Openwork: Inside the Watch Industry

We’re going inside the industry response to the double whammy of US tariffs and foreign exchange rates. We’re going to address common myths, offer a look behind the scenes at the industry response, and discuss the implications for watchmaking in the US.

For detailed show notes, including links to more information, visit collectivehorology.com/blog.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

We delve into the results of the Spring 2025 Collective Voice Survey, our twice-yearly report on how collectors feel about all things watches.

Our Spring 2025 survey offers a fresh look at what’s on the minds of watch enthusiasts—what excites them, what frustrates them, and how those feelings translate (or don’t) into actual buying behavior. Just like our inaugural survey in Summer 2024, this round was packed with thoughtful, candid, and occasionally contradictory responses.

Full survey results are available at collectivehorology.com/blog.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

After a busy week in Geneva, we recap the most interesting watches we saw that aren't otherwise getting much attention. Visit the Collective blog for show notes with live photos and links: collectivehorology.com/blog.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

Recorded at Watches and Wonders 2025, we look at the current state of the show, some of the most interesting releases from a business standpoint, and even a few personal highlights.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

These days, it seems like independent watchmakers and brands are everywhere – celebrated in watch media, on display at major retailers worldwide, hotly discussed in collector circles, and of course gaining share in an otherwise entrenched industry. But it’s an overnight success decades in the making. And today we have the perfect guest to guide us through the rise of the independents: Tim Jackson.

Tim is a passionate advocate for independent watchmaking, with a deep-rooted appreciation for mechanical timepieces that dates back to his childhood near Liverpool, England. His journey began with a Timex at age 10 and evolved into a lifelong fascination with horology that’s spanned a career in the UK and now here in California. With over 30 years in the watch world, Tim has developed a particular admiration for independent artisans who push the boundaries of traditional watchmaking. Today, he continues to champion these masters of micro-mechanical art, helping enthusiasts discover and acquire truly exceptional timepieces through his business Independent in Time.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

We’re joined by Praneeth Rajsingh, CEO of Horologer MING, to discuss the realities of watchmaking in Switzerland. While most watch brands are incredibly secretive about production, MING is remarkably transparent. So we invited Praneeth to discuss how exactly watch production in Switzerland works – warts and all. We discuss how the brand has evolved to be able to produce watches using movements and components from a wide range of partners to create their consistent, unique and thoroughly recognizable watches.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

Auction houses – they loom large in the world of watch collecting. Their lots, eye-popping results and personalities are followed feverishly by watch media and enthusiasts. But how much do we really know about these seemingly august, vaunted and shadowy institutions? How exactly do auction houses work? And what are the implications for the watch community?

And today, we have the perfect guest to shine a light on the inner working of the auction houses: Marion Maneker, a longtime art world columnist and auction house insider. Marion Maneker, Special Correspondent for Art at Puck, the online news platform where insiders cover the worlds of Wall Street, Washington, Silicon Valley and Hollywood. Marion was formerly the president of ARTnews, a publisher at HarperCollins, and features editor at New York magazine.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

On February 7, 2025, Swiss media outlet Bilanz reported that Rolex is shutting down the Carl F. Bucherer watch brand, which it acquired in 2023 as part of its purchase of Bucherer – the global watch retailer. The decision to shutter any watch brand, particularly one dating back to 1888 with significant in-house watchmaking is major news. And it’s a story with broader implications for the watch industry at large. So with that in mind, on this special episode of Openwork we’re delving into the details and taking a look at what it all means.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

Homages, replicas and clones, oh my! Today we’re digging into the business and ethics of what’s a perennial and now growing segment of the watch market. This is a complex topic, with important distinctions to be drawn between homages and replicas, clones or dupes. And more broadly, it’s one that sheds important light on technology and production gains across the industry globally.

Fortunately, we have the perfect guest to guide us through that landscape: Marc Frankel, who most of you probably know as Marc from Long Island Watch – both a retailer and manufacturer of a wide range of watches including homage watches. Marc is not only a living legend in this industry, but someone we genuinely admire and like. We are both proud and happy customers of Long Island Watch. And one of the great joys for us in participating in the Windup Watch Fairs over the years has been getting to know Marc.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

On this episode of the Openwork podcast, we look at luxury pricing. Of course, we’ve already done a deep dive on how watches are priced. (Check out our episode with Mike Margolis of Czapek and Singer Reimagined for that.) However, in the past, we’ve largely focused on how inputs like cost of labor, materials, inflation and currency exchange impact pricing. But there’s of course more that goes into pricing for watches and luxury goods more broadly. There are considerations like brand value, product positioning as well as consumer psychology that also impact pricing. And that’s what we explore today – those other more nebulous, but equally significant, inputs into pricing.

