our fair share of luck with that episode, I think.
Everett It's such a cool story of a watch brand entirely on the internet, entirely spread by the internet. I mean, this is the first watch story like that. And that led a lot of momentum to a lot more releases, like really fast. Talk to us about the new iterations of watches, the new families that you are bringing to the front and all of this momentum that you're generating with that.
Andrew In the present day, you mean? Well, yeah, you know, looking at this last 18 months or so, it's been an extremely interesting, you know, in terms of products and manufacturing, a lot of companies have sort of receded into themselves. And I think certainly in watches, we've seen shipping delays, China, essentially stopping. But you guys, in the last 18 months, even less than that, have been banging them out. You know, we've got April 2020, C60 Sapphire. We've got August 2020, the wonderful C65 Super Compressor, which I've spotted on your wrist. We've got October, the C65 Chronograph, which I think is an extremely under, maybe not underrated, but under-discussed release. And then obviously... Couldn't agree more. Now we've got these wonderful Sealanders, one of which we've got in front of us that Andrew purchased because he just was enamored. So talk to us about how that decision was made. I assume some of that decision was made before we knew, but you guys have continued to crank them out.
Mike France Yeah. I suppose the genesis of these releases in some ways was a good five years earlier. six years earlier when we appointed a very important person into our business, a young designer called Adrian Bookman, a Swiss designer. He decided he wanted to leave Switzerland because his new wife, her family lived in the UK and he He wrote to me saying he liked the cut of our jib. And this is a guy who'd been working on lots of very famous brands. Because I don't think everybody quite necessarily understands that many of the big brands that we all know and love, they often employ external designers. And often those external designers are only employed to do aspects of a watch. So one designer might be asked to produce the crown. Another will be asked to produce the facets of the dial, etc. It's quite interesting the way it kind of works. But we'd always had design in-house. because we felt that that was intrinsic to what we were about as a brand. When Adrian became available, we snaffled him up and set about rethinking how we could create really distinctive Christopher Ward designs that would stand the test of time. that whilst even if they were reflecting trends within the industry, because it's almost impossible not to reflect some of the important trends in the industry, particularly if you're wanting to be commercially successful. Where would the watch industry be without Rolex? Let's be honest. So many won't admit it. It frustrates the hell out of me. And what we're not talking about here is slavish copying, but we are talking about sensitive, empathetic translation. When we took on Adrian, we had one of the, and I think he is one of the best and brightest stars of watch design in the industry. We had the opportunity to reimagine our entire collection. In watches, that takes time. And I remember saying to a journalist about three and a half years ago, look, you know, judge us, please, in another three to four years, because that's how long it's going to be before we get the sort of collection together that I think can really separate us from others and really do credit to the work and the efforts that so many people in our business put in. And that combined with fashion background that says we like newness and we like pace, which is not necessarily typical in the watch industry, has led to what seems like a flurry of releases. But many of these have their genesis, as I say, quite a while ago.
Andrew Well, I don't think we can do all these, all these, you know, we listed on four, four releases. Uh, I don't think we can do them all justice, but, but I'd be remiss if we didn't talk about some of them. Cause I think some of these releases are pretty stinking special. Um, you know, starting from me with the C 65 super compressor, I was, it, it really occurred to me that you guys have, have. Really dedicated yourself to doing something special here. And actually, let me back up because not to be effusive, although you're here, so I'll blow some smoke in any event. But, you know, looking back a few years, you know, when you when Christopher Ward introduces the light light catcher case, and we actually have all sorts of nicknames on the show for that. But I won't bore you with that. You know, it, it instantly occurred to me like in terms of design and in terms of your desire to really carve out a space for Christopher Ward in this watch world that's more like something like a Rolex or more like even Seiko, where when I think of an IWC watch, I don't necessarily think of design. I think of quality watches, but I'm not thinking about design. I think you guys have sort of focused in on an actual design space in the industry. And then, you know, last year you introduced this super compressor, which is obviously an older design, you know, classic retro inspired looks, but you're doing something else here. And I think you're doing something a little risky with that watch. Maybe not even a little risky, maybe a lot risky. So talk us through that watch because it's so incredible.
