Openwork: Inside the Watch Industry

For our 100th episode, we’re covering the biggest watch industry story of the year. LVMH has announced that Zenith will suspend retail distribution and cut roughly 200 jobs, with plans to relaunch the brand in 2029, aimed at the $50,000-and-up segment.

Gabe and Asher start with what’s actually happening: the Swiss consultation process, why the Le Locle manufacture keeps running as a movement supplier for other LVMH brands, and what it means for current owners and the retailers still holding unsold inventory.

Then they look at how Zenith got here. That story covers 27 years of LVMH ownership and a revolving door of CEOs. It includes the Julien Tornare era, which cut distribution from roughly 850 doors to 550 and gave the brand real momentum, followed by a COVID boom that masked deeper problems. Estimates put production at around 24,000 watches in 2022 and roughly 8,500 in 2025. LVMH points to the strong Swiss franc, weak demand in Asia and the Middle East, and US tariffs, but every brand is facing those. So why did Zenith fall harder than its peers?

Gabe and Asher debate whether the reset is a brave, necessary call or a consultant’s read of a market that could look very different by 2029. They also cover the H. Moser & Cie precedent, Cartier’s buyback, Zenith’s narrow lane in the mid-market, and whether a fire sale on existing stock could undercut the comeback before it starts.

Openwork is a weekly podcast about how the watch industry actually works. An unfiltered look behind the scenes — no press releases, no hype, and no sponsored takes. Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can find us online at https://collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

Audemars Piguet is reportedly launching its own certified pre-owned program. This is the same brand that has spent years discouraging clients from reselling their watches. Gabe Reilly and Asher Rapkin of Collective Horology look at WatchPro’s reporting on the centralized, brand-run AP CPO model, which may include online sales. They also ask how it fits with secondary prices that are falling well below retail on models like the Code 11.59. On the Rolex side, Morgan Stanley and WatchCharts estimate that Rolex Certified Pre-Owned did $229 million in Q3 2026, up 61% year over year. That puts the program on track for a $1 billion run rate, even as Rolex pre-owned prices trail Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, Cartier, and A. Lange & Söhne.

Next is François-Henri Bennahmias. The former AP CEO has joined LVMH’s Hublot as an advisor on a “discreet project,” while Julien Tornare stays on as CEO. We talk through why his pop culture playbook may suit Hublot better than it ever suited AP. Then we cover the most surprising deal of the year: F.P. Journe, Chanel, and former De Bethune CEO Pierre Jacques are taking a 95% stake in Ebel from Movado Group. We discuss what that group could want with a brand that has spent 22 years in malls, and whether a watch brand reboot can work this time.

We also open with the Renaud Tixier Monday Skeleton, the $145,000 micro-rotor watch we bought for inventory off the renders. We close with a preview of Episode 100, where we’ll cover LVMH’s restructuring of Zenith and what it means for the brand and the industry. Openwork is a weekly watch industry podcast from Collective Horology, an independent watch retailer in Ventura, California.

Openwork is a weekly podcast about how the watch industry actually works. An unfiltered look behind the scenes — no press releases, no hype, and no sponsored takes. Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can find us online at https://collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

Openwork Episode 98 was recorded live at WatchTime New York in Gotham Hall, where Gabe Reilly and Blake Buettner of Collective Horology recap New York Watch Week 2026. They talk about how the week has grown from a mostly tri-state collector gathering into a national event, and why that tracks with the Swiss watch industry’s growing reliance on the American market while Europe stays flat and Asia slides. They also get into the downside of that growth: a Windup Watch Fair line that wrapped around a full Midtown block, and the tough choice Worn & Wound faces between keeping the fair free and open or controlling capacity with tickets.

On the watch side, Gabe and Blake cover the standout booths and releases at Windup, including Brew’s New York taxicab build-out and the taxi edition Brew Metric, Bulova’s subway car booth, first hands-on time with the Arken Alterum, Monta’s Triumph field watch, Formex’s thin micro-rotor integrated bracelet sports watch, and Marathon’s new titanium GSAR. They also recap Indies.NYC, the collector-focused independent watch show in the Flatiron District, with highlights from Holthinrichs, Sarpaneva, Marco Tedeschi, Zeitwinkel and other independent watchmakers.

