A Horological Trip Through Switzerland
In depth, with Rexhep Rexhepi, Luca Soprana, Romain Gauthier and Giulio Papi
In SDC Weekly 52, I teased this post was in the works, right after a section recommending you take more watch-trips and make memories which will last a lifetime.
I recently took such a trip.
What better way to demonstrate I practice what I preach, than to take you on a trip down memory lane while it’s still fresh in my mind?!
The trip took place last week, and in this post, I’d like to take you along with me. Some parts will be vague, because I am not permitted to share details and bear in mind, this format is a first for me, so your feedback will be greatly appreciated.
I am aware that a post like this could, for some, come across as egocentric. I am, however, hoping my readers know me well enough to appreciate I’d never waste your time or mine, writing a whole post just to brag about travels. After reading this, the ideal outcome is that you will get a feel for the unquantifiable value of trips like these, and develop the motivation to go out and make memories of your own.
The basis of the trip was a visit to Romain Gauthier, but given Romain Gauthier would only take a day and a half, everyone involved made their own plans around those days. A total of 5 people attended the manufacture visit, but
(Henceforth, NH) and I planned the remaining days of our itinerary to overlap entirely.With that in mind, let’s set off…
Geneva, and Rexhep
The fun was supposed to begin in London - NH was flying in to take a connecting flight to Geneva, and I booked to be on the same aircraft. Unfortunately his incoming flight was delayed and he missed the connection to Geneva. He managed to get rebooked on the very next flight, which was only 2 hours later, so this was a mild inconvenience… A mere speed bump on the road to horological enlightenment!1
Once we were both in Geneva, we headed over to spend some time at Atelier Akrivia. Rexhep showed us some of the things he’s working on, we had a fun chat with his extended team, and we also happened to meet Mike Tay as well as another collector from the UAE. One particularly fun aspect of such trips is the sheer serendipity of certain events (I will come back to this later!)
What do I mean by ‘serendipity’ anyway? I had been speaking to Mike 2 months ago after he posted his ‘pet peeve’ regarding watch leaks on Instagram, and I responded to him. We never expected to meet so soon after that, but it ended up being a great conversation, during which I learned a lot - especially about SJX, a watch writer who blocked me on Instagram after I called him out for being overly positive regarding OnlyWatch. SJX - if you ever read this, know that I look forward to meeting you someday and burying the hatchet 😁
Once we were done at the atelier, NH and I had dinner with Rexhep Rexhepi and his wife Annabelle. We’ve shared a number of meals together in the past, and this was perhaps the best one yet. Anabelle had chosen a Lebanese place, and the food was absolutely outstanding… a veritable feast for the senses.
We covered many topics over dinner, and one I would like to expand on, is allocations. Rexhep and Annabelle are faced with requests for watches from every corner of the world, often from people who are regarded as ‘important’ by most who encounter them.
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Now, if you think about the hobby, it is common to hear complaints about allocations; How a particular collector does not ‘deserve’ the allocation they received from a particular brand, or how they played some ‘game’ and are not genuine enthusiasts. Garbage. The truth is: If someone owns a watch, they have earned the right to wear it.
What I think is more interesting, is to consider the challenges regarding the allocation of a watch - for a watchmaker who is making tens of watches per year, in a market where demand for these watches is perhaps in the hundreds, if not thousands. How does one do this, and do it well? In a world where an allocation from Rexhep can amount to giving someone ‘free money’ to the tune of $500k+, how can he ever be sure they won’t cash it in?
Spoiler alert: he can’t!
Let’s talk about the spectrum of clientele they must contend with. Akrivia’s watches are requested by Sheikhs, Princes and other dignitaries from around the world who think money can buy anything, or their reputation creates some kind of special entitlement. Their watches are also desired by regular rich folks who have access to large sums of money, but are not ‘publicly important’ by any measure. Finally, there are regular enthusiasts who, by any standard, are not important nor obscenely wealthy, but who have visited many times and built a relationship with the brand; These folks continue to maintain this relationship with the brand and its custodians. Some of them - and I include both myself and NH in this category - are not Royals with unlimited money, nor are they billionaires who will spend 7 figures a year if presented with the opportunity.
Now, if you’re Rexhep or Annabelle, how do you decide which potential clients to allocate a watch to?
I don’t have the answer, and this was the subject of great debate at the dinner table. I can assure you this is a conundrum which keeps Rexhep up very often. For instance, Rexhep can politely ask people to offer him the right of first refusal should they wish to sell, but the customers can never be legally forced to do so. Even if they did offer Rexhep the watch to buy back, would he be compelled to pay them ‘market price’ and then re-sell the watch to another client at many multiples of retail? How does that look, if not insanely greedy?
When there are so few watches available to sell, the importance of relationships rises exponentially. Ultimately, allocations come down to Rexhep and Annabelle looking a potential customer in the eye and getting a gut feeling that they are dealing with someone they like and trust, and someone who they are comfortable having as a client. That’s not ideal, and it’s not for everyone, but they don’t make enough watches to care about who doesn’t like this policy - and I totally get it. Ultimately, the two of them are responsible for making these ‘impossible decisions’ and if they end up only trusting their gut to make these choices, who are we to fault their logic?
To be clear, I was not asked to write this. What I am sharing here is something I would have said to anyone asking about Rexhep anyway, and which deserved reiterating.
The next day, before we set off on our next adventure, we went back to Akrivia to check out their new enamel workshop, which was still in ‘set up’ mode and fairly sparse - the space is huge, and what struck me was the modular growth of the atelier. They had one location, then two… and as they grew and hired more staff, they decided to do more of the work themselves. This necessitated more space to accomodate the new equipment and I would imagine them moving it all into one unified space eventually, fitting everything under one roof.
Luca Soprana
The next day, we headed off to see Luca Soprana at Ateleier 7h38 in Vaumarcus, which is close to Neuchâtel and takes about an hour (by car) from Geneva. Luca’s workshop is situated in what must be the most picturesque setting for a workshop; Overlooking the lake in the distance, next door to a castle… it was essentially what I would imagine a horological Eden to look and feel like.
At his workshop, we got to see how Luca and his team make parts by hand, and we even got to see the custom-made machine which they use to create their famous triangular ruby cam - you can read more about it here via A Collected Man. I can’t actually show the machine, because they charge other brands a lot of money to do the work they do with it, and it is supposedly proprietary.
What stood out for me, was the artisanal energy in the workshop. It was the opposite of clinical, and had a rather creative, mad professor feel to it. The distinct smell of metallurgy hung in the air, and every machine required human interaction to make it sing. Luca recently acquired an older CNC machine, but parts require significant hand-work after machining, to be useable in his watches.
I will come back to it later, but the whole notion of ‘hand made watches’ is vastly misrepresented, and being able to visit Luca and Romain helped me put the value of ‘true’ handmade products into the appropriate context. Luca is ‘old school’, and he is extremely good at what he does. Arguably, he is one of the few remaining craftsmen who can actually do things the way he does.