Mike France um anachronistic probably purposefully so but really incredible um well thank thank you and um the guys will um will really appreciate genuinely really appreciate your analysis because um they do work um very hard to create something of real value that is different and so when people like you who are familiar with watches, you live and breathe watches, when you see something that you believe is recognizably different, genuinely it has a major impact because that's what we try to do. As far as the supercompressor is concerned, it's part of the same story but it's different in the sense that, the same because If you're restless as an individual, and I'm guessing you guys probably are as well, then you're always looking to push yourself, to push boundaries, to do something different, to take risks. Life without risk is a pretty dull life in many ways. And as long as you can succeed more than you fail in life generally, as long as you make more good decisions than poor decisions generally, you're probably going to be okay.
Andrew It's like the game of golf, right? As long as you have more pars and birdies than you have bogeys, you're going to be OK.
Mike France But, you know, you can and if it's match play, you can still have a stinker. You can still take 13 on it and still win. Yeah. And in a way, in a way, that's that's kind of one of the philosophies that we try to bring to watch design within the business. So it was actually inspired by a customer. um, who wrote, send me an email that he bought it. He was, he had, I think he owned about half a dozen Chris Ford watches and he was, you know, eulogizing about the watch, which was lovely. But he then threw in, um, a little aside, which sort of captured our attention, which was, um, you know, wouldn't it be great if somebody could literally, um, bring back to the market a true super compressor.
Andrew Now, now, now, now talk to us about that. Cause You're saying a thing, and we know that this to be the case, but I'm not sure everybody understands that principle, that concept, that everybody knows what a super compressor case is. Everybody knows EPSA story, maybe not everybody, but many, many people do. This is different. This is a true super compressor, and that's an important distinction.
Mike France It is. I mean, like many things, a number of people have coerced the name super compressor. I mean, you can, you can search and you can find many watches, current watches from some pretty big brands who describe their watches as super compressors. For some people, it even means it's got two crowns.
Andrew Yeah, that's right.
Mike France Um, um, you know, but, but actually, um, that that's nothing to do with a super compressor. The super compressor was, was originally, um, developed by a Swiss brand back in the fifties, 54. And if we take ourselves back into those early days of sub-aqua diving, actually, you know, a watch, before computers, you know, a watch was really important. But because the tolerances of watches were pretty poor in those days, therefore, you know, as you dived, the watches would often go kaput. They would either implode or they'd stop working. Water ingress was a major problem. Gaskets were of a poor quality. So the people who created the super compressor decided that for a true professional diver, they needed to come up with a solution which mitigated that problem. And the solution that was available at the time, when it wasn't available, they created it, that could cope with the poor tolerances of watch case manufacturer particularly at the time and the poor quality of gaskets was to create the super compressor which is essentially a spring that lives inside the case back and it works in the way the opposite way to that which many people think so what it does the spring activates as as the case as the diver dives the case the pressure pushes the case in yeah but then the spring the really clever bit The spring then pushes back against that descending case and compresses it against the gasket, creating a much more watertight seal.
Andrew Instead of brute force, they're, they're using the lever action similar, similar to what Vostok was doing at the same time.
Mike France Absolutely. I mean, and, and very sort of, um, you know, very counterintuitive, really smart engineering. The guy came up with it really smart and, complex to do. They then were selling these designs into 50, 100 brands. They had their own watches, but the thing that distinguished them more than anything else was they used to put a small diving helmet onto the back of the case back, and that was the thing that distinguished them from all of the others. But it became common practice. In 1974, it ended. And since 74, nobody, because tolerance has improved, nobody needs a super compressor to dive with now.
Andrew Machining tolerances are so much better that we just don't need that.
Mike France Exactly. And therefore we decided to bring it back to life and to be true to that brilliant invention.
Everett And so while you're doing this, you're, you're, you're hearkening back to OG technology development. You're also dropping really new stuff. And we really want to touch on the C63 line. What's the thinking on a new family with three siblings?