Gabe and Blake also explain why Collective took a different approach to New York this year: The Independents, a media-focused event at the Jean Rousseau atelier that put Armin Strom, Czapek, Ming, Ressence and Singer Reimagined in front of journalists, celebrity stylists and content creators. They discuss why territory between watch retailers makes collector events outside your home market complicated, whether New York Watch Week needs a bigger venue like the Javits Center or should stay spread across the city, and why https://nywatchweek.app might be the tool that helps it scale.

Openwork is a weekly podcast about how the watch industry actually works. An unfiltered look behind the scenes — no press releases, no hype, and no sponsored takes. Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can find us online at https://collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

Gabe and Asher break down one of the most successful marketing partnerships in watch history: Omega and James Bond. The story starts in the mid-’90s, when both franchises were trying to reboot. Omega was a struggling asset inside the Swatch Group, and Bond had been off screen for years. Nicolas Hayek tapped Jean-Claude Biver to position Omega against Rolex, and the Seamaster Professional 300M arrived in 1993, two years before GoldenEye. Costume designer Lindy Hemming chose it for Pierce Brosnan because she saw Rolex as too flashy for the new Bond. Biver turned that product placement into a full integrated sponsorship, and Omega’s revenue nearly tripled by the end of the decade.

From there, we trace the partnership through four phases. In the Brosnan era, Omega marketed an existing hero watch through the films. Licensing and limited editions began with Die Another Day, and Casino Royale was used to launch the Planet Ocean. Spectre made the on-screen watch available to buy. With No Time to Die, the titanium Seamaster 300M became a non-limited model that Omega’s CEO says ranks among the brand’s top five sellers worldwide. We also cover the 60th Anniversary Seamaster, the First Light chronograph tie-in, and the new Bond and Spectre editions. These releases show Omega treating 007 as evergreen IP that no longer depends on a film release.

We close on what comes next. Creative control of Bond has moved from the Broccoli family to Amazon MGM, and Tudor is on the rise. Asher offers a theory: Rolex could use Tudor to go after the most valuable partnership Omega has. Plus: why dive watch marketing is still a sea of sameness, and why Omega’s decision to sell a tool watch on pop culture instead of diving credentials still stands apart.

Openwork is a weekly podcast about how the watch industry actually works. An unfiltered look behind the scenes — no press releases, no hype, and no sponsored takes. Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can find us online at https://collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

Watch media looks nothing like it did ten years ago. Blake Buettner was one of Hodinkee's early writers, later managing editor at Worn & Wound, and built The Deep Track on his own. He joins Gabe Reilly and Asher Rapkin to talk about how watch journalism got decentralized. A Hodinkee Introducing article used to be enough to sell a watch. Now a launch gets spread across traditional outlets, watch influencers, YouTube creators and celebrity endorsements, and most of it runs through brand PR rather than marketing. We also get into why watch reviewers so rarely write a negative review, and the difference between critique and just being critical.

Then there's access. We talk about press trips, watches offered to writers, and whether influencers play by different rules than journalists do. The uncomfortable conclusion is that enthusiasts want independent, critical watch media but mostly won't pay for it. That's a big part of why so much talent has moved to brands and retailers. We also want to hear from you: which watch content creators do you follow, and why?

Before all that, Asher goes hands-on with the Gallet Flying Officer he just bought. It's Breitling's revived heritage brand, with a Sellita movement and a $3,100 price on the bracelet, and we look at how it stacks up against Longines, Oris and Hamilton. We also have an update on our tariff lawsuit, which was just heard at the U.S. Court of International Trade, and our plans for WatchTime New York. You'll find us at the Ming booth.

Openwork is a weekly podcast about how the watch industry actually works. An unfiltered look behind the scenes — no press releases, no hype, and no sponsored takes. Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can find us online at https://collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

Eighteen months after Liberation Day, we look at where Swiss watch exports stand. Shipments to the U.S. are down 8.3% year to date but still up 8.8% versus 2024. Mainland China is down 23% from two years ago. Global exports are still up 1.7%, carried by the UK, India, Europe and South America. The growth is coming from watches over $50,000, while the $1,000 to $10,000 middle of the market gets hollowed out. Collector taste is moving away from steel sports watches and toward dress watches, complications and handmade pieces.

Rolex's new Padellone annual calendar is a business move. Starting at $59,000, it's another sign that Rolex wants to compete with Patek Philippe while Tudor handles Omega. We ask whether it will open buyers up to classical dress watches or stay inside the Rolex world, and which annual calendars we'd buy for the money instead.

