Breaking the internet

A year later and he’s still amazed. In November 2016, Maximilian Büsser, the “MB” of MB&F, was at Dubai Watch Week where he entered into a typically lively discussion on the inevitable integration of digital into a brand’s commercial strategy. He picked a single event as an illustration worth any amount of talk. In October 2015, MB&F broke the horological internet when it teamed up with hodinkee.com for a specially-produced run of ten Legacy Machine LM101 in steel, available only through the Hodinkee website at a price of $52,000 each. This was a first for both partners, and possibly a bigger success than either had dared imagine. All ten sold within the space of five hours, leaving the normally voluble Maximilian Büsser speechless.

“I really believe in what independent brands like MB&F are doing, and even more so, what they mean to the industry,” said Hodinkee founder Ben Clymer when presenting the LM101 on his site. Flush with the success of this first collaboration, a year later in October 2016 he was back, this time with one of the industry’s most established names – Zenith – and another exclusive: the El Primero Original Limited Edition with a 38-mm steel case. Execution and design recalled those of the original Reference A386 from 1969. Priced at $7,900 each, all 25 pieces in this resolutely “vintage” limited edition found a buyer in less than an hour. Why change a winning formula? A few weeks later it was Nomos’ turn to take centre-stage with 100 Glashütte Metro Chronometer Limited Edition watches at $2,560. The entire edition sold out in under 90 minutes. Beat that!

Legendary Speedmaster

Robert-Jan Broer, founder of fratellowatches.com, and Omega thought they could. The site needs no introduction for the thousands, or rather tens of thousands of fans of the legendary Omega Speedmaster. Fratello Watches, which for the past five years has published a weekly article, Speedy Tuesday, on the iconic watch, has become something of an institution, including for its 40,000 Instagram followers. “Given the size of the community, we decided to organise events with collectors,” Robert-Jan Broer explained while in Geneva for SIHH. “After an initial meeting in the Netherlands, we were invited by Omega to Biel, to meet with CEO Raynald Aeschlimann. As we talked, we came up with the idea of a limited edition to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the #SpeedyTuesday hashtag. He was clearly enthusiastic, and so off we went!”

Just two months later, the first prototype was ready. The two partners chose a design inspired by the Speedmaster Alaska Project III. Omega had delivered 56 of these watches to NASA in 1978. “At the time, NASA insisted that the watch had to be both anti-reflective and easy-to-read, or in other words suitable for use in space,” writes Omega. The “Speedy Tuesday” stays true to these qualities, with vintage touches such as the return of the radial subdials and the “reverse panda” dial, first used by Omega in 1968. The vintage Omega logo makes a rare appearance, and all the markings and the radial subdials are coated with luminescent ink. With these credentials, and vintage appeal to boot, this limited edition had everything going for it. Still, it was an ambitious project with 2,012 pieces in reference to the year the first Speedy Tuesday article appeared, priced at $6,500 each. Robert-Jan Broer reckoned it would take a good week to find buyers for them all. Come Tuesday January 10th 2017, it was all over in exactly 4 hours 15 minutes and 43 seconds…

More vintage

It didn’t take much to convince Vacheron Constantin to team up with Hodinkee. On February 9th 2017, the Genevan manufacture proposed a limited edition of its Historiques Cornes de Vache 1955, “a classic watch fitted with its distinctive ‘cow horn’ lugs that is inspired by the first water-resistant chronograph designed by Vacheron Constantin in 1955.” The 36 watches, in steel, in the series were made available at $45,000 and sold out in… 30 minutes. The hundreds of unlucky fans are on a wait list. Vacheron Constantin had never previously sold a watch online, and this first venture into digital waters goes well beyond beginner’s luck. “There’s a perception amongst a certain group of industry decision makers that the internet isn’t ‘luxurious’ and that selling online ‘cheapens’ the product and the experience,” says Hodinkee managing editor Stephen Pulvirent. “We know that this just isn’t true. Sure, selling watches online isn’t the traditional way of doing things, but I firmly believe that it’s the future.” It certainly confirms, were it ever needed, that the neo-vintage craze also has an audience online.