Mike France Yeah, that's a nice way of putting it, actually. Again, when we analyzed the collection a while back, we thought we identified a gap. One of the things we were working on at that time was an integrated watch design. And we will come back to integrated at some point in the future. But we couldn't quite get something that we all were really happy with that really did something new in that space. But we knew that bracelets were, because I think of the integrated design and of course because of you know, Explorer, Explorer 2, et cetera. Bracelets were really on trend. But we hadn't got this sort of sports adventure watch, this sort of go anywhere, do everything sort of watch, which we felt was a gap in the collection. How could we then fill that gap? The truth is we didn't think there is one watch that could go anywhere, do everything necessarily. And I still don't think that's necessary. It's a good, it's a good marketing ploy, isn't it? But is it, is it, is it, is it, is it really, really, really true? I don't think so. We'd be out of business, by the way, if everybody only has one watch. But the, but the principle, but the principle of it is, is a collection that covers all of those bases. And each of those watches has something different, unique that does represent that sort of sense of, I can wear this watch in almost any situation, albeit it has different relevancies depending on the situation you find yourself in. So the top end, you've got the Elite, which has a retractable crown, is titanium, is a sports watch par excellence in my view. And anybody who's a cyclist, and I am, will really understand how wonderful a watch this is for cyclists. It stops that dreadful imprint at the back of your hand when you're cycling.
Andrew And a chronometer grade. Right.
Mike France And I mean, let's just pile it all in there.
Andrew I mean, this is really maybe more so than any other watch in your catalog. This is a truly premium piece of equipment, right?
Mike France Um, I would, I would concur with that. I mean, I think there, um, I think there are other watches that, um, um, people sometimes forget, but our JJ calibers are calibre SH21 watches. Right. I mean, take a look, for instance, at our, um, at our, um, Moonglow watch and the JJ01, sorry, the JJ04 calibre that is inside that. That alone is a huge, huge, huge, step that a brand our size shouldn't be taking, you know, um, to create one, one of, if not the only perpetual moon phase that's ever been constructed is, is, is, is, you know, is, is not a small thing. It's accurate to 128 years. It will take provided it's kept well. And if it's not, and if, and if after 125 years you find it to be an accurate, I'll honestly give you your money. Um, so,
Andrew No, no inflation on that, right?
Mike France No, no, no. Sons inflation. Thank you. It'll be in the small print somewhere.
Andrew I'm an attorney, so I just want to be honest here.
Mike France Absolutely. So, you know, so I don't necessarily agree. It's the most advanced technological thing we've ever done. Having said that, the working through particularly the the construction of the retractable crown had its own special challenges. And, you know, we've only found, I think, a couple of other brands that have ever done it. The most famous is possibly Omega with their ultralight version, but that retails at, you $40,000 plus. That's right.
Andrew Um, yeah, this is, these are watches that from a Swiss, uh, from a Swiss sort of, uh, grandpa brand, as it were, are going to cost you, you know, uh, Porsche prices.
Mike France Yeah, absolutely. And we're currently working on our second watch with a, which is, you know, still going to be similar to the, um, the Sealander Elite, but, um, a different interpretation, which will be coming out in the sort of end of October, early November. And honestly, I see legs in this idea, retractable crown, how far it goes. Not sure yet, but it's something I think is really interesting. It gives a completely different sense when wearing a watch with a retractable crown. that symmetry, that perfect roundness gives a different sort of pleasure and aesthetic, as well as being incredibly comfortable. So I think it's something that I think has legs beyond one or two watches, but we'll see.
Andrew We'll see. So in addition to obviously the top grade, the elite range, right, you've also got a GMT, which is which is lovely and gorgeous. And then I think you've got sort of an everyman watch in the automatic. Yeah. Are you purposefully giving, you know, creating an option for, you know, different price points? Or is that just a byproduct of the watches that you wanted to be able to release in this family?
