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- [00:00]
Alon Joseph
Foreign.
- [00:06]
Jula Aloma Joseph
Watch fans and welcome to another edition of the Real Time show with me, your friendly neighbor, Jula Aloma Joseph, all the way from Amsterdam, welcoming to the virtual studio and dear, dear old friend and a guest that I've never met in person yet, but have been admiring for three decades already. I want to welcome to the studio the Flying Dutchman, Luko Princen. Welcome Luke.
- [00:34]
Luko Princen
Hi.
- [00:35]
Alon Joseph
Welcome Alon.
- [00:36]
Luko Princen
Happy to be here.
- [00:37]
Jula Aloma Joseph
And Mr. Oliver Eick, the Swiss guy that founded co founded an epic watch brand, ikeepod. And guess where the Ike comes from. Welcome Oliver.
- [00:51]
Alon Joseph
Thank you very much for having me.
- [00:53]
Jula Aloma Joseph
Well, the pleasure and honor is all ours. Why we're all here together in the studio because I've been jumping for joy for having you both on the show separately. Luke is literally Flying Dutchman because he's flying all around the world and too busy to sit down with me. But I wanted to have him on the mic because he co founded Ligure Watches and I wanted to do an episode for that. So he promised to come back on. And you, Oliver, we have so much to unpack with you about ikeepod, so I've asked you to come back on the show as well to do a full episode on that. So our dear listeners, we'll come back to you with two more episodes with both gentlemen separately. But before we dive in, why we're here together because you guys teamed up on a very cool project together. Foligura Watches marrying the Carl Schmidt foundation that you, Oliver, preside over as president of the board of trustees. And that culminated into a very cool limited edition. And that's the reason for this party today. I wanted to just pause for a moment and do a brief intro. So Luke, you and I met when you were actually the president of a Bell and Concorde. But you go way back in the watch industry, so the honor is yours. Please give us an intro from where you started and why you decided to start your own brand, the Google Watches.
- [02:29]
Luko Princen
Yeah, it goes back even alone to when I met your father. That was in the mid-90s dealing with Beau Mercier in Amsterdam, your company. And actually I started in in the luxury industry in the early 90s working for Bowser Lump. It's an company from the United States being active in optical products. And I worked in the Ray Ban sunglasses division for a couple of years. And actually my Predecessor there was Mr. Thomas van der Kelly, you know him as well, very impressive guy. Also within career in the watch industry. And he moved to Richemont and I took over his position at Beaujan long for a couple of years in the Netherlands and yeah, after I think it was four or five years, he asked me to to join Richemont in Amsterdam and for the brand Bon Mercier. So I worked a couple of years together with Thomas van der Keller for Beaumarche and then Rivemont started to grow. They started to add brands in the multi brand division which was Bon Mercier, Piaget, Vacheron Constantin, Officine, Panerai and Montblanc. So I started with those five brands in sales in the Netherlands, then sales marketing for the Netherlands Nordic countries. And then in 1999 Richemont decided to open an European hub in Munich. And I was appointed as brand manager for Piaget in Munich and covering their 15 or 16, 50, 16 countries to lead Piaget. And then after a couple of years they added Vacheron Constantin to my portfolio. And in 2005 I was appointed as wholesale director Cartier for the same zone. So still being based in Munich, covering Northern Europe zone, also director Cartier. And it was actually kind of misfit, you know, it's a fantastic brand, fantastic team. They're French and I'm Dutch and I speak a lot of languages but I don't speak French well enough and I didn't feel well in that culture. That can happen. So nothing wrong with cache on that side. But I didn't fit in. I could feel that. And yeah, luckily enough, after I think nearly a year, I think was exactly a year working for Cartier, I had this opportunity to join Ebel, which was at that time in 2005 just acquired by the Movado Group, the stock list American company. They bought EEL from LVMH and they appointed me as an wholesale director for Northern Europe. So still the same zone, still being based in Munich. And I covered this position for four years. And after four years, yeah, we had the financial crisis 2009, 2008, 2009 and the president at that time of Ebel, he was laid off and they asked me to take over that position. So for a couple of years I was the first co president of the brand because I did it in an co presidency with Mark Michel Amadri, currently CEO of Sierra Perigo. And then after two years he left. And the last year I was on my own running as a president both in EBEL and Concord Worldwide. And then there was a reorganization taking place at Movado. They moved product development, strategic marketing to the United States headquarters. So actually they carved out my position