Episode 182 - Talking Aquitaine, with Mike France of Christopher Ward

Published on Thu, 21 Apr 2022 05:00:00 -0700

Synopsis

This podcast episode features a discussion with Mike France, the CEO and co-founder of Christopher Ward, about the brand's latest watch release - the C65 Aquitaine. The conversation covers the design inspiration and intricate details of the Aquitaine, including its sapphire bezel, domed crystal, tapered bracelet, and the brand's move towards using only the "twin flags" logo. Mike also shares insights into Christopher Ward's approach to design, engineering, and maintaining a balance between following industry trends and pushing boundaries. The episode also touches on the impact of the pandemic on the watch industry, the recent Watches and Wonders event, and a touching story about a limited edition watch benefiting Ukrainian refugees.

Transcript

Speaker
Andrew Hello fellow watch lovers, nerds, enthusiasts, or however you identify. You're listening to 40 and 20, the Watch Clicker podcast with your host, Andrew. I'm a good friend, Everett. Here, we talk about watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Everett, how are you? You know, I'm great.
Everett Uh, timing's a little weird. It feels like we're in the future, but also we're kind of in the past. Yeah, we're in a time warp. Yeah. So we are, we're talking about a thing that we mentioned last week, which is embargoed. and you're not allowed to know about it, but we get to talk about it, now we just can't tell you, we just can't let you hear it till later. Earlier, yeah. It feels a little, it feels a little scandalous that we're going to talk about embargoed things. It is. It is, it's pure scandal. This is really dangerous, the things we're doing here.
Andrew We are always playing a dangerous game. It's very much like Back to the Future is what we're doing. We're just going, we're back and forth and adjusting things to benefit ourselves.
Everett But yeah, I'm really good. It's a little bit later than our normal recording time, just a smidge. I had a long workday, so I'm getting just a little bit, but the edges are getting fuzzy. Yeah, the edges are getting fuzzy. Uh, Andrew, which I think should make for a fun episode.
Andrew I am running the risk of going into my nighttime routine, uh, where like, I'm usually pretty sleepy even when I'm working until that midnight that I'm midnight at power on. which is not great because it is just after midnight, so I might be powered on for the balance of the night. But that's okay, I'll just be up and hopefully some of what I'm drinking will help.
Everett Your circadian rhythms are... I'm fired up, man.
Andrew This is my, this is when I live. The sun's gone, it's cold. This is my element.
Everett You know, I just popped a caffeine gum, so I'm good for a solid 90 minutes starting now. I'm actually getting a little hyped up. I can feel my
Andrew Let's let's do it. Let's let's not waste any more time because we have the absolute pleasure of being joined by the one and only CEO and co-founder of Christopher Ward, Mike France, who I don't know if you got tricked. You weren't told who you were meeting with, or you like this enough to be willing to come back. I'm going to lean towards the latter, and you don't have to feel obligated to correct me. But welcome back, Mr. Mike France.
Mike France Thank you, guys. I feel like I'm living life in the fast lane view. You are at midnight.
Everett Just caffeine gum and crazy nights.
Mike France It's crazy stuff. So, yeah, but I'm Eight hours ahead, it seems. So I've just had my Cheerios and I'm feeling fine.
Andrew That's a good way to start the day. Some Cheerios and a glass of water. I mean, that's... And you get to delay going into the office.
Mike France Exactly right. Exactly right. All is good.
Everett So operations at Christopher Ward, sort of as we are in a post-lockdown world, What's your day-to-day like these days? Are you in the office? Is your workforce in the office? What's the day-to-day at Christopher Ward look like right now?
Mike France Like many businesses, Everett, we're operating on a hybrid basis at the moment. So for those people who are able to do some of their work from home, we're allowing them to work from home for two days a week, three days in the office, Um, and, um, it seems to be working reasonably well at the moment. I mean, I have a sense, I don't know if you guys have, but I have a sense that, um, whilst everybody assumed, um, during COVID that the, the working rhythms were going to be changed forevermore. I have a sort of a sneaking suspicion that there's a sort of a drift back, uh, to more like we had, uh, pre 2020. And I wouldn't be at all surprised that in two, three, four years, we're pretty much where we were. But at the moment, I think it suits everybody and it suits us, certainly, that we have this sort of on for two or on for three, off for two rhythm to our business. And what is very clear is that some people, including me, by the way, really benefit from having some quiet time. And I think it can lead to some more thoughtfulness, which is to be applauded. So I'm rather hoping that it doesn't revert back to exactly the way it was. But I do have my suspicions that that may well happen in time.
Andrew I think you're right on. I think from what I've seen, and I never got to work from home. I just didn't have a, I don't have a job that I could do that, but my wife did pure work from home and has done a hybrid and it seems like she is far more productive when she's at home and schools are open. That's the, that's the big and right there when the kids are gone, she's far more productive because I remember working in offices and how much time I wasted not working and just hanging out with my coworkers. And that that quiet time, that thoughtfulness, I think I think there's a lot of value in that. And I hope that I mean, I appreciate that you're seeing that as as the leader of an organization and recognizing the value that comes from that.
Mike France And I think I'll tell you, I'll tell you one of one of the things that occurred to me that we might talk about. I've no idea, by the way, but we might talk about. But one of the things I thought we might talk about is watches and wonders. Which is obviously I didn't go to. clearly not invited. But like everybody else, I've drowned myself in the launches and the detail and the gossip that's come out of it. And I have to say that I think it was one of the better shows in that it produced a raft of more interesting watchers than I think has necessarily been the case for some time. And I was thinking about why this might be so. And I do think that what it might be to some extent about is that for the last two years, I'm starved of these sorts of fairs and shows and with the changing pattern of life. I think watch designers, watch developers, watch manufacturers have had a little more time to consider. And I think A lot of the watches that came out showed a more considered side than sometimes the freneticism that we see of these regular sort of watch furs and shows. And I hope it remains that way. I'm not so sure it will. But I do think that one of the upsides potentially of the last couple of years of lockdowns and all that is that as far as the watch industry is concerned, it's given a little more space for people to think about what they're doing and why they're doing what they're doing. And it may be that one of the fruits of that was indeed Watchers and Wonders. Just a thought.