Mike France No, you're right. First time we're looking, we think it's really important that We remain in touch and give people who are entering the world of watches, particularly, the possibility of acquiring an entry point into fine watches. And, you know, I think £1,000 is a lot of money for a watch. It is, absolutely, yeah. You know, I think £500 is a lot of money for a watch. We never take this for granted. The fact that our pricing has evolved is largely down to demand. want us to continue to give more and more. Nothing's changed in terms of our pricing model. We still very simply multiply the cost price to us by 3. And in some cases, believe it or not, our more expensive watches, we possibly bring those down below 3. And so arguably, the best value watches we have are some of the more expensive. But there was always a danger that as we move away from and towards more complex watches, that we forget about people coming into watches and find mechanical watches. So it was absolutely a criteria for the Sealander that we had an entry level that still had no compromises in terms of its quality, but was able to retail at a price that not everybody, because again, I don't think it's a cheap watch. Nothing we do is cheap. but it is accessible for a large majority of people. And it gets them into the sort of watchmaking that we all love. And honestly, and this is where I would, I'll fly the flag for us. I don't think anybody, there are plenty of watches around that price, but if somebody, and I've said this several times, if somebody can bring to our attention and my attention a watch that is of equivalent quality at that price, with the same sort of attention to detail that we pour into our watches, I will give them a free watch. I've made that point several times now and nobody has taken me up on it. I believe, pound for pound, our watches give you more because of the attention and the quality and the manufacturing expertise that we bring to bear on our watches. We could go and take our watches to what I call jungle factories. Many brands, many cheap brands use jungle factories. By that I mean cheap factories where the highest standards of equipment are not used, the highest standards of employment are not necessarily used. You and I both know you can find cheaper factories in any sector of any industry anywhere in the world. We don't do that. We go to the best available. And so you're building in uncompromising quality into our watches. That is not true. And it's not true of many micro brands, I have to say.
Andrew Yeah. Yeah. Well, we talked a little bit about the democratization of watches and you talked about how when you guys started, the margins were really out of control in general watchmaking. I think in the micro brand world, at least, We've almost seen a reversal of that fortune where we've now got maybe the opposite problem where the expectation of the enthusiast is that, you know, we know, we know that many of these manufacturers are making very small margins, sometimes almost non-existent margins, which, which is not good for business, uh, ultimately. Uh, but there's an expectation, a consumer expectation that comes with that. And, and I think that your point is a good one, right? all watches are created with the same level of sustainability or just responsible business practices, responsible business practices, but that extends beyond the profits of the manufacturer, right? That life of the people doing the labor, um, the full meal deal.
Mike France Yeah, I completely agree. And, and whilst I'm, you know, I'm always obviously going to be somebody who wants to fan the flames of, uh, of micro brands, but they have to be micro brands that are doing it in the right way for the right reasons. And I fear too many at the moment aren't. And the barriers to entry into watches are so low in some cases that they outsource everything. It's a turnkey operation, like everything. And I'm not entirely comfortable with that direction that the industry is going in, frankly.
Everett And yeah, there's a risk there, because what it does is it creates... because there's good quality watches available on the market for next to nothing. There is a saturation at the $400 to $600 price point where some are great, some are okay, and many are bad. And it brings a little bit of devaluation to a watch like yours. And so I have the C63 Automatic. And when I saw the first pictures of it, I was like, whew, I'm buying that watch. And I think the day it dropped, I submitted my order. There is such a noticeable difference between this watch and a $500 watch. In many instances, right? Not in every instance. And even at similar price point watches that I've handled, that I've been around, this stands out in a way that comes from superior manufacturing processes. And it's so noticeable.
Mike France I mean, there are good watches. the lower price points. But if I say to you that there are very few really high quality case manufacturers in the world these days, certainly very few outside of Switzerland. Most of the cases that are produced for most of those brands that are in that sort of mid luxury segment that I talked about, Most of them are produced in China. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Tudor, China. Yeah. Right. I've never heard them. I've never heard it expressed, but it's true. We know it to be true. Yeah. Yeah. But they themselves go to the very, very, very best manufacturers.
Unknown Yeah.
Mike France Yeah. And guess what? You know, that's where One of the big advantages we've got is our operation in Switzerland. And my partner in crime, who's been in this industry for nigh on 40 years, who has established relationships with the major manufacturers and was able to, and through his relationships, if you like, we were able over time to graduate into class one factories. That wouldn't have been the case back in 2008.
