You see this diversity, you still see and believe, okay, that's universal. Janev, there's a style more audacious, but not totally crazy, right? But stylish stylish coo. Guys, we have a very, very, very special treat here. We have Mr. George Kern, a longtime friend of the show, and I'm thrilled because, as you guys know, Universal has been a love of mine since the earliest days of Hodinki. I'm actually wearing one of my first Universals I ever bought back in 2012. This brand means so much to us and this community and I think the community at large and now it's back and it's really back and we have effectively the full collection in front of us.
And it really is a collection. It's not just one watch.
And that was the idea right from the beginning because if we were to launch only one line, we would have been in a box, right? And we want to show right from the beginning the diversity of the brand. The brand of course is a poor rooer but not alone. The brand is a compact but not alone.
And I discovered in particular in Italy through collectors you know and your community comedy knows.
I couldn't believe the pieces I saw when I discovered the Gramik for instance. I said, 'My god, nobody's doing this stuff anymore in the industry or the disco volante or the cabriolet, etc., etc.' I realized when I saw them physically the depth of the brand, and I said right from the beginning to the team, we need to show this back catalog and set the standards. And the beauty is with this positioning of the cucher la gives us the possibility to have obviously a piece, a beautiful piece I'm wearing here.
But then also to do exceptional executions like these dumpa paintings. So yes, we wanted right from the beginning to open the brand and to show its potential and its beauty and also the fact that it will be probably 50% male and female which is very rare in the industry.
That's the dream right, I mean to make a brand that is that balanced.
And when you look at the products, even though if I take for instance these compacts, you know you have a classic execution and you have something the others wouldn't do.
And this is also the freedom. That's the second element we wanted to make clear right from the beginning. We're going to do stuff the others would probably or are afraid to do.
Yeah. And right from the get-go. I mean, really from launch. So you have the classic execution, you have some more playful executions and yeah that again that coo positioning gives us the opportunity to express and we talk about functional beauty to express both I would say the movement with the miko it's actually a three quarter of a rotor and aesthetics and that combination of beauty and function is essential in that brand. Yeah. So, let's start with the polar group because I think this is the core collection, so to speak. And I don't know if you remember this, but a few years ago, you were in the office in New York and we as this was we knew you had acquired Universal, but we didn't know anything about it yet. And I said, 'Will it have a micro rotor?' And you said, 'Ah, I don't know that they work.' And so, what we have here is something that's a little bit larger than a micro rotor. This is almost like a 3/4 rotor.
It is a 3/4 of a rotor. So we hired very quickly a gentleman who is a general manager of the brand called Griori Bhutan who I worked with in my previous life and he is really the specialist for this type of movements and we did all the analysis we made all the simulations and a micro would have been too weak, you know the amplitude etc. We want to have a 70 hours power reserve and we developed that Miko and the interesting thing is that in the old days you see here the automatic but we have also the chronograph. Universal only had the miko on the automatic, never on the chrono, correct. And at the beginning we thought not doing a miko or three quarter rotor on a chrono and then Gregori said listen I think we can do it. So now we are the only brand in the market having both chronos and automatics as 3/4 of rotor, it makes the watch thinner. The look of the movement is beautiful. Of course, I mean the price point is in production because we make small quantities, it's between let's say two and 3,000 Swiss francs just the movement.
Just the movement. Yeah. And yeah, which explains obviously then also the price point and the positioning of that brand, right? And the 2 to 3,000 Swiss doesn't include the R&D and everything that.
No, no, just the production production.
And I think that's something that the internet could never really convey. It's just how frankly unusual and beautiful this movement is. This doesn't look like anything else that I've seen. The finishing is very high. The large 3/4 rotor, the quality of this movement is really quite remarkable. Imagine.
And you remember we discussed about it what movements do you want to take but imagine we would have used a normal automatico, people would say why didn't you launch a mikron or 3/4 of a rotor. And right from the beginning we said no, let's be faithful to the brand, let's distinguish ourselves also from a technical point of view because this is our V12, right? It's part of the identity of Universal. So if you could, obviously part of the same group Breitling certainly, the differences or the delineation and innovation from the Breitling caliber into this. Okay, the automatic is produced by LTM manufacturer Don, former colleagues of mine, because we don't have the machines and we don't have the specialists. And Gregory worked with them and the chrono is produced by us because we have the infrastructure, we have all the tools, we have all the people who understand chronograph, but we have some common parts I would say five or 10%, but the movement is fundamentally new and totally different.
Yeah, it really is. I mean as I'm looking at many of them here, it really doesn't look like any other caliber I've seen. The aesthetics and we compared it to all the super high-end brands.
And I asked my team to put on screen the look of all the movements both the automatics and the chrono. And when I saw what the others are doing and what we are doing, I said guys we are just winning the champions league, this will be okay.
And if I can ask, what were some of the other movements that you looked at or were some of the other brands?
The good ones. The top end of the market.
The top end of the market. Then everybody can have a look into the design.
