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- [00:00]
Pascal Michel
Foreign.
- [00:07]
Rob Knotts
Welcome to another edition of the Real Time show. With me, your friendly neighborhood watchmaker, Rob Knotts, calling in from Villa Sara Sound in Geneva for the Time to watch us 2025 event. Today, joining me in the glass igloo is Pascal Michel from Genius Watches. And when I say genius, I do mean genius, because what I've got on my wrist, it cracked a smile on my face when I realized what I was looking at. And yeah, I was already, already compelled to proclaim genius once or twice because of some of the design elements we're going to discuss in detail. Welcome, Pascal.
- [00:40]
Pascal Michel
Thanks a lot, Rob.
- [00:42]
Rob Knotts
So before we get onto the description of a watch itself, which I'm loving by the way, I think I might want to keep this one. It's very nice.
- [00:48]
Pascal Michel
Please do.
- [00:49]
Rob Knotts
Let's talk about time to watches the fair. Now, what is your hope to achieve from being here at this fair? Are you looking for new retailers, new journalist contacts or new buyers?
- [01:03]
Pascal Michel
Everything. Everything, yeah, we go for everything. The idea to be here is for us the kickoff of a new international genius path. We want to go international, we want to go in unisex.
- [01:19]
Alon
We want to.
- [01:20]
Pascal Michel
Which is also very interesting because many watches in the watch industry do watches for men. We do watches for men and women. So we want to having two sizes, 39 millimeters and 36 millimeter, enable us to go worldwide to address small wrists and big wrist and all the tests, you know, and we are between €840 to €2,500. That's for us, you know, an entry price, which is really interesting. And I think that's exactly what the watch industry and the consumer and the watch officiant others want. They want to have something which is affordable. And we are really disruptive. So in many aspects, for example, of course the design, we created probably the first asymmetrical watch in the watch industry, putting two icons together. The idea came five years ago during COVID time, doing teams between France bored by the COVID And then we said, why don't we create a watch brand? And then the first idea came to say we have to dedicate this brand to a genius. And this genius is Gar Genta, because this guy is an incredible designer. He did in his whole life, between 1930 and 2011, 100,000 sketches of watches. And among these, creativity, unlimited creativity. Of course, he designed icons. So of course, you know, the Pasha of Cartier, you know, the engineer of IWC and Universal, of course, because it's where I started and many, many, many others. And of course, two probably of most iconic watches in the watch industry, the Royal Oak of Audemars Piguet and the Nautilus of Patek Philippe.
- [03:24]
Rob Knotts
And when I look down at my wrist right now, I can see a composition inspired by both the Nautilus and the Royal Oak. It's unlike anything I've ever seen before, to be honest, because, you know, your eye is drawn in many directions. But overall the composition works surprisingly well on the model I'm wearing, which is a baby pink model with a diamond set bezel. Well, actually, is it, are they diamonds?
- [03:48]
Pascal Michel
They are lab grown diamonds.
- [03:50]
Rob Knotts
Really. Lab grown diamonds, yeah.
- [03:51]
Pascal Michel
We also want to be disruptive in this respect because if you have a look at the jewelry industry, it already has been disrupted by the appearance of lab grown diamonds. If you have a look at the USA, USA is already 50% with lab grown diamonds, which are more ecological, like my daughter says, ethical. More ethical. And on top of that, they are more affordable, which is also very interesting. And for us, in terms of creativity, that's amazing because you can, and we do, you can offer bigger diamonds at a lower price.
- [04:30]
Rob Knotts
Right.
- [04:31]
Pascal Michel
So we have a bigger impact, which is also very interesting in terms of design. And so that's the novelty, one of the novelties we present at the fair time to watches. And we are really happy to be there because we can of course meet the world, meet the retailers, meet agents, distributors who can help us to reach out to a final current price. And of course we meet you. So we are very happy.
- [04:56]
Rob Knotts
We're happy also. And the surprise in my voice there was because you told me what the price range of your watches was before we went on air. And I'd assumed, I said diamond set bezel because it's like, it's the natural response. But I'd assumed they were really CZ or crystal or something. I'm hugely impressed that the lab grown diamonds because the price point of this.