Andrew So I'd like to talk about one more thing here before we sort of start wrapping it up. But I know that Christopher Ward was a huge part of introducing this alliance of British watch and clockmakers. You know, we think about watch industries, global watch industries or maybe national watch industries. Obviously, the Swiss watchmaking industry is very, very famous. We've got Japanese watchmaking industry, which is, you know, maybe one or two German, The U.S., which died and then maybe looks like it's starting to come back. Certainly Chinese watchmaking industry, which maybe struggles to have an identity in and of itself. I think that what we're seeing right now, not necessarily that it ever went away, but a resurgence. I know you guys just signed your 60th maker. which is just a tremendous deal. What is it about, what is the features of the British watch industry? What makes a watchmaker British? Beyond being based in Great Britain.
Mike France That's an important criteria. It has to be said that they need to be, they don't need to manufacture necessarily in Great Britain. Indeed, Very, very few watches are manufactured in Great Britain. We hope that will change, but that's going to be a generation, two generations. Nobody's naive enough to think that's going to happen quickly. But why wouldn't I want a first class case at the end of the road that our offices in Maidenhead, if I could find it and they could produce me top quality cases at the price that I wanted to buy? I mean, that's just obvious, but that's going to take a lot of work. I think one of the distinguishing things, and this is not just about British watchmaking but it incorporates British watchmaking, and Roger Smith and I have discovered this during the journey that we've been on founding the Alliance of British Watch and Clockmakers, is a bit like Formula One. The Brits have always been great engineers and they've always been innovative They've always been innovators. Um, sometimes we're not the best at turning those innovations into industrialized success, right? Um, you guys a bit better than we are at that. Um, and certainly in, in, in watchmaking, the Swiss turned out to be even better than you guys. Um, but what I do think that, um, that, uh, the Brits do have is a kind of a, uh, a psyche that says they will take some risks, they are entrepreneurial, they are innovative. And I think we can bring the industry in this country, if it takes on board some of the things that the Formula One industry has developed in this country, can be a leader again of innovation in watchmaking. And we shouldn't forget that the biggest innovation in my humble view over the last 200 years in watchmaking was created by a Brit, George Daniels. He's the greatest Brit of the last 100 years that nobody's ever heard of. His invention of the coaxial escapement is absolutely astonishing. And Roger Smith has now taken that on to an even greater level of sophistication. And Roger himself, produces what, 13 or so watches a year, all of an unbelievable quality, but also of high innovation, even though they are classical in design. Roger himself is working with the Manchester Institute of Technology at the moment on a nanotechnology that has the capacity to completely and utterly transform our industry. It's the enemy. Nanotechnology will get rid of lubrication, potentially, in watches. And he's working on that as we sit and talk here. And it's got real possibilities. And that's not come from Switzerland. That's not come from anywhere else. That's come from the UK. And that's the sort of thing I think the UK can bring to the party. It doesn't matter to me that it becomes the biggest. I just think we need to be really the smartest
Andrew That's wonderful. And I think that Christopher Ward is really a huge part, not just administratively, but I think just in terms of the spirit of British watchmaking, a huge part of that. So that's wonderful.
Mike France Well, it's very kind of you. We're a small part. I mean, there's many other people who are who are really pushing just as hard.
Andrew So, you know, our listeners, it's very time, but our listeners will be quick to point out that bullshit. And I. Oh, God. Well, this is the time of the show. We've gone probably just a touch longer than we intended to, and that's OK. This is the time of the show where we're going to transition to other things. Uh, and, and as we're wanting to do by tradition, I'm going to start with my good friend, Andrew here. Andrew, other things. What do you got?
Everett It is another thing. And I'm, I'm going to talk about a tool that I've had for a while and have been able to use quite a bit. And this is, yeah. And this is like, I don't know, a 30. You're not talking about me. Yeah, no, I'm talking about Everett.
Andrew This is my good friend Everett.
Everett Um, no, I'm going to do about a 90 day lot of use. Just come back to a, Porter Cable Benchtop Jointer. Oh yeah. We've heard about this before. It's the PC160JT. And a lot of the reviews say, Oh, you know, I ran a couple of pieces of lumber through it and it stopped working. Oh, the, the bed got grooves in it and now it's not level. And for mine, and in fairness, this is a mass produced thing, but what I can say is that it is still running strong, cutting straight, cutting smooth. I've run many, many pieces of lumber through it. with absolutely no issues. It's still available on Amazon, ships right to your front door. And if you're looking for a benchtop jointer, I'm, I'm pleased to report that this thing is still running strong, still doing what it needs to do. Partner it well with a planer, but it's, it's still, still running along and kicking.