and well, it was actually the last year I entered I was still running E. Bell and Concord for Europe and Asia, but, but you could feel that my expiring date was approaching and I could find a very nice deal with the management of the Movado Group to set up my own company. They, they supported me very well and I took over in 2005 the sales and marketing team of the subsidiary in Munich. And yeah, I started my own company as a sales and trade marketing agency with the main brand Ebel covering Germany, Austria and the Dutch market. And yeah, gradually I added a couple of brands in my portfolio and today I have most recently added the beautiful high end brand Arnold and Son Angelus and as well as the jewelry brand Copain and Fabri Leuba. That's actually together with Ebel is my current portfolio. Yeah, and in between, and it was during the Corona period in 2020, we were all grounded at home or in a home office. And yeah, people had apparently more time to step back a little bit and connect with old friends. And so did Peter Van Geet, who happened to be one of my colleagues at Bausch and Lomb back in the early 90s. And he was living in those days together with Janika who also worked for Baos and Lomb. Meanwhile, they were married. They are married. They are married, living in northern Italy. And he searched me on LinkedIn and said, Luke, how are you doing?
- [07:52]
Alon Joseph
Blah, blah, blah.
- [07:53]
Luko Princen
And we lived four hours apart because I lived in South Germany, he's living in northern Italy. He said, well, we have little to do, so why not meet each other? So I drove from Munich to Castel da Cuatro, it's in northern Italy. And I had a nice weekend together with Peter and Janika, you know, and during those weekends you talk about what have you done, what are you doing and what are you planning to do? And yeah, when we started to talk about what are you planning to do, what are your dreams, are there still wishes on your bucket list? And said, well, you know, after 30 years being active in this wonderful industry, you've learned a lot and you got so much inspiration from the, all the people I work with, all the brands, beautiful brands I work with. So yeah, I said, I have an idea, I have an kind of dream to develop my own brand. And yeah, and then we started to talk about how an ideal watch could look like, what's all the ingredients I've seen pass by from all those different brands. You know, you form a kind of perfect watch in your head. And I started to have a chat with Peter about that, who happened to work Also in the watch industry for a couple of years in the mid-90s. So yeah, gradually we had ideas and we looked at the really it happened like that. We looked at his wife Janika, who happens to be in graphic designer and an entrepreneur and he said, Janika, what about if you are going to put our ideas on, on paper first and then from paper you go into your computer, you make a computer animation and then see how our ideas would look like in a kind of rendering.
- [09:40]
Alon Joseph
Yeah.
- [09:40]
Luko Princen
And this, this woman, she's so much talented I think really within a couple of days she had the first images of the. The watch we had to basically had in our head. And from there on, you know, it started to. It was only discussion, but it started to get a sense of reality that hey, we, it's such a vivid dream, why not? Yeah, making reality out of that dream. And so then basically Peter started to work from that rendering, you know, making technical drawing. We were helped by the Schoenhoven school in the Netherlands who helped us on the technical drawing. And from the technical drawing we went to suppliers and we had components. We put the components together and finally we had our first sample which looked good, not good enough. And yeah, particular because of Janika the designer. She was very strong in not giving in on her initial design. You know, a lot of things she did were actually new in the watch industry and it was very difficult to find the right people to supply us with those components. And I think that took us more than a year and was more the responsibility of Peter who really had a tough job on that to find suppliers who could make our components and then find an assembly plant who could put them together. And that all that took place in about two, two and a half years. But yeah, finally in 2021, beginning 2022, we could roll out our first watches. So that's in a very, in a nutshell how it happened. Of course there were hours and hours of meetings and meetings at night because next to Ligola Project project I had the full time job. So it was a lot of weekend work, a lot of night work, but with a lot of inspiration, a lot of creative ideas and yeah, finally, you know, if you, you have a dream and you believe in it, sooner or later you, yeah, you have the dream in your hand. And that's where we are today. Having launched a brand, having a distribution in the Netherlands, selling online and still a tremendous amount to do. But yeah, the foundation is laid and it's solid, this foundation and ready to further build a brand up on it.