Then there's Breguet. Under CEO Gregory Kissling, the brand has made some of its best product in years: the new Classique tourbillons and updated Traditions. At the same time, it has cut dozens of U.S. retailers in 18 months and is moving to company-owned boutiques. Lange, AP and Rolex all made that shift from a position of strength. We look at how Swatch Group mismanaged Breguet for decades, why the Hayeks are still involved, what happens to longtime Breguet clients when their dealer disappears, and what we'd do differently if we ran the brand.

Openwork is a weekly podcast about how the watch industry actually works. An unfiltered look behind the scenes — no press releases, no hype, and no sponsored takes. Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can find us online at https://collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

Recorded live at Geneva Watch Days, this episode of Openwork sits down with Ming CEO Praneeth Raj Singh to unpack one of the strongest product runs in independent watchmaking: the Polymesh, Iris, Starfield, Lightning, and Comet. Hosts Gabe Reilly and Blake Buettner ask how much of it was planning versus luck, and Praneeth explains the shift from pandemic-era scramble launches to a more deliberate cadence, plus why Ming's graveyard of killed ideas is bigger than its actual catalog.

Praneeth gets specific on how Ming decides what to build and what to cut, including how a failed 3-kilometer dive watch indirectly produced the Bluefin's case construction and 600-meter water resistance. He talks through the tension between moving fast and giving platforms like the 37 Series more room to breathe, how Ming manages production partners as capacity gets squeezed by larger brands, and why some projects stay dead while others resurface years later in new form.

Praneeth also previews Ming's 10th anniversary in 2026: an expansion of the Superleggera lightweight collection into a chronograph, and the brand's first non-round case.

Openwork is a weekly podcast about how the watch industry actually works. An unfiltered look behind the scenes — no press releases, no hype, and no sponsored takes. Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can find us online at https://collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

Gabe and Asher kick off Episode 93 with news: Collective is now an authorized Ressence retailer. Then they get into the week's biggest story out of Geneva Watch Days 2026: Breitling's Gallet relaunch, its inherited distribution network, the debt behind the bet, and why it beats the usual sub-$5,000 heritage revival.

The rest of the episode is Collective's annual rundown of the watches nobody else is covering: the Laurent Ferrier Classic Moon Dusk and its lumed double-moon phase, Singer Track's new V72 chronograph in gold panda dial, and the Atelier Wen x William Messina Inflection, a real collaboration with a Chinese-calligraphy and Arabic numeral dial.

They close with three more: the Urwerk UR-1001 Amadeus, a one-of-one engraved pocket watch that tracks centuries and millennia; the Marco Tedeschi MT 1.1, a crownless skeleton tourbillon from the watchmaker behind Kross Studios; and the Fears Brunswick 39 Perpetual Calendar, built on a customized Sellita and Dubois Dépraz module. Gabe and Asher use it to make the case that movement choice, not movement brand, should determine a watch's value.

Fears Brunswick 39 Perpetual Calendar – Interview with Nicholas Bowman-Scargill and Lee Yuen-Rapati: https://collectivehorology.com/blogs/articles-reviews/the-fears-brunswick-39-perpetual-calendar

Openwork is a weekly podcast about how the watch industry actually works. An unfiltered look behind the scenes — no press releases, no hype, and no sponsored takes. Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can find us online at https://collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

Gabe Reilly and Blake Buettner record live from Geneva Watch Days to discuss the show’s atmosphere, the growth of independent watchmaking, and what Blake’s new role at Collective means for future content.

We break down major trends: independents gaining mainstream traction, the rising accessibility of creative watchmaking, and the cross-pollination of materials and techniques between affordable and high-end brands.

And of course, we highlight standout releases, including Ming’s 57.05 Comet worldtimer with its dynamic dial and tiered lugs as well as Bulgari’s surprising collaboration with Vianney Halter. We also react to Tudor’s North Flag release and explain why Geneva Watch Days continues to matter — especially for collectors — as it expands across the city and preserves its more relaxed, collector-focused vibe.

Openwork is a weekly podcast about how the watch industry actually works. An unfiltered look behind the scenes — no press releases, no hype, and no sponsored takes. Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can find us online at https://collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

Breitling relaunches Gallet on September 3rd. Openwork hosts Gabe Reilly and Asher Rapkin unpack Georges Kern's play: chronographs at 3,000–5,000 CHF, an exploration story aimed at Bremont, Longines, and Tudor, sold in Breitling boutiques. Plus Universal Genève and Breitling's return to Watches & Wonders.

