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- [00:07]
A
Hi, and hello, watch fans, and welcome back to the glass igloo outside the pavilion of Geneva Watch Days 2025. Right now, we are joined by one of our best friends from the watchmaking world, Xavier de Roquemorel of Czapek, the man of the hour. The man of every hour. Talk to us about how you're feeling today, and please don't make too much of a big deal about how warm it is in here.
- [00:30]
B
Can I just say, it's very warm. But we're going to talk about some very cool watches.
- [00:34]
A
Oh, my God, David, you are fired.
- [00:36]
B
That's why I got invited.
- [00:37]
C
Those for the jokes.
- [00:38]
B
Sorry.
- [00:39]
C
Too much compliments is impossible. That's flattery. Yeah, well, yes, we can feel that now. This is not an igloo. This is a solar oven. It's 40 degrees. I'm in the sun, and they have sunglasses. I should have come with a sunglass.
- [00:53]
A
Yeah, we didn't. Didn't help you out in there. We should have prepared you for it. But, yes, thank you for joining us. Please, yeah.
- [00:58]
C
Does your dug bait. Does your dug bite?
- [01:01]
A
He starts every interview the same way. He knows how to set the tone, this man. Right. I came over to the Czapek, what do we call it, Suite in Bogovage yesterday or two days ago or whenever it was. I arrived for an impromptu visit because we ran into each other in the elevator and I met your very special friend, your robotic friend, who scared the life out of me. There was an Instagram story that Alon posted of me trying to talk to this robot. Talk to us about this incredible project you've pursued and what it's all about.
- [01:34]
C
So I've always been a fan of science fiction. I started reading it at the age of 11, a short novel that my dad gave me called Millennium, and I read it until the age of 18. You. You might guess why at 18, I suddenly changed my subject of attention. I can imagine that coming from you then. But anyway, the seed was there and the love was there. And I discovered a long time later by visiting the Museum of Science Fiction at Yverdon, that the first man who actually conceived the concept of the robot, used the name robot, was a Capek.
- [02:17]
A
That's incredible.
- [02:18]
C
It was Karel Capek, and it's probably a distant cousin of our Francois Capek. The spelling is slightly different because Francois Capek actually turned to the Polish spelling for his name when he was living in Poland. And Karel Capek was staying in Czech Republic today, which is then Czechoslovakia, I think. And anyway, he wrote this theater play called R U Russum Universal Robot, and put down the questions that are still alive today, actual today, that are still the key questions we're asking ourselves. How far this will go? How far artificial intelligence can get close to human intelligence? Where is the limit of consciousness? Where will it start, this kind of question? It's very interesting to read the book and to think that a hundred years ago it was like that. In science fiction, the very first word is science. It has to be scientific in the approach and crazy. That's why there is fiction with it. And that makes you think. That's what I love about it. And so at one point, with one of our dear shareholders, Jan Sikora, with Czech, we spoke about that. And Jan said, xavier, we should do something with the robot. I mean, we should pay tribute to Karel Capek. It's such a unique story. And he is in love, like me, with the Rattrapante. The Rattrapante. You know, people ask me a lot, what is my favorite watch? And my usual answer is the next Capek. And that's true, because when you are a creator, you always fall in love with your next creation. However, I also have to be honest. Which watch do I put the most on my wrist in a year? It's Trapant. I can't take it out. It's crazy. And I buy a lot of Capex and I still keep on wearing more. More de Rattrapant than. Than any other watch. And he's the same. Yeah. So we thought, like, okay, with all the game of the levers and the wheels and the system of the Rattrapante, there's so much mechanics going on that fits very well. The robot. Could we include a robot there? And so we started working on that and defining, you know, what was the best way to have this robot playing. And the best way was to actually use the area of the column wheel and to play with the column wheel by covering it with a robot's head. And on the column wheel having three pairs of eyes that would turn from one color to another. Final colors are yellow, red and blue.
- [05:02]
A
It's a wonderful thing to see. In operation with the story, with the background of Karel Capek, it makes perfect sense. It's a strange thing to see when you don't know why there's a robot on a chapek. But with that explanation, it all comes together. It's a beautiful, playful little. We call it a complication, or do we just call it a, you know, a mystery, an Easter egg or something like that. It's just. It's unlike anything else. I adore it.