Everett Yeah, no, I think it's right on. I think your observation, at least, you know, as you think through it logically, tracks really well, right? We've had this kind of two-year sort of dearth of watch show. And so I think that there was some industry excitement about this is our first chance to really drop some mics in this setting, in this context. And so I think that there was some hype for it, but I think a couple of things culminated. One of those being, as you mentioned, the thoughtfulness, right? I think these companies have had some time to sort of make good on promises of three years past in a more methodical way than they normally do in the normal work, in the normal cycle. But also I think that there's maybe a maybe an increased level of thoughtfulness of watches right now. I think the enthusiast, uh, has more say in the day to day watch brands business than they did two and a half, three years ago. You know, we were starting to see in 2020 we were starting to see the big brands making what I would call enthusiast watches, uh, where they really hadn't before. Um, And we're seeing it increasingly, you know, that was the thing about 2021 that we marveled at many times was, you know, companies like Bolivar Tissot, Tissot is the big one actually that comes to mind, you know, Tissot is like hitting home runs in particular the PRX, but just the way they're making watches that seem like they're made for watch people in a way that they weren't before. I think those two things are crashing in a cool way. You know the exception being Rolex, right?
Andrew Who shows up to Watches and Wonders and just like... You've seen this before and you still like it. Look at this thing I did.
Everett Left hand drive. A lefty.
Mike France Let's rock the boat with a lefty.
Andrew It's a full 180.
Everett So, I mean, that's something to be said. We're still going to talk about it because it's Rolex, right?
Mike France Of course, of course. We all understand. And you won't be able to buy it anyway.
Andrew No.
Mike France You can only talk about it.
Andrew I'll never even see one in person. I think I can go a decade before I could even.
Mike France I don't think they'll ever make one.
Andrew We wouldn't know any different. It's backordered. Yeah, that's all it is.
Everett The real conspiracy Rolex doesn't exist. Whoa. Yeah.
Andrew There's something there. They stopped producing in 1994. So, um, well, I mean, since, since we're on the topic, I'm wondering what your, what your take is on that, that two year mindfulness break that the watch industry has taken and where you see smaller brands being able to utilize that opportunity where everyone's kind of slowed it down, become more mindful. It gave, at least from our perspective, it gave smaller brands this opportunity to kind of become relevant when Everyone's slowing down and looking really deeply at what they're doing and how design is kind of the thing right now. We're not just churning out watches. Pre-COVID, everyone's releasing a watch, two watches a month, and they're just churning them out. It's all production, all hitting the market, all how much can we sell right now. And with the delays from everyone being locked down from being sent home from work and having this opportunity to look at rolling blackouts in China. Yeah. I mean, just globally, everyone had to take a step back. What, what do you see as the, as the future of this? Cause we've entered this, I mean, I'm almost a Renaissance of design in the post COVID era? I mean, I think we're seeing really well thought out, really cool stuff. And I'm wondering how you see that long term playing out.
Mike France That's an interesting question, and I do agree with you. I think the, I hate the word actually, but the micro brands to some extent have led the way here. It's possibly easier to be a little braver when you're, um, when you're new, when you're fresh. Um, but I do think what's happened in the last say 10 years, um, is that, um, we, as we all know, many, many, many micro brands have, have risen and many have fallen more have fallen. I mean, I mean, I think the, the stats are frightening in terms of the The numbers who have kickstarted literally into life and then fallen after the first hurdle. But the ones that get through, I think, have had an impact on the bigger brands in that they have clearly been taking share. And there's nothing like the P&L to wake people up. And I think there's no question that if we take just one element of design, which I think is much more prevalent in watches now than it was even five years ago, the use of colour. We've seen even Rolex have surprised us all with their use of colour last year, I think it was.
Everett With the OPs, yeah.
Mike France Yeah, exactly. You know, we've seen Omega go that way. We've seen Oris go that way.
Everett Zinn just released these 556s.
Mike France Yeah, I thought they were great. I think they're great, actually.
Everett There's only like 200 of them they made, but they look amazing.
Mike France Yeah, and I was slightly, slightly annoyed in that we will be releasing a 36mm version of our Sea Lamba later this year in the sort of summer period, August. almost identical colors we've gone with. They were in the can already. You've got them all. You're comfortable airing that right now. We don't have to go back and edit that, do you? No, no, no. That's a little scoop for you guys.
Andrew I've been saying, so I got the 63. on release when we got our embargoed press release for it. I said, I'm buying that watch. I bought this watch and I have been lamenting a C36 since then. I was like, we need a 36 of this. And you saying that just gave me butterflies. I mean, I haven't even seen the release and I'm buying it.
Mike France Watch out for the plan is I think August.
Andrew But in the same color way, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.
Mike France No, it's okay. But so, so, so color, you know, has, has, has played a big role. And if we're talking about the roots of some of this and some of the, the smaller brands that I think have done brilliant jobs here, there's a British brand called Studio Underdog, which I don't know if you guys are familiar with, and Richard Bank, who is the young CEO and founder. It's worth checking them out. They're a member of the Alliance, which you know, that Roger Smith and I founded last year. But he's really doing something, some adventure, really adventurous stuff with color. He introduced the sort of watermelon colors, right? Others have taken up, but it came from, it was spawned by him. And so I think even in terms of color, there's a, there's a, There's a bravery and an adventurousness and an understanding of colour that comes of people being closer to, yes, fashion to some extent, but design and fashion are often things that merge anyway. So that's one thing. And I think you will see, it's very interesting, isn't it, the way green has established itself, not as a colour that would float into our world and float out, but is now sort of the new blue as it were. Yeah. And I think we're going to see, you know, much more interesting colors. What, you know, Salmon has become sort of de rigueur for, you know, the, uh, the Oris pro pilot, um, which is gorgeous. Yeah. The caliber 400 that they released, um, at Watches Wonders, the Salmon, you know, just delightful. So and then I think the other element is back to your point about thoughtfulness and people having time to think. We have long thought or been influenced by various elements of architecture, whether it be automotive architecture and increasingly all types of architecture and I do think that We're seeing a little more of that coming through in other brands. We are very conscious of it ourselves and keep trying to push the barriers of it. And I do think that people are, you know, the sculpting of watches, the case is no longer always going to have to just be slab-sided to save money. I think people are beginning to understand that the 360 degree-ness of a watch is very important. And the lines of watches play a really important role in one's appreciation of a timepiece. And I think there's going to be more and more of that. And I think it's... Price is always important, but I think people... There's a greater understanding It's design plus quality divided by price equals value. And you can play those, you need a balanced equation, but you can play those things at different levels. If your design is of a substantive quality, it'll mean that your price can be a bit higher, but yet still deliver a fantastic value to the customer at the end of the day. So I think we're just becoming all a bit more sophisticated around this sort of stuff. And it may be, as we say, that the last couple of years have given a little more time for people to think about some of these things. And let's hope that they continue because I think these are good trends and trends that can only benefit this marvelous industry that we're all involved with.