- [05:17]
Pascal Michel
Piece that I'm wearing is €1,340 for 36 millimeter watch on the silicone strap. And which is interesting because if you have a look at what kind of watch can a lady buy on the watch market? And there is, you know, the watch industry and I know that because I've been working for Chanel and I launched the G12 in 2000. So I know really well the watch industry from the feminine side. And if you have a look, there are very few brands which are really appealing for ladies and especially below 2,800 Euro. So if you want to buy a watch, for example, at €2,800 is the entry price of Hermes. But pillow, what happens? Where do you go? Do you go to Tissot? Very classical. Do you go to Longines? Very classical. And they do, because I've been doing that for so many years with natural diamonds. So a lady can of course buy a watch with a diamond, even if diamonds are women's best friend. But that's a question. The watch industry has been driven by many men. We are doing watches for men and most of the time do a lady size, but it's only a smaller size. It's not something which has been fought for a woman. So that's about what we do. And when you speak about price, I think we want to make Quartz really sexy again because many brands have went away from quartz too much to my mind into mechanical. And quartz is marvelous. It's thinner, it's less expensive. Here you have a battery of 10 years. That's really appealing and it's thinner. So everything together. I think both Quartz and Automatiq have an interest in the watch market. And that's exactly what we offer. We, we offer both, we offer two diameters and we also offer color. And color is also really appealing. But what's interesting as well is how we came to this watch. Because when we started the talk on teams in 2020, so five years ago, we said, okay, we want to make a watch dedicated to Giant Genta. We had the name of a brand because, okay, we call him Genius or the watch brand will be called Genius. But how did we come to this, you know, and we came to this totally by ours. One of the founder, who is a really talented designer, a watch designer, had dinner with his wife and then he decided to have a candle dinner, you know, and wear a tuxedo. Then he decided to wear a bow tie. And then, you know, he decided, no, I'm not going to wear a bow tie, I'm going to make myself a bow tie. And since he's a collector, probably one of the biggest worldwide collector of Giant Genta because he has 350 watches in his own collection, knew personally Gianta and his wife. Then he went into his office, took Watch magazine and then took his scissors and then took Nautilus from Patek Philique and then did the same with royal oak. And then he created himself with scotch on, a little bit of metal, a bow tie. And then of course his wife was laughing. She knows him very well, so she knows that he's into watches. He's a collector, he's a little bit creative. And a little bit crazy. And then after the dinner, he put out his bow tie and then he just played, you know, unfolded it and just came to a conclusion that why not make a half half? And it works because if you have a look, it's an integrated bracelet for both. One was created in 1972. The bracelet is with 1, 2 attachments for one attachment for the Patek Philippe. Then if you have a look at the bezel, one bezel is with screws, the other is without screws. And if you have a look at what he did for the dial, one is with guilloche squares, we call it Grand Tapisserie. And the other one is guilloche horizontal. So if you put it in a nutshell, it's the same father with two half brothers. And the two half brothers have a lot of similarities. And on top of that, it works, you know, and of course it's a bit surprising because we have been taught and surrounded our whole life, you know, we are in a symmetrical world. So even if I show you this, you know, you have difficulties to understand this. And you will discover little by little this watch, this watch is a new shape which is really rare in the watch industry as well. So altogether, you know, we had the watch and what came after was real, full of surprise. We decided to found the company in Lugano and then we decided to have a company for Europe based in Milano, which is not very far. So Lugano is in Switzerland, Milano is in Italy. And it's a one hour drive. And then one day we meet somebody we should never have met. 20 year old, not at all in our industry, working in a factory with machines, got laid off from his company. We meet him and then totally bizarre that he said, oh, you know, I don't have a lot of money, but you have offices. Do you have space in your offices? Why not? And then he said, I will not be there very often. I will be really often away. And then in the end, you know, say, okay, okay, he can take the desk there. And then he said, by the way, what do you want to do? He says, I want to create an account on TikTok. Okay, but, you know, by hazard, this person just five years after is number one worldwide. And he has 162 million followers on TikTok, 2.2 billion likes every year. And on Instagram he has 81 million followers. It's KBLAB. So he takes photos with us and then, you know, it kind of pushed us like crazy on the digital world. And that's the start of the story.
- [12:09]
Rob Knotts
Well, look, there's a lot to digest there. And just to clarify to the audience, basically, in a nutshell, the top half of this watch is a nautilus and the bottom half is a royal oak. But funnily enough, when you look at it, because the bezel, it doesn't feel jarring at all. This is what Pascal was alluding to.
