Panerai

And what I find also a bit sad is when you have brands with incredible design or incredible new idea, they always get talked down if they don't have something innovative inside.

But if you remember all the big successes like Panerai, they became hugely successful by having only ATA movement.

And I would even say when they turn to be manufactured, they probably get less successful.

I mean, Richard Mille became extremely successful by using Vaucher movements and Renaud and Papy movements.

All right.

So we've landed on either a Panerai, a Breitling Emergency, or a Cartier desk lighter clock.

Or something

with a sharp case.

You

can

break open coconuts with the Panerai if you need to, too.

So that's another positive there.

You know, if I'm there, you know, 20 years old doing an internship thinking, I would love to own a Hublot Big Bang.

I'd love a Panerai.

I'd love an IWC.

Well, that was the quickest way to get there.

That's my version of the sequence.

I had to move past having my identity be affected in such a way by having a nice car and having my wife drive nice cars and us having the purses and the trips and the first class and the Rolex and the Panerai and all of the nice stuff, the shoe collection that's worth a hundred thousand bucks or whatever.

All of that had to shift for me as my income reduced

and I had to relearn how to handle the reality of my business.

Like you mentioned AP, like with the Royal Oak, like they're so focused on one thing.

And Panerai is also, you know, a real mono design brand.

IWC has taken a step back and they've got three or four, you know, ones that really sing.

But they've sort of got, you know, it's that real sweet spot of diversity in the range.

We're the official retail partner, would it be fair to say, Carol? And our company is probably one of the first companies in Ireland to really grow what I'd call boutique experiential retailing in the watchmaking world.

We have brands from IWC, Panerai, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Cartier Espace.

Of course, Breitling, Tag Heuer, Tudor, Hublot, and now Galley joining our latest edition to join the house.

Again, we've other brands joining in the next year or two.

Yeah.

Which is Marco's an extremely int- a talented designer, an industrial designer by trade, and began as a watch designer at Panerai in the heyday of Panerai.

So in the, in the mid 2000s when Panerai was firing on all cyl- cylinders, uh, prolific, developing interesting designs, working within a very clear design code and language, but finding novel ways to stretch it and explore the boundaries of it, Marco was at the helm of, of design there.

So he comes in with design experience not only in watches and outside of watches with industrial design, but a proven person who can work in a very clear voice but explore the boundaries of it.

Yeah.

[laughs]

So Marco, prior to...

There was this period of time between when he worked at Panerai and when he founded Singer where he was a professor of watch design.

[laughs] Uh, okay.

Panerai.

Um, okay.

I think Panerai is one of those weird ones.

Again, I'm not in the wheelhouse, and that's, and that even though they make predominantly tool watches, or arguably tool watches, I'm not in the wheelhouse because they are a clock and a bell.

They're fucking huge.

Mm.

Uh, and the reason why they're a D is because a lot of their QC issues and their movements have been questionable, haven't they? Like, their QC and their quality.

So Richemont Group had sort of hit a wall.

They weren't getting talent in, what they needed, so they put out a, um, created a small school underneath Richemont, which obviously owns Panerai, Van Cleef & Arpels, Cartier, you name it.

And, um, I kinda had this random idea.

I was like, "How, how does, um, a guy from Southern Louisiana end up designing watches for, you know, a Cartier of the world?" And they were doing, uh, one person from every country.