Everett You know, you get the idea that some of these, you know, I won't characterize them in any sort of uh, in any sort of design sense, but, but, you know, like the micro brands from 2008 to maybe 2015, right? You see a lot of designs that appear to be, uh, designs that kind of stopped at the 2d renter, the top down 2d render stage, right? They, they established a beautiful dial. They established some interesting textures. They, they got the lug dimensions. roughly correct and proportional. And then you look at the side and you're like, what is that? Even watches from brands that we now talk about in very high regard, even perhaps Christopher Ward in some ways, right? You know, Christopher Ward with its light catcher case, I think is doing more than any other brand I can think of in terms of that three-dimensional case design. But that's not always been the case, right? That's something that's new to your company, relatively speaking. Yeah, I think you nailed it. You said, I want to ask you about something because you said a word that I don't, or a phrase that I don't think we've ever heard on this show before. And I think it's an important phrase, uh, in, in what we talk about. Uh, although maybe it feels a little yucky, but you said profit and loss. And you said that you said that phrase right after we discussed, you know, the, the Kickstarter brands rising and falling. And I wonder, I've got some theories about this. Um, But I wonder, you know, not to say you should be advising young businessmen or whatever, but what role do you think that plays in terms of a brand's likely success? You know, we want to say if a brand has the right design or perhaps the right person or the right marketing, that they'll be successful. But what we don't talk about is, is the brand capitalized? Is the Kickstarter model flawed from the very beginning? The answer is yes, absolutely. But how, How much and can you get past that and what does it take to get past that?
Mike France It's quite a big question. I do think the Kickstarter model is very small. What we know is the barriers to entry of getting into watches is quite low. And so even with a good idea, design, even just a good design idea. You can get into making watches. Um, that's a lot. There's turnkey operations. There are many brands that are doing this, um, that they, they're, they're, they're essentially outsourcing everything other than, other than maybe their, yeah. Other than maybe their, their own, uh, I, or their own design idea. Um, And that's my big fear for the industry in that what makes a, I mean, there are many things that make a company a good company. I mean, we would like to think we are a good company. We want to be a great company. We're not a great company. And how do you define great? Well, you know, Jim Collins. I don't know if you're familiar with the work of Jim Collins. He wrote a several seminal books about this sort of stuff. Good to Great is possibly his most well-known. I'm a big fan of Jim Collins, largely because, unlike many other gurus, his philosophy is deeply empirically sound. So to create Good to Great, for instance, he spent, I think it was five or six years, he assembled 25 or more, 30 or more Stanford graduates, uh, you know, divided them up into groups of five or six and have them pour through, you know, literally libraries of data. That's particularly, um, usually particularly accessible in, in, in, in places like the United States, for instance, um, of company data to determine what it was, that great companies and great companies, we're not talking about great flash in the pan companies, we're talking about companies who have delivered incredible results over a long period of time, a generation.
Everett Blue chips.
Mike France Yeah, you know, these are the blue, solid blue chips over time. And he defined the number of things that in his view, that the evidence pointed towards as to why companies went from being good to being great and great was defined as, you know, having, you know, seven or eight times the average return to its shareholders over a long period of time than the average company in the Fortune 500. So really empirically sound stuff. And, you know, he defined a number of these things that made a company great. And perhaps the style of leadership was one of them, which is interesting. That's a whole different topic. The other thing right at the core of this is something that he called the hedgehog concept. And the hedgehog concept is based on, I think it's a Greek myth, where the fox versus the hedgehog, you know, the canny, cunning fox always looking for different tactics to catch the hedgehog. The angle, right? Always looking for new angles, always trying different things. Um, the hedgehog of course only knew one thing, you know, but it did it brilliantly well. And so whenever threatened by the Fox, it stayed still, put out his porcupines and the Fox never got it. Yeah. So, and therefore one of the, one of the things I think, um, companies that aspire to be great companies need to, and this is what he said they needed to do as well, not me, but I buy into this, is know what your one thing is as a company and that if you can aspire to be the best in the world at that one thing, whatever that one thing is, then you've got a real chance of becoming a great company. And so I think many, many, many business applies to all business, but in the watch industry, I think it's finding, trying to find something that you are truly the best at, um, in the world, better than all of your competition. And if you have that ambition and that aspiration, some, and you create a great company, then you're going to, you're going to stand the test of time. And I'd like to think that, um, you know, we may enter a period where there could be, um, there could be fewer, um, brands, watch brands around. I think there will be over time. I think, I think we have, there are like 500 Swiss watch brands. Right. Does the world really need 500? I don't know. Maybe it does. Um, but I think there may be fewer, but I think, um, they will, they hopefully will be better, stronger and more vibrant, greater businesses, greater brands producing great products. Yeah. So, and I think the, uh, I think, um, design, is an aspect of that journey to greatness. But it's only one aspect, but it's a very important aspect. And I do think it's good to see that there is more design. It appears to be more design and thought going into the design of watches these days than perhaps at any time for several years.