- [12:28]
Alon
It fits.
- [12:29]
Rob Knotts
Obviously they're from the same mind, the same genius mind. But what we have here is I would almost describe the shape of the watch as a shield. It feels like a shield. A little bit like. Well, no, the Ventura, the Hamilton Ventura was a sideways shield and much more pronounced and pointy. But this looks so, it looks so natural because even though it's asymmetrical, it's asymmetrical from top to bottom rather than from side to side. And so it does feel like it fits on the wrist very nicely. You launched the J12?
- [13:02]
Pascal Michel
I did, yeah. 2,000.
- [13:05]
Rob Knotts
You must have an inside track to my brain because I love this watch. I know the one I'm wearing with the Lab grown diamonds is well supposed to be for ladies, but this is the one I go for. Maybe not the pink one, but I love this. I love the size, I love, I love the Lab grown diamonds and it's superb. The J12 is one of my favorite watches of all time. I've actually got several like on my wish list and currently a mademoiselle in my to buy cards at some point. And I don't know, you just, you seem to just have exactly the same read on like esthetic sensibilities. I'm really impressed. I can't believe that you gave rise to the largest TikTok person in the world. I'm going to go seek them out now. I need to download TikTok. Do you have TikTok yourself?
- [13:49]
Pascal Michel
I do, I do. And we're a lot on digital world. We're on Instagram, we're on TikTok, we're on LinkedIn, which becomes a really powerful way to have a direct contact to our lovers. And we live in a crazy world and the digital part is important. At the same time, we don't want to be only digital brand and we want to work with retailers and we do, and we do it very well. And it's very funny to say that we appeal to many high end retailers where we should normally not be a part of. And so we are kind of in many shops, the kind of entry price of very high end retailers who maybe sell Mosaic, Jacob Omega, Rolex or Other brands much higher than what we are because we retail at between €840 and €2,500. So that's also the crazy thing about things about the world today. But we want to go both ways, digital and physical with retailers. And that's a good thing about the fair because we also spoke about the fair at the very beginning is that this fair enable us to really expand. You know, we open a retailer which is called Ebillion in Canada, Toronto and he's selling these brands, you know, these high end brands and he's very interested by us because we have a kind of unique mix of men and female and also a big dose of disruption. So he likes it and it's affordable and colorful.
- [15:40]
Rob Knotts
I absolutely agree. It is disruptive and it is a whole lot of fun. I would really love listeners to check out Genius. It's something I will certainly be spending a lot more time getting to know. And I can't wait to try on the other colors which I will do tomorrow when I have some time at the fair because it's brilliant. Pascal, thank you for your time. It was an incredible beginning of a story that I'd like to explore further on a full length episode of the Real Time show in the future because it's just great listening to your talk and listen to you explain this brand because it is something that put a smile on my face and I needed that after a long day. So thank you.
- [16:12]
Pascal Michel
Thanks Rob. Have a great day.
- [16:15]
Alon
Genius or madness? Alon, you weren't here for this interview. I am very, very curious to hear what you think about the Genius Watchers concept that takes Gerald Genta's iconic, most iconic designs and marries them together rather forcefully, one on top, one on the bottom. And yeah, I have to admit, despite my better judgment, I really liked it and I liked how it sat on the wrist and although I'm sure one can dissect the concept behind it, the validity of the concept even. But this asymmetric thing, it's cool. What do you think?
- [17:01]
Unnamed Speaker
I really wanted to join this interview. I'm sorry. Fugly I hate should have been done as a joke. It reminds me of Moser. You remember that campaign, they did this humoristic campaign where they mashed up ingredients of all the popular evergreen watches into one. I, I, I don't like it. What does it cost, Rob?
- [17:31]
Rob Knotts
I think they're around a grand, to be honest.
- [17:33]
Alon
Something in that ballpark. Funny thing is they wear really well and the diamond models or well, bejeweled models, should we say? I think they're lab grown diamonds are quite appealing. I don't know what's wrong with me. All right. I just kind of had a bit of a moment with it and I thought, I actually kind of like that.
- [17:51]
Rob Knotts
I kind of like to have like.