- [12:19]
Jula Aloma Joseph
People accuse me of doing too many things, but I'm always happy. As we say in Dutch bass, both a boss. Yeah, there's always somebody high in the pecking order. No, that's amazing. I always love your energy, your passion and your enthusiasm. Always with a smile. Before we dive into how you gentlemen linked up for this project. Oliver, good luck topping this introduction and please don't hold back. Take as much time as you want.
- [12:47]
Alon Joseph
Thank you. I'm Oliver Eick. I'm the co founder at the time of ikeepot. That is I was discovering at the time the designer Mark Newson. I came from the design and architecture world. I don't have a career matching, of course, this brilliant run from luck in the watch business. I came a little bit to the watch business like per coincidence at the time I was working in the contract segment of the. Of the upscale furniture market. And then I'll we furnished a hotel in La Chaudfault. And by chance I just met the daughter of the architect who was married to the son of a watch factory. And it was always my dream to do watches. And at the time I also worked as a journalist doing interviews with designers, upcoming designers. And somehow I saw the first publications of this guy, Mark Newson, who had his lucky lounge put into the first Madonna video. And then Philip Stuck was picking it for the Paramount Hotel. So I really loved this guy and I loved his attention to details. And so I just thought, why don't we do and start and do watches? But I had no idea how much money was involved in doing this. And somehow I was. It was a. As was a really, really tough job in the beginning because I had to convince the guys that they were producing for us watching. It was at the time it was a company, Rabbit Thomen doing this. We were producing the Sea Slug watch, which was the first product and basically we have. We were doing. Learning by doing the thing. I didn't have all these contacts from the suppliers and of course you do. So many mistakes at the beginning. But we were so well received with our product, which I really didn't understand in the beginning why they all were so enthusiastic about us. It was for me, it was like I was just having my gut feelings going in this direction. I've always worked as on my own, as an entrepreneur doing my own stuff. So this was really something which was going beyond any of my expectations because I was thinking that this was just a little project in the beginning. But then I found out how beautiful this watch world is. And once you are like, I Always say once you're infected with the watch virus, you never want to go back out of that industry anymore. Because if you see in Switzerland how they produce meticulously in the craftsmanship, all these little parts which make out movements and stuff. And so I was really learning by doing, as I said, certainly doing a lot of mistakes. But I was so over enthusiastic with Mark doing this that basically everybody, we could take our enthusiasm and put it on the other people. And so the company was going like growing like hell. Of course, we were participating in the first watch fair. I still remember this. I was building our own stand. I mean, Mark was designing it and I had to go to Italy and find the things to the materials to basically put together a stand. In Basel Fair, of course, they put us among the cuckoo clocks next to the toilet somewhere. It was certainly not a place where people would find us. But then there came a guy with a big nose and he was like, he was looking like, for me, I mean, like a truffle, like a pig founding truffles, looking for truffles. And he looked at the watch and he said, wow, this is the most beautiful watch in the fair. And I said, but who are you? He said, I'm the Breitling importer from Brazil. I said, wow, this is, why, why does he say this? Is he just pulling our leg or is he really serious about it? And so this was the, at the beginning of really finding the distribution. Then the word passes and he sent by other people. And then it was just like, I was so much amazed how fast this grow. And of course it was more or less in the beginning, a one man show like Luke described. Now he had all the experience. He does the exact opposite road from me because he was like in the industry before. For years he was handling brands. He was seeing this. And so he was basically coming from the other side and knowing everything and then saying, okay, in the end, now I want to create my own brand. And I started like creating this out of nothing and learning the industry by the time, by all the supplies and everything. But I was so much enthusiastic that really I was traveling the world like hell. Because we were a small company. We took then the guy from the company of Ravi Thomen, who started to work for us as a product manager. But unfortunately the guy was not very able. He was what I found out later on he had been fired by Rabbi Toman and he was basically looking for a new job. And I was at the beginning happy to have found this guy, but that was not the right person. And so we made many of those mistakes and nevertheless people were so enthusiastic about our product. And then I remember when finally I made it to be accepted in one shop on the Banu street, this was