- [05:25]
C
It's not exactly a complication. It's. It's pushing the idea of the chronograph further because actually these lights are showing the situation of the chronograph, the action, the function that you are using. So it's like an indicator of the function. So it works really well. And the most difficult was actually to find a way to have the face of the robot, which is in titanium, matching perfectly, the steel of the levers matching perfectly, the rhodium plating of the wheels, so that everything seems to be a robot. So it's a watch and a robot at the same time. And what is interesting, we are a little bit afraid that people would say that's a gimmick. And nobody ever said that because they understood that this was really part of the conception of that new rattrapante because it's a new movement. And we included an isolator beneath the rattrapante wheel to improve even the rhythm, the isochronicity of the watch. So new movements inside which we have totally integrated the robots. So that looks like natural.
- [06:38]
B
Going back a little bit to what you said about loving robots, I was thinking to myself, yeah, I love robots, too. And I've heard a lot of people say they love robots as well. And the point I'm trying to make is that it's a very accepted thing. And so I'm wondering at a forum like Geneva Watch Days, where the point is to bring the public into watchmaking, is something like a robot a good way of introducing people to Chapek, who may have previously said, I don't really understand this or it's not for me. Is it a fun, approachable way of making the brand available to people who wouldn't know you otherwise?
- [07:09]
C
We're crazy. The earliest they know it, the best. We're free. Every morning you are free. This is a reality. This is a reality of your uniqueness, his uniqueness, my uniqueness. Every morning we can decide of the future. Tomorrow starts today. Tomorrow starts today. Because every morning you decide what you want to continue to do. And this is when you push that to the maximum, you look a bit crazy. It's not so crazy in the end, but we look a bit crazy. So by following our intuitions, we express that and we let people understand that this is a brand that has a caddy berg that looks very classic, but it's not so classic in the end. A Place Vendome that is like the pinnacle of a Classical version of Highland autoreloggerie and then an Antarctic that is super sporty that we can go swim tomorrow morning on the bat. Epaqui. I will go and. Yeah, no problem. So the Rattrapant, as sporty as it is, it has to be North Arctic. And it's a robot, so let's have a robot and let's leave the question to everyone so that everyone finds the answer himself to the question.
- [08:27]
A
I got a lot of answers to a lot of questions I didn't expect to be asking when I visited your suite by talking to the robot that you have there. So tell us about the robot, the actual robot that people can talk to when they come into your suite.
- [08:39]
C
What's capture?
- [08:39]
A
Capture, Right, Yeah. So tell us what's the idea behind that and what you've done?
- [08:45]
C
I'm watching TV, yes, I do watch TV. I watch the Tele Journal in Switzerland with Mr. Reva that I like a lot. And I get the news in 30 minutes, what's going on? And suddenly that day there was a reportage on a salon that was happening in Palexpo in Geneva about artificial intelligence. And of course they show quite a lot of robots because it's about robotics and. And artificial AI. And so I see that robot and others and I immediately send a message to Valeria saying there is a show in PAL Expo about AI that would be fantastic to do something with Geneva watch days for the occasion of Geneva Watch days with a robot. And that's what we did. So she kind of canceled our meeting of the next day, went there, met all the guys, found three potential contenders or. And the best one was actually the one that was the easiest to work with. And that's this robot who is programmed by a crazy Ukrainian. So we do share some values and. And it's very cool, you know, it's super cool, it's very funny and it's improving day after day, which is. Which is exciting and frightening things at the same time, you know?
- [10:03]
A
Yeah, I was terrified by. By. So you walk into the Capex suite and you're confronted by, say, not quite life size, he's taller than me, but he's got like a slightly smaller robotic body and a watchmaker's coat with a loop and there's a microphone. This is. This has got a human face with eyes that flicker menacingly. It's quite terrifying. And you can ask your questions and he's been superbly trained. He's very much on message. You should use him in retail, you should send him around to your Retailers to train the staff. Because you ask him a question, you try and get him off base. I tried to make him say a naughty word, didn't I? I succeeded as well, by the way. By the time I left. Oh, training. Aw. But he answers really, really well. And he told me something I didn't know. And I was trying to make him say something a bit blue, which we won't put on air. And he pivoted and he said, oh, that's not a good thing to talk about. Why don't we talk about what Chapek did before he was a watchmaker, do you know? And I didn't. And I was standing there thinking, oh, my God, I'm being made a fool of by a robot. And he kept mocking me. The robot was going, you don't know, do you? You don't know. Are you Googling it? How dare you? I'm a friend of the brand, I'll have you know. Apparently, he was a soldier.