Andrew And I'd say that for a consumer good company, I mean, for a watch company, to decide what the one thing you're going to be greatest at would be exceptionally challenging because you have to balance, you have to balance being just from the absolute basics of, are we going to have the best finished watches at this available price point? Are we going to use the best movements? Are we going to use proprietary movements? I mean, there's no one thing that anyone's looking for. And one of the things that I'm wondering is, is how are you leading your organization to balance that following trends of the watch industry, because you have to follow the trends of the industry with leading the trends with, with being on that cutting edge. And where's, how do you balance that? And I think you're, you're doing it really well when we see it in the tide, we see it when you're in your use of bronze. And I'm wondering what your thought process is to balance following trends against being on the cutting edge of these trends.
Mike France Yeah, it is a challenge. Nobody said it was going to be easy, did they?
Andrew I sure hope they didn't. They lied.
Mike France And they did. And it shouldn't be easy. And, you know, I think it's Malcolm Gladwell, isn't he, who talks about putting in the 10,000 hours. Right. I mean, you've got to work at stuff. You can't just... There are very few overnight successes. Scotty Scheffler is almost one of them.
Everett Man, what a win, right?
Mike France What a win. I mean, wow. Um, and by the way, he is not 25. I mean, there's, there's dyslexia going on there. I'm sure he's 52. Um, there's, there's, there's age dyslexia. He cannot be 25. What a performance. Um, but that aside, um, yeah, this, this trying to find this balance and trying to focus on what you're good at. And I say, I don't think we're there yet. And many companies, many of these companies, established as great companies, took many years to really work out what it is they're great at. And it's a combination of what you're passionate, the hedgehog concept is a combination of what you're passionate about, knowing that, what you can be best at, and what your economic engine driver is, and then simplifying that down. Yeah. So, you know, The hardest thing in the world is to take complex things and make them simple. That's what we, in our own small way at Christopher Ward, try to do. And sometimes achieve it, many times. But I suppose we have a fundamental view that, and it's a pretty, it's not, this is not revolution. There is very little that's revolutionary, certainly my thinking. but you have to be connected with the customer in absolute terms. We have developed a view that, and we were talking as a board about it a couple of weeks ago at an off-site we had, where we felt that we have as a business a duty of care for our customer. can manifest itself in different ways. It means that we have a duty of care and responsibility to really work at creating outstanding products, not just good products, but outstanding products and taking the care and the time and the attention to look after the details. And I think, you know, it's not a surprise that if you're in the watch industry, you know, here we are, working in an industry that still today I think produces the smallest precision engineering that man has ever created. If you're not interested in the details, you're going to end up in trouble. And so this attention to detail and the details is something that we at Christopher Ward, the team here at Christopher Ward, strive to deliver in every single part of the organisation, whether it's the way the guys in customer services answer the phone to a customer, to the way we greet someone at the door of One Park Street, to is that case design as good as it can be, yeah? And it's those, it's caring, it's that duty of care that I think has, can have if it's consistent over time and is believed in by the people in an organization or certainly, you know, our organization can make a fundamental difference and may ultimately lead us to being a great company, which I, as I say, I don't think any of us believe we are today.
Everett Now, you know, we rehearsed this segue and you nailed it. So good on you. Just one dry run, right? Yeah. Yeah, that was good, Mike. So because that's a great time for us to talk about the newest Christopher, and hold on, because I'm going to, separate from Mike's appearance today, I'm going to humble brag just on Andrew and I a little bit, maybe not even humble brag, I'll just brag. We are, this is the morning of the 21st, if you're listening to this when you should be listening to this, which means this watch has been released in the United States, anyway, for just, or announced for just a matter of hours. This is going to be officially unveiled this weekend as you're listening to this at at wind up in San Francisco, which I will be at. I will not be. I'll be there and so I'm going to I'm going to run. You're going to get to see one. So so this we're sort of on the cutting edge, the bleeding edge of this release. Oh, I didn't see one. Mr. Prince holding one in his hands right now. So this is the Christopher Ward the C65 Aquitaine, which is your newest watch. A bit of a redefinition for the C65 line, traditionally or historically kind of lumped in with your Trident divers, your pro divers. This has been sort of a second pro diver. You've really reimagined this line to be its own thing, a completely discreet very highly specced, but also more of a historical approach to the dive watch. We've got all the details here. And so we could talk details. I'm certain we could talk details for about an hour and a half to two hours. We're going to talk about this for a little bit less time than that. But can you just sort of walk us through what this is? I think this is really cool. Yeah, I think The watches are watches, right? So how cool could a watch be? I think in terms of the direction that this signals for Christopher Ward, some of the decisions you've made, some of the details, I think this is really interesting, but why don't you just tell us generally, what is this watch? What is this Aquitaine?
Mike France Well, I think this Aquitaine is the most beautiful watch we have ever created. Um, and I'm not alone in thinking that if I had a, a pound or a dollar for every time those who've seen it already, people in the business, essentially go with sounds, go with pounds.
Everett Still, I was going to say, hang on, use pounds.