like a breakthrough. If you're on or on Banof street, this is something which is very important as a watch brand. Being in Switzerland, you have to be in one of those shops because if they don't accept you, the people always say, oh, where are you coming from? You're not even represented in your own country on the Banho street or the Louis Lyon. And so to make a long story short, because we still have another session where I can tell you a lot of the interesting story I made together with Mark Newsom to build up this Ickpod company and how this all worked out afterwards. But then we had, basically because of the growth of the company, which was exponential, we had in tremendous need for capital, which of course I didn't have. I ended up in the beginning with a lot of debts. I had about half a million of debts which I had to pay back. So I had to take on a partner, which I found on an entrepreneur where they always try to help the startups and you meet to find capital. And I found a guy from the oil industry who wanted to invest into a genuine Swiss product. So I took the first guy I met because I had so much pressure, money wise. And also later when the company grew, we needed to have so much capital that we lost the majority pretty quickly and ended up with 11% of the company, which was nothing in the end. So then there was a lot of things which I'll explain to you in the next episode. But after the Eichbot adventure, I mean, I exited out of the company in 2008 because there was a fight between the various investors. And then I started to work as a consultant. I worked a while for the company Roberger for Robert Muawat, whose son Alain Muawat is a really nice person and a very. A big expert on watches. And he was a retailer on Ruby Ron from iCipod. So this is how I met them in the beginning, but then also Robert, this period was quite short, but it was very interesting because Muawat is a Lebanese entrepreneur who lives now in Bahrain. But at the time he was the first one to bring watches and truly to Saudi Arabia. So he has a whole distribution network in the Middle east and had his private plane. He took me around and showed me all this, all what he had built. And he has these three sons who took over now the company. I think in 2010. But this was very interesting because he also bought a house next to Audemars Piguet in the Valley de Joux. And he did a lot of things right with this Robert, which was basically the idea came from Faberger and he's called Robert Nourat. So he created this brand Roberger. But then this brand was too much of a, let's say of a Middle Eastern brand because the taste was made mainly catering to his own shops in the Middle East. And so I said for me, who brought, let's say, modern design to Orch making this was something which was interesting me because I wanted to create new watches with. With Robert Moore wat which were more in the. In the direction of Ikea Pot. And this was not what he wanted to do. And so we separated and then I did a few other consulting jobs. Some of them I'm not allowed to talk about because some people, they don't want to know where you. Where you. That you work for them. I also helped an entrepreneur in the. In the southern part of Switzerland, in Ticino, to sell his company parallel to the Festina Group. And yeah, this was basically what I did in the watch world. And then I'll try it again after I quipot I thought to do something in the Ticino because Ticino is place where you have a lot of interesting, let's say suppliers of the watch industry. That's for instance a company which is doing all the cases and some of the cases, but all of the bracelets of iwc, a very small company and some other expert companies. And I thought what the watch industry, what did they ever have in Ticino? So I went to, I showed the phone to the museum to make an analysis if there was any branch to be relaunched, if there was something interesting. And I found this Amazonian fantastic history of a factory which was put on the. On a train and brought up a mountain just because of the energy of water coming out of a mountain, which at the time was how you affect. Fed the energy of the factories and they were producing movements. And I actually also found a movement which this factory had done. I found an abort at the time and I wanted to relaunch this, but also this didn't work out the way I wanted to have it. And so I never followed up on the project. I. I put it into a draw and I still have it. We developed fantastic watches with Ilka Supanen, which is a Finnish designer. And we will. We have actually in plan now to bring this out under another brand as you Mentioned before you heard that I'm. There's something going on in the. Something I'm. I'm starting again in the watch business. But I. I don't want to talk about it yet. But anyway, this was what I did. And then I found. In 2008, I wanted to. At the time I moved to this little village which was where they were doing this, where they had this movement factory, which is up on the mountain between Mendrisio and Lugano. Who is familiar with the Ticino know where this is? And I basically had to find out what I wanted to do as next project. And I saw the area between the Lake Como and Lake Lugano, which is the most underdeveloped area in