- [11:14]
C
Yes. I didn't know that he was at the National Guard. It's more like military service. But then he did fight, because he fought against the Russians. That Russians have been practicing invading Eastern Europe for centuries. What's happening right now is just the repetition of history. It's like that. It's in their blood. You can even look at it from a distant view, ethical or not. But. So they had invaded Poland, and he was a journeyman working for a watchmaker. How to say the name? So forgive me, on that name. You will get it in the book we'll publish in two months on the history of Capek.
- [12:01]
A
Finish your story and then we'll talk about that book.
- [12:03]
C
And it's the past and also the present, of course. And so as he was a foreigner, because he was Czech, he had worked in Silesia, and Poland was not existing anymore. So he was not going to become Polish. Because you cannot get the passport of a country that has been invaded, that is now a kingdom, but a fake kingdom belonging to Russia. So he never became Polish, but he took the Polish cause and made this cause his cause. And so he joined the National Guard in Warsaw, and he fought against the Russians during the 183132 uprising against the Russians, which finished in a bloodbath and which actually made that most of the Polish involved there had to flee away. And Antoine Norbert de Patek was one and Francois Chapek was another. And that's how the two guys meet again later in Geneva. And the story is the one that people know after. So, yeah, he was in the National Guard, but more as a military. As if you do the military service. And then he became a soldier during that period of uprising.
- [13:27]
A
So you alluded to the partnership between Capek and Patek, which I think most people that know Czapek know about. But if you're new to the brand of Czapek, this is very interesting, a very interesting slice of watchmaking history.
- [13:37]
C
Yeah, because I don't want to be related to that. This is not our history.
- [13:41]
A
No, no, no, no.
- [13:41]
C
That's the history of the past. That's.
- [13:44]
A
That's it, you know, but you've just about. You're just about to produce this book which will take us through the journey of Capek and his life and everything like that. So tell us who's writing the book? How long has it taken to put together? Where can people get it when it comes out?
- [13:56]
C
So it's a collective book. So there are different writers, and your humble servant is one of them. And guess which part has not been finished? Yours, obviously.
- [14:06]
A
Have you even started it?
- [14:08]
C
No, I did start in a plane, but it's very difficult. I got the fear of the white sheet. I never thought I would have that. Like, impossible to start. Like finding anything to do but not start, you know?
- [14:20]
B
Can I share a tip? AI is great for that, but I.
- [14:23]
C
Didn'T want it to use AI. I didn't want it to. No, no, no. I want people to feel also my point of view. And so there are two historians who have worked on the past part. So one of them is Pierre Yves Danset, which has already collaborated with us since the beginning and is a famous historian based in Japan, but Swiss. He wrote the last book on Rolex, for example, which was very interesting. It's in French, but it's very interesting because he found a lot of data and it will be published soon in English. And so him and a young historian called Benjamin Chapla, who did the field research for three years on Capek because he was passionate about the story, and he gave us a manuscript full of information. So we had to actually reduce it by one third to make it more readable, because we don't expect everybody to want to know everything of the past. So that was very interesting. And first he gave us much more information on what did happen to Capek before and after. So this is like bad boy Xavier, why didn't you shut off your phone before starting the interview? And on top of that, it's Valeria calling me, and she should have my.
- [15:44]
A
Agenda, awful behavior, slap on the wrist.
- [15:47]
C
So two people Are here to punish. Yes, with me. With me.
- [15:53]
A
I think we'll let you get away with it, that's for sure. So when is the book? Okay, that's a stupid question because the book's not going to come out until you finish your part of it. But when do you anticipate you'll actually be able to finish that? And when will the book hit the shelves?
- [16:05]
C
I have to finish anyway. Next week, Wednesday, Friday. And the book will be released on November 12th, which is the anniversary date of. Of 180 years of Czapek and 10 years of revival because we revived the brand on November 10th, 2015. So it's exactly one year after with two days difference just next to the GPSG. So we have plenty of our friends around.