Mike France Yeah. Um, they, um, then I'd be pretty rich because more people have said, this is their favorite Chris boardwatch. ever than have ever said it about any previous launch we've ever had. And I think its genesis was, as you say, the C65 Trident Mark I was a really successful watch for us. And it was coming up to that time when we would be looking to get into the Mark II. And as is our want, the brief to the design team was, you know, go away and think about the Trident Mark II and they came back as they would always with improvements in every single aspect of the watch. But possibly my curmudgeonliness When I, and they created some great designs, great Mark, tried Mark II designs, it has to be said. But I, after a lot of the hard work, I rejected it because it didn't feel that we'd moved the envelope far enough, that it was an exceptional Mark II version. But actually what we were looking to do was to create, and this is, sounds a bit corporate, this stuff, but another platform. The Trident platform, the contemporary dive watch platform is huge for us. The Sealander, which we launched last year, is now even bigger than the Trident. It's been incredible. This I wanted to be the third big platform, and we have a fourth one that we'll bring out next May, which we're working on at the moment. And a Mark II version, just wasn't cutting it so it was back to the drawing board and to their absolute eternal credit and back to the drawing board really does mean back to the drawing board you know it's like go away you know the old bugger went uh you know he's rejected this um you know um you know we better we better we better we better go back and uh rethink and reimagine and that's exactly what they did and and as often um with uh with any design but with with watch design, you're looking for historical reference points. And what they did was go back to the very early, the origins of the modern dive watch. And that's around the early 50s, 52, 53. Blancpain and Rolex fight it out, don't they, amongst themselves as to which was first, Submariner or the 55th Avalanche. You know, the world in Dive Watchers is largely split between those two. And we wanted, and the guys came back to the table, having thought about that origin, having thought about the 50 fathoms, having then thought about what we were really beginning to become quite expert at, I have to say. which is sapphire. The use of sapphire crystal in watches. It's not an easy substance to work with. It's expensive and many people shy away from it because of its difficulty and its cost. But it has a beauty if worked well and worked well into design that is hard to replicate with any other material. And so we ended up wanting to have the hero of this watch being the sapphire bezel, which resonates a little towards the 50,000s, it has to be said, although I think the original 50,000s had a Bakelite insert, didn't it? But then in more recent times, they've moved towards the sapphire bezel, which is very unusual.
Everett Superior to Bakelite in many regards, but much harder to do.
Mike France But much harder to do. Much more, much superior in many regards to ceramic, which is obviously the default option for all of us, or most of us, in terms of dive watches. And, you know, ceramic works brilliantly well. But it's easy. But it's relatively easy. It's also relatively limited. It's quite limited in terms of the color. that you can, there are very few colors that are available in ceramic. And you have to be Rolex to invest huge sums of money in specific ceramic colors. Whereas you'll notice, if you have noticed, how limited color is in most people's die collection ranges where they're using ceramic inserts.
Everett Nobody's doing a blue, red, ceramic transition except for Rolex because it is outrageously expensive.
Andrew And proprietary.
Mike France And proprietary, yeah. And sapphire takes color beautifully. It gives you unlimited access to color, which is something that we found really interesting. It's also incredibly tough. I mean, if you take the Mohs scale, which is a scale of hardness. Hardness scale, yeah. So Sapphire is up there at nine, whereas, you know, watch ceramics are anywhere between six and seven.
Everett So and more brittle than Sapphire, too. Absolutely. Yeah. Less hard, more brittle.
Mike France Exactly right. But it's its beauty that was the real attraction. And so the guys have created, you know, Adrian. Will and your particularly have created. A beautiful watch. where the hero of the watch is the sapphire bezel, beautifully curved sapphire bezel, which is then accentuated by a really doubly accentuated domed crystal. So you've got this sort of well, I mean, astonishingly well proportioned watch of curves. of beautiful materials which then allow us to add really wonderful colouring into it. We're introducing at the start of the launch really three colours, a marine blue which is a new blue for us, a richer blue, a seagrass which is a green shade. We're very on trend aren't we? something we're calling white sand, which others might call ecru or off-white or whatever, or even ivory-esque. And in some options, we're mixing the blue and the green with the white sand. So it's an adventure for us in color. It's a true adventure for us in the use of sapphire within the bezel and the cohesiveness of the design. There's some lovely signature For those who follow our design tropes, if you will, this effort to, in the past seven years, to really, really hone a signature look of Christopher Ward, there are things that people will recognise, like our default position for the date window is now always at six o'clock. And so it is on the Sealander, and so it is on the Aquitaine. Aquitaine, by the way, because Jacques-Yves Cousteau was very heavily involved in the Blancpain 50 fathoms. And Aquitaine, which is a region of southwest France, was his birthplace. So he then went to live in the States for a while before returning to Europe. And Aquitaine is just a beautiful word. It has water in it. in front of it, very relevant. But it's it's it's one of those beauteous words, I think, and words are important. Yeah. So I think we have a really the most cohesive design offer, arguably, that we've ever put together. And I, I really, really can't wait for the great public to great watch public to see this watch in the metal. And as you rightly say, The first opportunity for that to happen is at Warnham Wareham's wind-up fair in San Francisco.
Everett And I'll be there.
Mike France This weekend.
Everett This weekend.
Mike France This weekend. As soon as I have finished this podcast, I'm getting on a plane and flying to San Francisco to be there in time.
Everett Roughly 24 hours from now.
Mike France We'll have a chance to meet in person.
Everett So let's talk about it. Because I've got some details here, and I can bring some things up if you miss them. This is a test, by the way, and you are being graded. We're actually sending this to Yorg after we're done to see if you missed anything. But talk us through the case, because this is, you know, from pictures, you can never tell these things from photographs. But, you know, reading through the things you've done here, I want to know more about this.
Mike France Well, again, it's a version of our life. case which you're very familiar with, which is that faceted case where we're careful with the polished and the brushed edges to, the aim is to always make the watch look and sit as low as possible whilst offering sort of, you know, light bouncing off it at various angles.
Everett We've referred to this, and I'll say we refer to this lovingly as watch spanks.
Mike France I'll take that. I think. It's complimentary. Subtle changes matter, don't they? And so we've reduced the lug width by a millimeter here. It doesn't sound a lot, but it actually matters. The lug to lug length is, I think, 46.6, something like that.
Everett From your materials, 46.68, which is an oddly specific number.
Mike France Which is a good sign.
Everett Absolutely.
Mike France But it is well thought through because we think it makes the watch at 41 millimeter diameter sit almost perfectly on even a small wrist. So the look to look was really important in conceptualization of this watch. The watch height is exactly 12.45 across all three of the models. We're launching an automatic with a Sellita SW200. We're launching a GMT with the Sellita 330 Dash 2, which we were the first to introduce, if you remember, this time last year. And then a bronze, marine blue bronze at launch. There'll be another one coming a little later, which is a chronometer. So it's an SW200 chronometer, so minus 6 plus 6 in terms of its regulation. So those three form the collection, all at 12.45mm in height. all with the light catch case.