Of this movement and compare it in terms of finishings and aesthetics to their movements. And I think we can't, we shouldn't hide.
Yeah. You have a nice little smile on your face right now. So you feel good about this. And so in the Polar we have two different models of two different sizes, I should say. 30, 37 and 39. Both kind of unisex. We have different styles, different dials. Stand out for me. We were just talking about this one outside. This is insane. I mean, this is a killer. So, again, we have a pyramid couture capsule collections and paorte. So, you're wearing the capsule collection which goes beyond I would say the paorte which I'm wearing. So this is hard stone. So we have three heart stones. We have lapis lazuli, we have a tiger eye and we have bull eye. And the incredible thing by the way the polar rotor was the most difficult product to redesign. I believe that because you need to think what would Jenta have done of the last 50 years. And the beauty of and one key element of the polar is obviously that cross.
And here the watch you have in hand with the hot stone, we have actually four different stones. And when you go outside and we just went out I showed it to you. Yeah, you have these reflections and this play with light which makes a watch first of all unique but incredibly diverse and it gives a look, new look every second. It's phenomenal.
It is. No, I mean this is really a standout and I've seen a lot of watches in the past few days for sure. And what are some of your favorite polar readers?
Well, I like the bracelet. The bracelets and this we call it the cube bracelet. We have many executions. We did the five links, we did three links, we did different finishings, but that now has a right balance. You know, it's very difficult to do a three hands watch. You have second, minute and hours. What do you do? But we had a great basis. We had what we call the rao, you know, from Jenta from the original design. We had the, as I said, the cross. We had the twisted logs, but then we had to find a beautiful and this is a Universal bracelet. We tried different other designs, but this one I think gives the watch the right balance between elegance and style. So, it's recognizable from far. If I look, you see the watch. It's clearly recognizable. And we don't have three counters or anything, but it's immediately recognizable. And it has an incredible style and class. And it's very different from anything you have at that price point in the market.
Yeah. And what is the price point of one of these? Well, this will start at 156,000 US dollars.
It's beautiful. And when you touch it, you fully and when you look at it and the details of the movement, you fully understand the value and the craftsmanship of that watch. And so, who would the ideal buyer be for something like this?
You know, I've been in the industry for many many years and when analyzing the super high-end, I said that in interviews, I would segment in a simplified way the super high-end in two parts. You have if I take the analogy of course the Rolls-Royce and Bentley, super beautiful cars, high quality but very conservative. Sure. Very classic. And then you have on the other side the yellow Lamborghini. Okay. Very bling bling showoff. But what is missing in the market is something in the middle. We don't want to be a niche brand. Obviously we cannot be a mass brand but we want something sophisticated, beautiful, phenomenal engine. And I think we even had a discussion and then I said something stupid. I said, 'Uh, Porsche.' And you said, 'George, what are you talking about?' And you said, 'If you talk about Porsche, talk about the Targa.' Yeah. And I thought, 'This is a good point because the Targa is more than a Porsche. It is a classic, but it has a different style and it has an edge. And this is what we want to give: beauty, taste, quality, great engine, iconic designs, and I think your point was white.
Every now and then, George, every now and then, you know, I know it pains you, but the next icon is for sure the compacts. And let's start with this. This is the Nenina. I mean, this is really the Nenina on the bun strap. Really nice strap, by the way. And Nina is kind of a part of the family. I mean, she was at the kickoff event. She's amazing. She's an extremely nice and funny person. We had incredible laughs.
Yeah, because she told me about all the stories about her husband, how he tried to get married to her and everything and how she refused and how she was wearing the watches, and at our event we had Jean Todt who came also and obviously he knew Yan and everything, and she told us a story of it and after the presentation she said, 'George, I have four or five grandchildren. They all want the Nina. So, how cool is that? Can you imagine your grandmother's Nina rent? Yeah. And everybody wants the watch.
As you know, I have an advisory board and one of the key statements was George, if you do a watch above 39.5 mm, we are leaving the room.
That's fair. So, okay guys, stay stay. And that watch is below 40 mm just barely. Right. Trust me, we did it. And because of the Mikoto, it's thinner, so it really wears very well. And of course, we had to bring back the boon strap, of course. And we work here with amazing suppliers as you can see. The bracelet has a certain patina and actually the products I'd like to say to your community look much nicer in real than what you see now through the camera when you feel and touch it. It's amazing. And of course we have the Nenina then we have the evil Nina, there will be I mean I had millions of questions, of course there will be the three compacts, I mean the Clapton etc., we will bring it out but we cannot bring out everything the same day. And then we did a very classic steel brass which is beautiful, which is just beautiful, and yes, this product can be both a very classic phenomenal chrono or you can have a more funky execution like with this mesh bracelet which is beautiful and with different colors. We have the green, we have the blue jean style and it's phenomenal on the wrist. It's incredible. Many people said this will be for a woman. No, I don't think so.
I put it on earlier. It looked good.