Lombardy. And there were some. There was European projects which they put out for doing, for getting financial aid from Europe, which was like 146 million, which they were distributing between different partners. I thought, this is a hell of a lot of money, what they are doing with it. And so I was studying this and I started to go into that area. And at the time I met a lady who had an art treasure where she didn't know what to do with it. And I was falling in love with this kind of. Kind of artist or this artist, which was her basically her father. And I said, this is incredible that nobody knows about this artist. I mean, this is so great. So I. I'm not an art expert. At the time, at least I was not an art expert. So I took a lot of art consultants who. Who work in the industry and wanted to see if the gut feeling like I had at the time with Mark Newson about eikipod with the watches was really right concerning this. This artist, Carl Schmidt. But we'll talk about this later. And so we started this basically, this art foundation in order to give evaluation to all the thousands of artworks she has. And yeah, this ended up me being the president of this art foundation now. And we have a huge real estate project as well. But I still always kept an eye on the watch industry. And then I'll tell you later how we met during the COVID period with Pete. So I think that's in a brief or in a long way how I describe myself. Sorry if I was too long describing things.
- [28:21]
Jula Aloma Joseph
Please don't apologize. It's wonderful to hear because I had gaps in my timeline. What happened to you after ikeepod. And I did know you were affiliated to a Manzonian field. You said you've always kept an eye on watches. You run Shinola luxury holding.
- [28:48]
Alon Joseph
It's called Siginola.
- [28:51]
Jula Aloma Joseph
I am brainwashed by the American Shinola. What does it mean?
- [28:57]
Alon Joseph
It is the name of the mountain which is next to Lugano. It's La Signola. And so because of the place where we. We want to do this real estate development, which is a little bit what Frank Gary did with Bilbao, we are doing with Kengo Kuma, the Japanese architect. We also building a cultural center and museum up there. I mean, at least that's the plan. And so we called the holding Signola Luxury holding to make a reference to the place where this happens.
- [29:28]
Jula Aloma Joseph
Any other watch brands that you're affiliated.
- [29:31]
Alon Joseph
With at the moment, besides the ligure thing? I have a dear friend which is the owner of Orage, which is a little brand in Beale, and they have built their own fantastic movements and followed a little bit what. What they. What they have done. And I was also keeping an eye on Dubois, which is another little brand based in Basel. And they. I found it just very interesting the way they developed, because Orange also tried to do direct sales the same. And so I just. Because I always had in mind to. To do a new project. So I. I was watching the market mainly to see how it all works out with the retailers, the traditional retailers, how the market is transforming itself, how the direct sales work, how the Internet is going. But no, in the end, I'm affiliated. I'm not with. With any other company. I just have a project at the moment. I want to rewire an existing thing which I don't want to talk about because it's very easy to find out what it is when you're in the watch industry. Everybody, everybody knows everybody. So I have to shut up. Sorry for the moment about this.
- [31:05]
Jula Aloma Joseph
No worries. We have so much to uncover in this episode as well. So this is a perfect segue to discuss how the two planets, so the Ligura planet and the Oliver Icke Planet, affiliated with the Carl Schmidt foundation, collided. Who wants to go first?
- [31:26]
Luko Princen
Yeah. And maybe alone from my side. I'm so happy to have been able to connect with Oliver. If you hear his story and all. What he went through and all the experience he has, and particularly his creative skills. I always say, what a blessing, you know, in this, this beautiful industry, the luxury watch industry, that you meet such people and it's always. I think it's amazing that in such a small surface of the watch, you know, whether it is 30 millimeters or 40, 40 millimeters in diameter, that there's so much creativity and get. You can put so much emotion on skill in Such a small surface and building actually through a dial and a case and an identity of a brand. And yeah, while talking with an Oliver, I love it because he has such a fantastic eye for detail and he's pushing boundaries. You know, we have done a lot but there's so much to, to be improved and we're blessed that we are in contact and that he's yeah, open minded and always positive with his input and how we can do better on the, on certain aspect, particularly in the designs. So that's, yeah, happy that we, we are connected. And Oliver himself, he can tell a little bit more how that happened because that through the connection we have both in northern Italy, I with my business partners Peter and Janika and Oliver happens to live there very close by and I think during Corona time he also, like I did with Peter and Janika, he connected with them through LinkedIn. Correct, Oliver?