Everett You've just heard a ding from my email. It's too late for me to be getting emails. I will say it is an email from Rosie Blackhead and Christopher Ward. So thank you. She's making an appearance. She doesn't know it. So I will say the C63. I think Mike is a is a lovely watch. You know, Watch Clicker has been complimentary of that watch. I think we collectively own two of them, of the C63s. I don't own one, and I'll tell you why. I don't. We gotta look. We gotta look. I don't own one, and I'll tell you why. I don't love the bracelet on the C63. I'm a bracelet guy, and I think the C63 bracelet is too chunky. It doesn't taper enough. It does grow on you, though. I understand. that there's been a change made here and it's the one I'm singularly most excited about.
Mike France And I concur with Everett. We've re-engineered the bracelet and we've re-engineered it in two ways. And probably the most asked for thing about our bracelets, which honestly I think are excellent bracelets. But the most asked for thing of anything across any aspect of watches since
Andrew No, it's a me thing. But you know, a couple of beers deep, you can't size these bracelets.
Mike France Well, it's taken a while. It's taken us a while, but we have listened eventually. And the Aquitaine is the first of all of our watches over the next period of time will be introduced with screws, not pins. There's a second advancement coming further down, which I'm not going to declare right now, but there'll only be us and Rolex that do it. And that's one of the things I'm most proud of, of the team, because it was really hard for them to get this done. And they were told, no, it can't be done. No, it can't be done. No, it can't be done. And it's been done. I can't even tell you what it is. That's terrible.
Everett That's exciting. No, that's good. I like the tease.
Andrew I want to bring you back eventually just to talk about the balance of engineering and design. And I wish we could do that today, but we just do not have enough time because that's such a... Well, what I've just described is all the engineering nerves.
Mike France Yeah. Because it's invisible. And literally only we and the manufacturer will know, but it has a really important role to play in the long term success of a bracelet. And only Rolex have cracked it. Whatever else anybody says about Rolex, their attention to the engineering details is par excellence. We aspire, we're not there. It's like our fixation with bezel clicks. That's because they do it better than anybody else and we must aspire to be the best at it. And we did go around literally every single, we went around dozens of shots in London and checking every single does it The second part of the change, which is more to your point, Everett, in terms of the Accratane, is that the tapering comes down to 16.5mm.
Everett Yes, please.
Mike France Yes, please. It's a beautifully elegant watch and it deserved, it needed that elegance, that refinement of a 16.5mm taper. So you'll be pleased about that.
Everett Extremely pleased. Just even on paper, I'm like, this is it. So one question about your write-up. I don't know, you know, these things get unveiled and everybody's gonna have a write-up on this. So we'll be in the slew of people talking about these things. I'm hoping we'll be the first podcast, but maybe you've got stuff scheduled between now and then, who knows. But there's one question from the materials that I was like, Uh, there is an aspect to this watch. It has to do with the crown, uh, and it has to do with, uh, a safety mechanism and you've referred to it as a dry Marshall, which is a term I've not heard before. Uh, that's because you made it up. That's I had a feeling.
Mike France So tell me trademark. I hadn't heard of it before. I'm As a diver, and I'm a diver, not that I would ever honestly use a watch to dive. I wear it on my right wrist, my watch when I'm diving.
Andrew The right wrist. Yeah, that's the proper wrist to wear a watch on. Well, no, no, no, no, no.
Mike France Let's not go there, guys. Let's not even enter that. So on my left wrist will be, um, on my left wrist, which is my right wrist, uh, will be my dive computer when I'm diving. Um, but, um, as a nod to the diving fraternity and the fact that this is a dive watch, what, uh, what we've done is we've put a, a bright red, um, indicator underneath the crown. So if you've accidentally left it open, the red will catch your eye. Yeah. So you know to close it.
Andrew Is it loomed too or just red? Sorry? Is it loomed too or just red?
Mike France It's just red. Okay. So that may be for a next episode.
Everett Yeah, send that information to Jörg.
Mike France You're writing it down. Loomed dry Marshall.
Andrew There you go. Sorry, I'm a perpetual complainer. That's something I'm known for.
Mike France That's that's good stuff. So so that's so so whether you're washing the dishes or diving to 25 meters, that's that's a little warning for you that you you're going to have water ingress unless you quickly screw down your cramp.
Andrew Abort.
Everett So we've got three models. We've got our steel automatic, as you said, SW, uh 200-1 that's going to come in at 1075 so these are a little bit more than I think our typical Christopher Ward entries which is I'm sure indicative of the quality and we know that your guys margin models are pretty much locked into stone so what that means is you're getting a more expensive watch materials cost etc this is a nicer watch so 1075 for the entry level steel automatic $1,350 for the steel GMT, $1,325 for the bronze, which is a Kossk 200-1 Sellita movement. These are 200 meters, sapphire case back. We've got the new six o'clock date. We've got a brand new box crystal, sapphire crystal, domed sapphire bezel, tapered bracelets, screw links, quick release. Of course, the dry Marshall not loomed major complaint. That's a problem. 41 millimeters 12 and a half ish 12.45 I think according to our friend Mike France 44 46.68 long. Anything else we need to say about this watch right now before we transition Mike?
Mike France Only only that even the details of the the index is the polishing of facets indexes on the hand has been carefully improved. There's improved luminescence. And one thing you haven't mentioned, this is the launch of our Swoosh Only moment. So this is a big moment for Chris Ford, because as you will notice from this watch, and as hopefully you've seen in the imagery, the twin flags logo is the only logo on the dial.
Everett Oh, yeah. And that was unveiled a few years ago for your sort of racing inspired watches.