- [17:53]
Alon
A bejeweled version of this. I know it's totally ridiculous. I tell you, the one thing that I don't like is the word mark. I don't despise the logo itself, but the wordmark is really messy because it has the logo like these, these two GS that are like linked, right. Bangs up in the middle. And then it echoes the Enius of genius on either side of it one time in the right direction, one time mirrored. But the logo on that size, it just looks like a squiggly blob. It's not crisp enough. I would get rid of that or I just have genius on the dial. Just, just get rid of the back and forth concept. As much as I understand where they're going with it, I just think that it busies up and otherwise, Otherwise clean ish face. I know I can't really defend it. I'm not going to convince you by this. I'm not even sure I'm convinced myself. But my instinctive reaction was far more positive than I really wanted it to be, is all I'm going to say.
- [18:49]
Unnamed Speaker
I can just laugh. I'm sorry. It's, it's, you know what? I would, I hope that in the interview that I'm gonna listen to, I'll hear why they did it and, and apparently I'm in the wrong because all the watches are sold out. Yeah, I, I, you know, I don't know if they're mad genius or it's just, it's so bonkers that, that they mashed up these two. But you know, if you're wearing it. I always tell people that come into my store when they wear fake royal oaks or fake nautiluses or those that make, you know, these Casio mods, that they put them into a royal O case or these Seikos in these fake Nautilus. I'm like, dude, you really want to get your hand chopped off or get killed for a fake. What the hell are you doing? So this is actually the first thing that comes to mind that the bracelets and obviously the bezels, right, they really mimic the nautilus and the royal oak. I'm like, why? But if it was a one time thing as a joke, I would get it. But the whole brand is built on this Watch. They even did the automobile Piguet frosting and Tiffany dials. And they're like, milking the cow literally dry. I'm like, why?
- [20:11]
Alon
Yeah, that cow has been very milked. I think that the why. Okay, bear with me, is it's a good case study for watchmaking and watch designers. The why is because it hadn't been done before. But then the response to that or the critical response should be, just because something hasn't been done before doesn't mean you should do it. It's in fact, often there is a good reason why things haven't been done before.
- [20:36]
Unnamed Speaker
Amen. Amen.
- [20:39]
Alon
It's no joke, right? How many young watch designers, or, well, old even, but new watch designers come to us in our capacity at 360 watch our. Our agency, and they say to us, we have got an idea that is going to blow your socks off. And we're like, oh, yeah, tell us, Tell us, what is it? And they tell us this thing and they go, it's never been done before in watchmaking. And we're like, yeah, because it's crap. Like, don't do it. Like, don't make a brand. It's not a good enough reason if your unique selling point is that you've made a terrible design decision. Right. Just remember.
- [21:09]
Unnamed Speaker
Well, here I run into my slogan in Dutch, right? Mojo Vukuchuchtaloche. A beautiful watch is a sold watch.
- [21:17]
Alon
Yeah.
- [21:17]
Unnamed Speaker
So here I am now at the crossroads that. Does my theory stand? Well, yeah, the royal oak and the nothes are beautiful watches are being sold. And this is another crossroads we are driving up to. Is this homage? Is this fake? Is it copy? Maybe cbomba should copy them. What do you think?
- [21:40]
Alon
Oh, my God. This is like inception. Like watch emulation. Inception. Well, look, I've got some evidence here that proves you're an absolute idiot. Okay, let's have a look at this. Aha. All of these watches are sold out alon. So.
- [21:51]
Rob Knotts
Well, yes.
- [21:53]
Unnamed Speaker
So the joke is on me.
- [21:54]
Alon
Yep. You're a muppet. You missed your chance to own this beautiful homage watch. You were just too busy, like, being a hater, honestly.
- [22:01]
Unnamed Speaker
Should we check on Chrono24 if they go above list price?
- [22:07]
Alon
You're such a sometimes.
- [22:10]
Unnamed Speaker
Says my bitch.
- [22:12]
Alon
Oh, that's a bit spicy. All right, well, I guess we're in one of these watches. I could be confused for anyone's, but, yeah, strange one. Confusing.
- [22:22]
Unnamed Speaker
Let us know in TRTS community what you think.
- [22:25]
Alon
Yeah, and fair play to genius. They're all sold out. And, yeah, you kind of got me on board. Although you're gonna have to work a little harder to conv. The man in the Netherlands. All right, Till next time. That's good quality content.