- [16:35]
A
So many of you will notice this year if you see Jepack at events, we've got this 18 T10 motif. So like 180 years since the foundation, 10 years since the RE Foundation. And it's a great moment for celebration. The brand has been through, well, a roller coaster really. I mean you, I remember when you first started, when we first met, way back in 2015, I guess in Salon QP in London and you were working constantly, you were traveling all the time. You showing watches out of a suitcase. Basically, like this is our idea, this is our concept. And one of my favorite memories of my career, in fact is being chased down, chased through Chelsea by you on a crowded street. It was I must that year or the year after. And you, this is how much you wanted to cultivate the relationships with the journalists and whatnot. You were running through a crowd of people screaming. And eventually I realized that you were behind me. And I turned around, I was like, oh, hey, hey, how's it going? And you're like, oh fine, just want to say hi, bye. Turned around and ran off. And I thought, what a guy. Like this guy is like he's reviving this brand and he's got all the things you've got to think about when you're doing that. All of the financials, all the product development, all of the retail expansion, all of that. And you still take the time to chase down just someone who, you know, we had a rapport from the get go and it meant the world to me. And we've been friends ever since. Obviously we've worked together. I love Czapek. I love what you're doing. And you went through a crazy spike of popularity during the Antarctic release period and then following that, the COVID period. And now you're figuring out the best way to build sustainably forwards for the future. New innovations, new creativity. Always like involving your community and the friends of the brand. Tell us how important to you and I'm sure the answer is very. But expand on it please. Like are these friends of the brand? You're a community driven brand. Events like Geneva watch days are probably the best example of us all coming together, having a lovely time. What does it mean to you to have cultivated that community over the last decade?
- [18:32]
C
So the community started by itself. Very honestly, we didn't plan to create a community. We just wanted to have a different access to autorlogerie to give a different access. And so we were seated around the table with Ari and Sebastian. We're thinking, you know, how can we finance the relaunch of Capex? And yeah, we knew that if we were going to the classic route, it would be not only difficult but probably so dangerous that it would fail because a billionaire would have played with it like a toy and would have made decisions without thinking about the consequences. Just because his taste is naturally the best one. Because it's his taste, you know, and you don't want that. So that's why we are non ego company, so that we can respect actually the style and the personality of Capek. And what came to Ari's mind was to actually use crowdfunding equity, which is the same as it was in England 200 years ago, except that it's been repackaged and using digital, you can do 10 times, 100 times more. So in the past people were selling the shares of their company and that was it. And if you trust the person, you would have given the money and get the shares. And now with crowdfunding equity you can do that on the platform. And so we thought, okay, let's do that. And then we realized, okay, it's going to be tough to raise enough money. So let's go in England because England is the number one market for crowdfunding equity. But then I'm French born and Swiss today, but France should be an interesting market too. Got a lot of contacts there. And then okay, we are in Switzerland, we need to have Swiss. So we decided to make a three jurisdiction, three countries crowdfunding equity campaign. It had never been done before by any brand, any industry, anything was the first time. It was super complex to deal with the three jurisdiction and to hit the green light on ill each of them because it's a legal penal level in law. So we did it. And to do that then to succeed we needed to Open the books. By opening the books, we became collaborative. And so people started saying, yeah, but we could do that. And that. Oh, that's interesting. So you need to develop a mindset of being open, of actually seeking the feedback and the inputs. And so suddenly, you're shareholders, they become your advisors, they become your friends, they become your clients. And then you realize how cool it is to be transparent and to be open. And step by step, you realize that you want to keep a seat for Francois Capek. There is a seat at our table. We are three, but the fourth seat is empty. So he's with us somehow right now. But also you want that each person is treated as a unique person, regardless of who's the person. And this morning, a journalist was surprised with me. You stopped talking because there was one guy lost. And you say, no, don't worry, someone is coming to you and you don't even know who he is, and he has no appointment. And I heard that in many brands, if you don't have an appointment, you don't even pass the door. And here is the opposite. The CEO is actually trying to find a solution so that the person has a meeting. And the idea is that the meeting is regardless of how the person looks. And he is. He's going to get full attention because he is a unique person. And this is what is beyond exclusivity, is to be treated as a unique person every time you deal with a brand. And so they became loving us and they became sharing that love, and that became a community. But we never really tried to make a community. We just tried to make friends.
- [22:47]
A
That is where we're going to end this episode, because that is a great lesson for life. As always, Xavier, thank you so much for coming. And I can't wait to come visit you again in the suite and actually get a chance to try on the watches, which I haven't had on my wrist yet. Please join us again shortly for more content from Geneva watch days 2025. We'll be back soon. Until then, stay safe and keep on ticking.
- [23:07]
C
I'm cooked now. It's so hot here.
- [23:09]
A
It's so hot. It is so hot.