- [33:13]
Alon Joseph
Yeah, that's correct. Actually I'm, I'm not a, a social media guy. The only, the only thing I did or I do is LinkedIn and somehow I don't know, I came across Peter or it was actually him contacting me via LinkedIn and because we were thinking about the, lots of things happening during the Corona period along the same lines and then he said lo, look, I have a watch company called Ligor. And I said, well, what Ligur, what is this? Ligure? What? Who, who are you? A Dutch guy in Italy. I was, what is this? I was really curious because I said what does a Dutch entrepreneur name his company after a region in Italy like Liguria? I said this, this must be a, he must be a nut job like me. He must be a crazy guy. So he must be interesting. So basically I said, I mean why don't we, why don't we meet up and I'll come and see. Because he lives in Castelajuato. I'm actually the art foundation is in Locarno, but I have also a base in Piemonto, which is Canobio, which is next to Brissago. So I was basically thinking I just jump into the car and drive there and see who are these guys. I was just genuinely curious, like I was curious at the time to meet Mark Newson the first time. So I was just thinking who is this guy? And so I went to Castellacuato and then he showed me the watches which were, I have to admit, much nicer in, in real than, than, than I saw them on the, I mean I also liked them on the Internet when I saw them. I didn't dislike but I didn't see the, the beautiful shape of that case. I didn't realize it was so beautiful. So when I met them I really found them fantastically. Yannicke and Pete, great people. And so I thought, I mean, we have to do something together. I don't know what. I knew that the company didn't have any money to pay me consultancy money on doing something for them. So I didn't even approach them for this. But I just liked the. It was just an enthusiastic feeling between us. And then they said, oh, you have to meet Lurk. And so I went to finally to the Inorgante to meet Lurk. And I was also amazed with his personality that he's a really, really nice guy. You know, this Alan, you know him for longer than me. And I just thought, I mean this is beautiful. What they're doing is beautiful. And I like to contribute in a way or another, giving them some advice how to do that and how to develop this. And I think I was also fascinated as I said it before, because this brand resulted out of a long, long year's experience from Loek in the watch business and then his friendship with Pete. And as I had complete, let's say I came from the opposite side when I started Ipod. So it was interesting. I said, I mean I, I might be able to learn a lot still from these guys, you know, because they're taking it the slow way. They say, okay, we do this one model, we perfectionated, we find our markets, we have our clients, but we're not in a hurry. And my problem at the time with Ikebot was that I was in a hurry because I had so much debt which I accumulated in the beginning that I had to move and I had to have partners. So it's beautiful after all these years. As I said, when I'm going back to the industry now, if project I'm doing, if this is going to fly, but it's, I'm going to, to implement it, then I will do it with a complete different approach because I never want to lose the majority of a company anymore with all the experience I had and I don't want to have to deal with investors anymore. So, so it's, it's really, it's really a, a blessing to have met these, these people during the Corona pandemic. So, so it's, it's somehow, it's life is, is always full of, of surprises and mysteries. So I'm, I'm very happy that I know like and Pete and, and Janika and I Think that their, uh, their efforts with uh, with the, with Ligur will, will. Will be much. Will last very long. Will. It will be a, a nice collaboration which we started then with the, with the Art Foundation. We came up with this, with this idea to put some of the pieces of the artwork of our artist Carl Schmidt onto, onto the dial. And then Yannick made a proposal and it was, it came out fantastically. It's, it's, it's amazing. I mean, everybody who sees that watch ask me, oh, what brand is this? And I've heard about, oh, that's great. Ah, I want to have one too. Where can I buy it? That's really funny.