Andrew And you've built, you've built big pieces of furniture.
Everett Not a small amount of things. I've done a, I did a full butcher block, a seven foot long, four-ish, just shy of four foot wide butcher block table. So it's, it's had a lot of lumber put through it. Yeah. You've put it through its paces. I have. And then, and then plenty of small things. I mean, you know, in the way of frames and other, you know, smaller furniture, but.
Andrew And Porter Cable is one of these companies that's known for affordable, but certainly, you know, lower end quality, quality control standards, uh, in your estimation.
Everett For a benchtop, I think this is probably the best option in, in the way of, of benchtop jointers. Because the right choice is obviously to get a full-size, you know, commercial quality. But if you, like us, have, you know, a corner of your garage that you're allowed to use for this practice, this benchtop is great. It's not so great when you're working on eight-foot sections. Just balancing. You really need a friend to help, but... And what's the price on this? It is three... It's on the Amazon for $369. Okay.
Andrew So not cheap. This is not a cheap tool, but this... No.
Everett Oh, $359. But it's not cheap, absolutely. but it is about on par with any other lower quality tool brand that you're going to find.
Andrew Now you've used big joiners before. What are you looking at in terms of trade-offs for the price?
Everett It's a benchtop. I mean, it's the smaller version of the tool that you need. Yeah. Which for people like us, you need the small version. I would love to have a CNC machine to do all my cutting for me, but I just don't. I just don't have that capacity to do it. When you're looking to build out a small, a shop where you can build and do anything out of your garage, you need benchtop tools. You know, I have a benchtop, uh, drill press in lieu of a standup and the limitation is that it's a benchtop.
Andrew Yeah. In practice though, it doesn't seem like that's been a huge limitation to your being able to build giant ass tables.
Everett You just have to find a way. Table will find a way much like life.
Andrew All right, good. Porter cable. Yeah. Bringing the heat. Yeah. I've got another thing. Do it. So I, I think have talked about coffee on this show a number of times, although we're, we're usually talking about beer or seltzer. Uh, but in honor of our, uh, in honor of our guest from England and our early morning recording time, I'm going to talk about some coffee, uh, implements this, this morning. So as you know, uh, or, or maybe no, I've got a very fantastic drip coffee maker, which is what I drink most of the time. I've got an espresso machine, a Breville, uh, espresso machine, which I love. Not a cheap purchase, but has been something we've used a lot. Buy a nice not twice. We have, my wife and I have recently, so entering into summer, have been drinking cold brew, cold brew a lot. And cold brew is not a complicated thing to make. It's also not just cold coffee. It is not. No, it is not. It's coffee that's brewed typically at a concentrated level of extraction. Uh, sort of like espresso would be, uh, you know, these things are used in, you know, all sorts of Dutch brothers or Starbucks drinks. They use a cold brew. It's a slow extraction. Uh, so you get a little bit different flavors, you know, you don't get a real acidic brew. Instead, what you get is this really rich, uh, comfortable, non-acidic smooth, I'd say. concentrate that you can drink in any number of ways. But the one I've been using is a Tati. This is an incredibly old design, virtually unchanged, and the name of that company is T-O-D-D-Y. I know a lot of people that do the same thing as a Tati, because essentially what it is, is you take this carafe and you put a, it's got a hole in the bottom, you put a plug in the hole, drop a little cloth filter in, add 12 ounces of coffee and seven cups of water. Uh, and you just let it sit for 12 to 24 hours. Uh, I absolutely love this machine. It works. It's not a machine, right? It's just a plastic. It's like a, it's like a teapot that's set on top teapot takes about 12 hours. So you can do it, you know, as long as you do it early enough in the afternoon, five o'clock, six o'clock, you wake up in the morning, you pull the cap and that, The reason I love this thing, so Kim uses this for what I would call cold brew drinks, right? She'll add some half and half or some whipping cream, some sugar-free syrup, and it makes a really yummy, sweet summer drink. I found, I didn't have enough time to make a full pot of coffee, this has been about a month ago, and so I thought, well, I've got this cold brew, and so I took you know, probably one to two parts, maybe one to three parts cold brew to water. And I just cut it and I zapped it in the microwave for, I think, you know, 85, 90 seconds, something like that. Thinking, well, this will do the trick. I just need to get some, I just need to get some hot coffee in me. I zap it. It is one of the best cups of coffee I've ever had. You think about, you know, you don't get all the same sort of flavonoids you know, aromatics, right? But in terms of drinkability, absolutely stunned. And some days I could make a pot of coffee and I don't because I really want that flavor. So I'm going to make a recommendation that you buy a toddy. They're like 18 bucks. Go buy some, some darker, medium, dark roast espresso beans and make a batch and try it out. If you, if you are one of those people who wants a single serve of coffee, occasionally, man, this stuff stores in the fridge for two weeks.