Mike France Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the story is an interesting one because everybody gets very animated about our logos, don't they? When we introduced our new logo designs back in 2016, back in 2015 when we were working with the design agency on the new logo, our intention then had been to go Twin Flags only, which we love. I mean, everybody loves the Twin Flags logo. It stands for Britain and Switzerland. It's that Anglo-Swiss thing, and it's very distinctive, and everybody loves it. We put the name on at nine o'clock, the left alignment, nine o'clock, because our lawyers said, look, you'll win a case, the litigious Swiss watch industry and one large group in particular who employs 38 law firms worldwide to litigate against anybody who moves in any way, shape or form, no names, no pactual, they may decide that your use of a flag is in contravention of their copyright. It isn't, but you may well end up being in a long, expensive court battle, which you probably almost certainly will win. But do you want to be tied up in that forevermore?
Andrew No. For a hundred years, you would be tied up in a legal battle. Yeah.
Everett And a hundred million dollars. Yeah.
Mike France So their advice was to put the name and the twin flags on.
Everett And everybody loved that, right?
Mike France Well, yeah, everybody, my mother, my mother, my mother loved it and I loved it and I still love it. Um, but, um, the, um, and therefore acquire at least five years of use of the twin flags. And if after that time, nobody's raised it, it's yours. Yeah. And so, um, we took the advice and that anniversary. is up. And now I'm pleased to say we're able to do what we wanted to do back in 2016, which is go twin flags only. So this is our swish, this is our swish only moment.
Andrew You know, congratulations. I will always appreciate the Christopher Ward name at the 12 o'clock on my C63.
Mike France Well, so you should and so will I. And by the way, Chris Ford will always be on the watch. It will always be written either into the rotor or into the case back because this is an exhibition case All of the Aquitaine's are exhibition caseback. It's engraved onto the rotor. So we're very proud of the name. But it's also back to the signature of the 12 o'clock date wheel, balancing with the 12 o'clock twin flags is something we've been working towards as followers of the brand will be aware for some time. So it's a big moment for the brand. to go swoosh only or swish only as I call it.
Everett Well, that's great. You know, we aspire, you know, I'm an attorney by trade. And so it's not, you just made a cringy face. It's not often that we get to talk about sort of deeply nuanced legal advice on the show. And I didn't actually know that was coming, but it made me really excited because it's the type of advice that we give on a regular basis. um yeah maybe not quite uh you know point to point but that that's exciting to me to hear that five-story burn off and uh or five-year burn off i i like that sort of stuff so thank you for that it's a beautiful it's a beautiful watch we're honored uh that you would spend your time with us to talk about it um and i can't wait to see it and meet you in person with that likewise with that what sorry With that, I think we're going to transition to other things. I'm going to, for just a moment, put you on hold because I'm excited about Andrew's other thing.
Andrew You don't even know what it is.
Everett Andrew, other things. What do you got?
Andrew I have one last thing. We never, as much as we talk about this watch, we never talked about this watch. This is a no bullshit pro spec vintage inspired 1950s modern dive watch that has all of the elegance and all of the gadget that you could ever want yeah this this is the most elegant watch that you guys have put out it's beautiful but it's also a banger this is a all day, every day, throw it on your wrist and you're not going to worry about it. Watch.
Everett A banger for us is like a dope track, but I think a banger for Mike is like a hot dog.
Andrew Oh yeah, true. That's fair. I get it. I get it. Yeah. Context is important. It's a hot dog. Hot dogs are all day or day too. So I mean, there's something there. But this is, I'm so excited. to see one in the middle.
Everett I'm very jealous of you to get to see one on Saturday, Saturday, Friday, perhaps Friday, perhaps on maybe Friday, Friday, this Friday.
Andrew Yeah, I am. I'm excited. I'm jealous. This this thing you got to check it out right now.
Everett Check it out because it's dope. I think I have a feeling it's going to be on your Instagram. Okay, for the love of God, now, Andrew, other things, what do you got?
Andrew So I just spent my first winter with a pellet stove. Yeah, you did. And I tried several varieties of wood pellets. I don't understand why that's funny. Keep it going, man. It's the thing we do. We test things to see if we like them or if they're effective. And I, I don't know, I tried four or five different varieties. I burned a couple bags from, for, for reference, for some reason, uh, wood pellet stove pellets come in 40 pound bags in the US. I don't know what they do elsewhere. Um, I would imagine a comparable amount. Uh, but I burned a couple of bags of each to just test to see their, their efficiency, like how many pounds per hour I could burn, the amount of heat that they'd put out, the cleanliness of the burn. And my winner is the generic brand Coastal Premium Pellet Fuel. Like from Coastal Farm and Ranch. From Coastal Farm and Ranch, the generic burn. So I burned a ton and some change. 2,000 pounds and some change of wood pellets this year. The only pellets that I didn't have to clean my fire pot out after every 40 pound burn were the coastal. It was, they burned super clean. I get hours per pound out of the coastal. Everyone else I tried, I'm having to clean out my burn pot. I'm having to actually stop my fire to clean out my burn pot. I'm getting smoke billows out of it. I don't know if they were wet. I don't know if I was storing them improperly. They were all being stored in the same place. But my Coastal Premium Pellet Fuel, $6.49. They were not $6.49 a bag when I bought the ton of them. They were less. This was it. So if you're in an area where you can buy coastal farm and ranch pellet fuel and you have a pellet stove, this is the one.
Everett This is like some Jim Collins type empirical. You need to write a Wirecutter article.
Andrew This is probably a ton and a half. So 70 bags of pellets through my stove.
Everett It's the cheap stuff from Coastal.
Andrew The cheap stuff from Coastal. That's the one. They burn hot. They burn clean. Everything else like throw smoke out after like the burn pot looks like a little like a like a barbecue grill. But there's only like nine slots and every other. Pellets that I used, I'd have to clean out the pot, like scrape it out with a with a wire brush. So to keep burning clean and below smoke out, it's spark. It would. This this was the one.
Everett And while you're there, you can pick up a new horse blanket. And some pruners. Some pruners.
Andrew And also some chicks and a guinea pig.
Everett I was going to say, and baby chicks, yeah. No, chicks. You can pick up chicks too. They did have baby chicks last time I was there, which is always the most exciting.