- [39:01]
Jula Aloma Joseph
This is serendipitous that you guys met, you clicked. It's all about positive vibes. And I concur that Peter and Luke are the same. I didn't have the honor to meet the unique yet. Now if we can do a quick intro into the world of Swiss artist Carl Schmidt. If I remember correctly, he passed just before the change of the millennium. And the work that I know is rather abstract and he could have been almost, but not really part of the Stao movement. Please give us a little lecture about him. Oliver.
- [39:42]
Alon Joseph
Yeah, Carl Schmidt basically is also, let's say it's an enigma because he hated the art market and he hated exposing any of his things in galleries at the time. That's why during his lifetime, he was born in 1914 and he passed away in 1998. He only had one exhibition in 1965. And he never wanted to be part of any of the movements. I mean, he was obviously very much influenced by the Bauhaus. Actually he was discovered in a way by Walter Gropius, because at the time he was working as designing scientific drawings at the university for the operations. Like a little bit when you remember the drawings. Michelangelo always did stuff like this. And there were books about his scientific drawings which were published in Ogel FUSELI EDITOR IN ZURICH and so this came in the hands of Walter Gropius. And then he offered him to work as a professor at Harvard, which he didn't follow up on, but because he had at the time his daughter was very sick and he could not leave Switzerland. But he then became a teacher at the Kurzgewerbeschule, which is the Academy of Zurich. And he formed a lot of very famous artists. And also like Oliviero Toscani, who is a photographer who recently passed away, was a pupil of him. He had very famous pupils, but he never told anyone about his own work. He never told his students about what he was doing himself. I mean, he collaborated a lot with Hans above. He was so, let's say, able to do so many different techniques that you could even call him a Renaissance artist. Because I've never seen an artist who worked in like, who did sculptures in metal, in stone, abstract paintings, wood carvings. He was specialized on wood carving because he was from the origin. He was always an auto deduct. And he used to be a carpenter. I mean, he started off as a carpenter when he was 14 and then he taught everything himself and he did all the wood carvings, as I said, for Hans above. And so he actually merits much more attention and he could be one of the most famous artists in Switzerland. When I was actually, as an entrepreneur, what I was fascinated about is basically to see also the parallels between the art market and the watch market. Don't laugh at me, but I mean, the galleries are in the same, in a certain sense, they are the retailers of the market. So if you. It's the same if you go into the art market and you are saying, okay, I don't want to go with any galleries, I want to do it myself. Like if you go in the watchmark and say, I'm doing the direct sales, but then it's learning it the hard way. So with him, it is basically for me, I handle it a little bit as a president of this art foundation. Handle it a little bit like creating, let's say like a brand, creating this Carl Schmidt, like a new brand, like a new icon in the watch, in the. In the art market. This is a real, really difficult task, but we have come very far. There was now this famous magazine for art and culture in Switzerland which exists since 1941. It's called Duke. They did a monography on his work. And so now things start to roll that basically the people get that he gets more known. And so I think this is very, very interesting to see also the parallel between the watch market and the art market.
- [44:42]
Jula Aloma Joseph
For the final chapter of this episode, you guys clicked, you vibed, you got along, Oliver, you liked Ligure. All of obviously Luke, Yannick and Peter loved Carl Schmidt's work. Because I know Luke loves Bauhaus. We always joke around, he's not a flying Dutchman anymore, he's a flying German. Nowadays that's a different topic for a different episode. You guys teamed up, you sat down, you wanted to create a collab, you created the Carl Schmidt limited edition for Ligure watch, 88 pieces retailing at €1888. How did you decide what to create. And what dial and what art was the basis of that collaboration?
- [45:31]
Alon Joseph
Well, let's say the specialty of Carl Schmidt was as well, from Johannes Heaton, which was at the time he was also part of the Bauhaus. But he was the, let's say the president of that academy where he was teaching and he learned or he had a natural talent with colors. And so a lot of his paintings, he was basically becoming famous doing wall paintings, like what they call Mughalis. So he was putting this in, bringing this into the public space, like painting schools and hospitals, universities, filling it up with his wall paintings. And so he was developing with a special company which is in Switzerland, in Zurich, which is the number one company of art paint in the world. They basically developed colors together. And for instance, he had like 65 different shades of gray or of blue. And he was very good in combining these colors. So it's basically his paintings, the abstract paintings, they are so colorful. And so we took this as a best part of his work, which could be. I said to Janika, I mean, why don't we take a part of a wall painting, just a detail of it, and you put it on a dial and show there was like a series of paintings which we picked, which are very, very much his. You could see his style in there. And this is where what we picked as the. As a base because of the beautiful colors and the different shades of the colors with the blue, which we took for this model for the dial.