Everett Don't drink it like regular coffee, though. You will have a bad day.
Andrew Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it is a concentrate. So that's my other thing. Mr. France. I know you've got one.
Mike France We've talked about this. I feel completely inadequate against those two amazing suggestions.
Andrew No, you know, not at all. Most weeks we do a Netflix show because we're lazy.
Mike France So yeah, I think the thing I've got is a book. But to me, it's a very special book. It's called Small is Beautiful by a German-British economist, philosopher, 1974. It was the book that was given to me by my economics master at my school, who suggested that I read this to prepare for my Oxbridge examination. I failed to get into Oxford, so it didn't help there. It's become one of the guiding principles through my life. It's subtitled, A Study of Economics as if People Matter. And Schumacher, Fritz, he was known as, was a really interesting chap who left Germany in the mid-30s. He was absolutely anti-Nazi, came over to the UK. ended up being, during the war, being put into a camp because anybody with a German accent was considered to be a spy.
Unknown Yeah.
Mike France For good reason. But despite that, he developed a love for Britain. He was a great intellectual of his time. He managed to become a Rhodes Scholar to Oxford University to study economics. His life was devoted ultimately to trying to find an alternative route for society to live by. He was one of the very first people, and it's in this book, Small is Beautiful, who identified that fossil fuels, if we continue to burn them at the rate we were burning them, this is well before it became such a political hot potato. would lead to global warming like we would never know, and in effect, in doing so, led to an uncivilised society. He was one of the very first exponents of sustainable energy. I've read it and re-read it several times since 1974, and I most recently re-read it because we are working with the Blue Marine Foundation on a number of issues. It's only just beginning to become aware, I think, that the ocean, unless we start protecting it, is no longer going to be the sort of carbon sink that it's been all of the time thus far. This guy, Schumacher, was way ahead of his time. And when I reread this book, It seems as prescient and important today as it was to a very young, raw 18-year-old. It still has the same sort of impact on me now. It's still available through Amazon. It costs you less than $10. Honestly, everybody who was at the G7 over this last weekend in the UK and everybody who's going to attend COP26 in Glasgow in November could do a lot worse than reading this book. And one of the lines from it which I think is relevant to the world we live in, and also watchmaking, is that wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology toward the organic, the gentle, the elegant, and beautiful. And I can't think of a better way for us to live and work than that, really.
Andrew That's totally lovely. So that's my recommendation. Well, this is the time of the show where we oftentimes ask our guests to sort of tell the people where they can be found. In this instance, I'm just going to do the work for you because I think everybody at home is keenly aware. ChristopherWard.com, obviously. But do navigate yourself to the website because a lot of new releases, a lot of really interesting stuff. And to the extent that you want to track these guys on social media, you will have no trouble finding them there as well. Mike, thank you so much for joining us. This has really been an absolute wonderful opportunity for us. I'm so happy that you were able to come on.
Mike France Thank you for inviting me. I mean, what you guys do in helping all of us who are interested in watches continue that enthusiasm through the work that you do is really appreciated. So it's been a real pleasure talking with you.
Everett We loved it.
Andrew Loved it. Andrew, what else do you got, man? I'm out of things. You're out of things? Well, thank you guys for joining us for this episode of 40 in 20, the Watch Clicker podcast. Uh, thank you, Mr. France. Thank you, Andrew, for being here. It's my house. You look lovely as usual. Don't forget to tune back in next Thursday for another hour of watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Bye-bye.