Andrew They were there. I went to Coastal Farm and Ranch for a commercial burglary about a month or so ago. And I'm there investigating a crime. The guy's gone. He stole his stuff and he left. And one of my partners was like, what are you doing? I was like, I'm looking at the rabbits. What do you want? And I was just standing over the little rabbit tub and they're all like sleeping and hanging out. And I was like, while working, playing with rabbits.
Everett Mike France, I know you got something good. Other things, what do you got?
Mike France How do you compete with wood pellets? You know, it's a tall order. I know I'm traveling through Nerd Central when There's a five-minute section on wood pellets in the podcast. My other thing is not wood pellets. I'm not sure it's another thing, really, but it's a poem. I'm not going to read all of it, but it's a poem by W.H. Auden. Auden, famously Anglo-American, born in this country, moved over to the States, I think, in the early 50s. A poet I've come to relatively late in life, I've always been aware of him, always known, like most people, some of his poems. Funeral Blues, famously, and then Four Weddings and a Funeral. Most people are familiar with that. But I've been reading him a lot recently. I bought his collected poems on the advice of a friend. And we're in a period that the sardonic Chinese proverb May you live in interested times could have been a coin for it seems to me. And those interesting times currently have resulted in the war in Ukraine. And just to bring the mood down, I should say, I should make a quick reference to two weeks ago we launched a watch called the C63 Ukraine, which is a 300 piece limited edition, which sold out in days. Our suppliers all made huge contributions to the cost and all of the profits are going to the International Red Cross for their efforts in Ukraine. And we've already sent more than £100,000 to them on the back of the sales of that watch. And that's a testament. Well, it's a testament to the generosity of our customers and our suppliers.
Andrew Will there be any subsequent releases of that? Or was that a one-run only opportunity?
Mike France It was a one-run only. There's a huge waiting list now, so some no doubt will cancel. So if anybody listening would like to acquire one, can't guarantee it now because we've got a waiting list that's being assembled. And interestingly, Sorry, this is another sort of aside, but one of our customers wrote to me at the weekend. He's somebody I've known for a while, actually. He became a customer only about 18 months ago, and he now owns about half a dozen of our watches, including the C60 Concept, which I'm currently wearing, which we launched last year. But he and his family are bringing over three people, a family, a Ukrainian family, a mother, a daughter, and the son to live with them as part of the refugee program. And he had seen that we had the Ukraine watch but contacted us after they sold out. I promised him we'll get him on whatever happened because he wants to buy one for this young man who's currently 17. In a month's time he turns 18 and he wants to, Mark Wallace is our customer's name, Mark wants to buy young man a c63 ukraine for his birthday so that's so that was a very proud um proud moment to think that um that c63 ukraine will end up on the um on the wrist of a young ukrainian who's now acting i think his father has been killed or it's in the army at least um and um he's now the man of the house at 18 and having to live over here and it's that it's i'm afraid the is the not afraid but It's the Ukraine war that led me to think about this poem by W.H. Auden, which is called, rather tragically in some ways, There Will Be No Peace, which is written largely about himself. He was, at the time he wrote this back in 1956, he was professor of poetry at Oxford, having become a naturalized American. And there was a lot of bullying that was going on. People didn't like the fact that he'd become an American and they were bullying him. and he wrote this poem about himself and that period in his life when people, the press, critics, friends even, former friends, were criticising him for his actions. But as with all Auden poetry, it can be seen on many different levels and when re-reading this it struck me that it could be seen on the level of the Ukraine War and it is called There Will Be No Peace. I'd recommend his collected poems to anybody who's interested in poetry, and if you're not, you should be. The last stanza, which I'll read to you now, I think is particularly prescient. It reads, There will be no peace. Fight back then with such courage as you have, and every unchivalrous dodge you know of. Clear in your conscience in this, their cause, if they had one, is nothing to them now. They hate for hate's sake. I think that's a very sobering thought for the times we live in.
Everett Yeah, you know, that's beautiful and I really appreciate you sharing it with us. I don't think at this point there's any sort of doubt that the things that are happening in Ukraine are tragic. when we when we think about, you know, what the motivations are, hate for hate's sake is such a simple way to say it.
Mike France So, yeah. Yeah. You know, there's lots of good stuff going on in the world. We talked about a lot of it during this conversation, but we should never remember or forget. We should never forget some of the stuff that some of the human race is having to go through right now as we sit here. Yeah.
Everett You know, I've prepped another thing. I think I'm going to save it for next week, though, because I'd like to sort of end it on that note. It's a little bit heavy, but I think it's generally optimistic. And so I think I'd like to just stop it there. You OK with that, Andrew? Yeah. Mike, once again, thank you so much for coming and joining us. We were both really honored that you reached out to us to do this. It makes us feel good. makes us feel like we're doing something right. So, really, thank you so much. The Aquitaine is absolutely stunning. Terrific watch. Can't wait to see it in person. Congratulations. I hope the release is everything you guys hoped it was. Andrew, anything you want to add?
Andrew I'm all out of things.
Everett Mike, anything you want to add before we go for the day?
Mike France No, thank you, guys. It's my honor, not yours. And I really do appreciate everything you do and the comments you've made about the Aquitaine. will have a, uh, will really resonate amongst the team. It matters because as I said earlier, when we were talking before the show, I do think you guys have a much more intelligent approach to the world of watches than many. And you should be congratulated for that. Thank you.
Andrew Thanks Mike. We, we certainly appreciate that. And I think that's it. We've done it. Thanks for coming back.
Mike France My pleasure. My real pleasure.
Everett Hey, thanks you guys for joining us for this episode of 40 and 20 of the Watch Clicker podcast. Don't forget to check us out, watchclicker.com. That's where we have every single episode of this podcast, weekly, almost daily now, reviews of watches and just general ideas about watch culture in general, all the stuff that you heard today. You can check Christopher Ward out, Christopherward.com. That's where you're going to be able to find the brand new Aquitaine release. If you want to support what we're doing here, you can do that at patreon.com slash 40 and 20. That's how we pay for hosting and how we afford expensive guests like Mike France. And don't forget to tune back in next Thursday for another hour of watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Bye-bye.