To help us with that we have the perfect guest: Katharine K. Zarrella is a writer, editor, and the Fashion Critic-at-Large at Document Journal. With a background as Fashion Director at the Wall Street Journal's Off Duty section and as a lecturer at Parsons School of Design and Central Saint Martins, she has contributed to numerous renowned publications, including Harper's Bazaar, The Business of Fashion, and most recently The New York Times, where she recently published the guest essay: Obscene Prices, Declining Quality: Luxury Is in a Death Spiral.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

It's that time of year: Predictions. On this episode we look at the year ahead, and make three calls each about the future of the watch industry. We discuss brand and retailer consolidation, market performance, business models for watch media, as well as enthusiast sentiment. We also take a look back at our 2024 predictions, and grade ourselves on their accuracy.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

On this episode we look back on the business of watches in 2024. In particular, we discuss where the watch market is as we close out the year. Is it growing, stalling, or as some would claim in retreat? To help us break it all down, we’re joined by returning guest Hamza Masood of WatchCharts – the world's most comprehensive, transparent and trusted source of watch market data. It’s a service we at Collective subscribe to for its valuable insight not just into the pre-owned watch market but what that data can tell us about the watch industry at large.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

Today we’re going behind the scenes of watch design with Marco Borraccino the co-founder, CEO and Creative Director of Singer Reimagined. In addition to starting one of the most design-driven watch brands, Marco was previously the Head of Design at Panerai. He’s got a deep educational and career background in design, both within the watch industry and beyond. And he’s among the most talented and distinctive watch designers out there. Finally, in full transparency, Collective is a Singer Reimagined authorized retailer.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

Today we have a bonus episode of our podcast. It’s a discussion with Romain Marietta, the Chief Product Officer at Zenith. We sat down recently in Geneva to discuss not only our latest collaboration – the Zenith DEFY Skyline C.X – but also how he and Zenith approach product development more broadly.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

On this episode of Openwork, we explore the business of both MB&F and Max’s most recent horological project: M.A.D.Editions. While both represent wildly creative watches, they have fundamentally different business models, with MB&F producing under 200 pieces a year at prices mostly over $100K USD and M.A.D.Editions producing thousands of watches a year at under $5K USD.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

For years, we’ve followed the GPHG – the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève – with great excitement and interest as it’s essentially the Oscars of Watches. And with this year's award ceremony taking place November 13, we figured it would be helpful to lift the veil on what goes on behind the scenes. Who are the people who nominate these watches, and what does voting look like? Does the GPHG meaningfully drive sales for brands, and what’s involved in participating? We get into all of that and more, as we share our own experience as voting GPHG academy members.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

On this episode, we share an industry perspective on what’s quickly becoming something of a New York Watch Week – comprising the Windup Watch Fair, WatchTime and more. Additionally, we’re going to share a special live podcast recording from the Windup Watch Fair – a joint episode between us and the Worn & Wound Podcast. It’s a conversation with Martin Frei of URWERK and Jonathan Ferrer of Brew about how they built their brands.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

On this episode, we take a look at a topic that we’ve been curious about for a long time. We have discussed, both with members of the industry and amongst ourselves, the realities of production here in the United States, Japan, Switzerland and to a lesser degree Germany. But to date, we haven’t discussed one of the largest centers of watch manufacturing in the world: China. From full watches to components of every imaginable variety, China is a formidable force in the world of watchmaking and watch collecting. To help us learn more about the Chinese production ecosystem and why it matters, we’re proud to be joined by our friend Wes Kwok, co-founder of Nodus Watches.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

Today (October 4, 2024) marks a major shift in the watch industry. Hodinkee, the leading voice in modern watch media, has been fully acquired by Watches of Switzerland, a massive UK based retailer with operations around the world including in the US.

Only a few months ago, Ben Clymer, founder of Hodinkee – and as of today, a President at Watches of Switzerland – announced that the publication was shuttering their retail business and going to back to focus on “the basics” (i.e., their editorial product).

So what does this all mean for Hodinkee, its stakeholders, and of course the industry at large?

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

We discuss the current landscape of movement suppliers and how it came to be. We cover how movements are selected by watchmakers, along with the drama that often surrounds the ever-popular “in house” vs “mass produced” discussion. We offer some thoughts on how, why or if movement design, finishing and construction should figure into a purchasing decision.

Correction: On this podcast, we claimed that Czapek's SXH5 movement is designed by Czapek and produced by Chronode. That is incorrect. The movement is in fact in-house – both designed and produced by Czapek themselves. Most components are manufactured by Czapek, while some are supplied by third-party partners before being finished and assembled by Czapek.

Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology, Openwork goes inside the watch industry.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.