- [47:44]
Luko Princen
Yeah. And maybe to add the comment on that one, Oliver and Alon, I think it's fantastic to see how Janika and Oliver teamed up as creative people. And really with this limited edition of 88 pieces, elevated our Tataruga. That's the name of the model, Tataruga, which stands for turtle, referring to the shape of the case. How the two together elevated this collection with this limited edition. So there's so much energy, creativity and inspiration in that single watch.
- [48:22]
Jula Aloma Joseph
It's.
- [48:22]
Luko Princen
It's stunning. It really looks stunning. And we cannot wait to take it to the next level.
- [48:28]
Alon Joseph
Yeah, I think it is very important to have this cultural approach to make design matter. I mean, we must design so as to enrich experience with emotional authenticity and beauty. I think this is a way to enhance commerce with cultural expression. I think this to provide products that have the same deep meanings which you find in music, dance, art. I think this is something which is a tendency which enriches the product and gives it a bigger authenticity for me, I mean, this is my personal stance on this, but I mean, Janika was really great in the collaboration to exactly understand the work of Carl Schmidt. I mean, because it's not. It was like trying, let's say we, we started to do it and I said, look, I mean, if I don't like it, what will come out of this collaboration? I will not do it. So it was like, I'm very direct and so I was positively surprised. And I think we can still create also other beautiful products in the future. I think it's a great team, the four of us together with the enthusiasm of Lurk as well, who is able to transmit this to the retailers.
- [49:52]
Jula Aloma Joseph
Gentlemen, I think this is a perfect note to end part one, part two and three to follow. May I thank you so, so much for a making my life easy. This was one of the most easiest interviews for me. So I sat back, enjoyed my coffee and loved the journeys both of you made and that you crossed paths in the mountains, the Italian Terror mountains. Thank you.
- [50:20]
Luko Princen
Yeah, thank you, Alon, for giving Oliver and I this opportunity to share our project and our thoughts about watch business in general and in particular the project with the ligure watches.
- [50:36]
Alon Joseph
Yeah, thank you as well, Alor. And I really have to say that I love your podcast. You do a really great job. I mean, so I'm excited to come on again and talk a little bit more about my deep experiences at icpod because it's a very interesting story and I think that Liguri will have a. A really big success. I think it's, it's. It's a. It's a. It's a great. It's. It's an unusual brand and it's worth. To. To. To. To watch what. What will happen in the future with it.
- [51:15]
Jula Aloma Joseph
The honor is truly mine that both of you came on because I've been wanting you on for quite some time. And thank you so much for being an avid listener. Means the world to us. To our dear listeners, if you want to discover this watch, you can find it at L I G u r e watches.com just type carl Schmidt, which is K A R L S C H M I D on the website and you can find it there. The watch is still for sale, so when you listen to this and it's still available, grab one. I've handled the watches quite some time. We nicknamed them the Turtles. The cases are awesome and they sit very comfortable on the wrist, so make sure to discover them. Thank you for listening to this episode. You can find all our previous episodes on our official website, which is www.therealtime.show you obviously can find us on Instagram which is the same handle as our website herealtime show. If you want to support the show please do subscribe, like it, rate it and share it with your friends. If you have any questions, feedback and or criticism please do send us a message. You can also DM us if you want to join our lively TRTS community with all the listeners and a collective of Watch nerds. You can find my co host Scarlett Baker on the gram via our handle Carl I n t h e s h I r e scarl in the shire. David you can find via his handle at d a v a u c h e r Rob is at r o b n u d s and me just type up my full name with an in the front. If you prefer to send us an email you can just add our first name to @ therealtime show like rig handle Stay sane and keep on ticking.