Discover the new chapter of Octophanissimo from ultralight titanium to the warmth of 18-carat

yellow gold. The new 37-millimeter profile is the definition of Italian spretzerra. Thanks so much

to Bulgary and back to the show. Hello and welcome to day two of watches and wonders,

the Houdinke podcast. I'm joined by Malika Crawford and Ben Clymer.

We're here to talk about all the stuff that we saw today. But interestingly, as we were doing a little bit of prep, Ben brought up something that we have known about for a little while. It launched recently, and Ben finally saw it. Ben, you want to kick it off with a little bit of Universal? Then we'll get into some of the stuff we saw at the fair. Yeah, product is great.

And I'm on the little advisory board or whatever, but I haven't seen the product really

ever, you know, in spite of being on that. Like the final end-in-end. Yeah, I mean, really, I mean, I saw prototypes-ish, but they didn't have movements and, like, really, like, you know, kind of work in progress type stuff. I saw the full range today in downtown Geneva.

And the scuttle butt on the internet is like the pricing is higher than I think people anticipated.

To be fair, to George, like, he's communicated from day one. Like, it wasn't going to be a one-to-one competitor with Brightling. Like, why would they do that, right? So the pricing is in the teens for the compacts and the photo router. Quality is exceptionally high. I mean, way better than I anticipated. There was a watch there that I really loved. You have something to say. Yeah, no, I actually, okay, I did not think I was going to go in and be like infused. The polar outer, like the black steel. It's actually very sleek. It really is. No, gold bracelets. Yeah. The gold bracelets I made, I did a video with George this morning. Like, if you look at the collection, there are four different bracelets, like different formats, right? It's not just the same thing in different colors. And they're all great. And they're all like very elegant and like the idea of like, how many bracelets have? I don't know. Three, four, right? You know, like, and that's Rolex. So the fact that they were able to engineer and design that many bracelets for an introductory collection says a lot. And the micro rotor movement on the polar rotor is an in-house, like it's not a brightling based movement. Like, it is a new thing. And like, if you hadn't seen the pieces, now you've seen them and you're happy with them, and people who haven't seen the pieces, and that's not anybody's fault, they're brand new, but people who haven't seen the pieces are unhappy with the price. Do you think that's because a brand new, like a new version of an old brand has to compete with the secondary market of its existing stock? That's always the way. Is that what's happening here? It is. the people thought the poor writer would be $4,000 to $8,000?

The idea of like Daniel Roth, right? Like Daniel Roth in the 80s, what Daniel was there, the turbionns were based on Lamani-Ebaush's. Like the finishing was like, meh, by today's standards, whatever. And then LVMH buys it, and we know what they are today. And like, it is objectively better in every fucking way, in every way.

Like, the movement is there. LVMH buys it and we know what they are today. And like, it is objectively better in every

fucking way, in every way. Like, the movement is theirs. The finishing is five times the quality of the Lamania stuff. Case is better. Everything about it is better. But these nerds, like, oh, the old is better. And I'm like, why? That's a very different price point, no? Yeah, but it's the same idea.

It's like older is better.

The polar ruder that I saw today is so much better from a quality perspective than what Universal was making in the 40s and 50s and 60s.

It's not even close, as it should be, right?

I mean, it's half a century later.

But I also think, like, you know, you can't really talk about something until you see it. And when I saw this, everything changed for me. Like, it really is like good. Actually, me too. I'm not even just saying that. Although it was a lot of watches. So, so I asked George about that too. There's a maximalist take on me watching a brand. But here's the thing. And again, like, there was a lot of feedback within the little advisory board. Like, why do they launch it all at once and just do this? And what George said is, like, if you launch one product, you're then in that box, right? So if you launch the, whatever, compacts first, then you're a Daytona competitor, and that's it. And he's like, I want to show what we are across the range, and I want to show how ambitious this is right and I

get it like his George is obviously a very smart guy and incredibly ambitious and like

what they're going to do like I believe it again the pricing take it or leave it right but

the quality is there and it is a special thing that does not exist today yeah it also like

the pricing thing and I know that this is like a generic answer,

the pricing thing is what it's going to be.

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