Then a listener question: how has working in the industry changed our collecting? It starts with selling nearly everything to help fund Collective Horology — what survived, what still stings (the Urwerk collaboration, the MB&F LM101, the Lange Odysseus), and rebuilding from an empty watch box.

What came back is different: neo-vintage tool watches, Holthinrichs, Ming, Singer. Buying on the merits instead of the hype, why an Aquanaut lands differently outside collector context, and the freedom that comes from retailing independent watches.

Openwork is a weekly podcast about how the watch industry actually works. An unfiltered look behind the scenes — no press releases, no hype, and no sponsored takes. Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can find us online at https://collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

In Episode 90 of Openwork, Collective Horology co-founders Gabe Reilly and Asher Rapkin reveal that they've sued the U.S. federal government over the tariffs squeezing the watch industry and small businesses nationwide. They explain why they joined the suit alongside co-plaintiff Burlap Barrel, how the latest Section 301 tariffs continue to limit access to independent watches, and why it's the volatility of trade policy — not just the cost — that makes it so hard for small businesses to plan and grow.

The guys then dig into the numbers: the latest Swiss watch export data (up more than 11% year over year in June 2026, with the U.S. driving growth as China slides), the "bullwhip effect" tariffs are having on imports, and fresh quarterly earnings from Richemont, Swatch Group, and LVMH — where jewelry is powering the luxury recovery while watchmaking hangs tougher.

Finally, they turn to the shifting Rolex and pre-owned market, where Rolex's share of secondary-market value has hit a seven-year low even as its Certified Pre-Owned program grows into a juggernaut. They close on the retail arms race reshaping the industry — Bucherer's giant new Rolex flagship in New York, fresh boutiques nationwide, and what the rise of big-box players like Watches of Switzerland and the 1916 Company means for family-owned dealers.

Openwork is a weekly podcast about how the watch industry actually works. An unfiltered look behind the scenes — no press releases, no hype, and no sponsored takes. Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can find us online at https://collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

A quick news note: On Friday, July 24, Collective, along with New York spice importer Burlap & Barrel, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of International Trade challenging the federal government's latest Section 301 tariffs. We'll dig into the details on our next episode. In the meantime, you can read more here.

On this episode of Openwork, Gabe Reilly and Asher Rapkin talk with Karel Bachand, founder and chief engineer of Barrelhand, the San Francisco brand rethinking American watchmaking. Karel reverse-engineered an Urwerk as a teenager and cut his teeth on microgravity devices at NASA Ames before building Monolith — a mechanical watch designed from first principles as an aerospace tool, and one that couldn't be made in Switzerland.

The conversation digs into the question the industry avoids: after sixty years of luxury and heritage, what does a watch brand look like when it picks substance over story? Karel breaks down building an American supply chain from scratch, why decentralized manufacturing beats bringing it all in-house, and why a mechanical movement — not quartz or digital — is the right call for the harsh reality of a spacewalk.

It's also a frank take on collector blind spots, like the assumption that a modified Sellita movement is a cop-out instead of a deliberate, reliability-driven choice, and on growing the independent watch community by drawing in people from outside it. Explore Karel's work at https://www.barrelhand.com.

Openwork is a weekly podcast about how the watch industry actually works. An unfiltered look behind the scenes — no press releases, no hype, and no sponsored takes. Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can find us online at https://collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

How did Tudor go from a brand you couldn't even buy in the United States to a half-billion-dollar powerhouse selling 300,000 watches a year? In this episode of Openwork, Gabe Reilly and Asher Rapkin trace the rise of Tudor — from its wilderness years in the shadow of Rolex to the 2009 reinvention that produced the Heritage Chrono, the Black Bay, the Pelagos, and an in-house movement. Along the way they unpack the ETA supply crisis, the 2008 financial crash, and Rolex's move upmarket that opened the door for Tudor to walk through.

But this isn't the usual "poor man's Rolex" conversation. Gabe and Asher argue that Tudor's real role is stranger and smarter than that: the gonzo laboratory where Rolex tests every material, case size, and business model it's too disciplined to try itself. Tudor is the black sheep by design — the pressure-release valve that lets Rolex stay conservative while quietly backfilling the market it left behind as prices climbed.

So where does it go from here? With 260-plus boutiques, celebrity wrists, and a brand that's broken into mainstream culture, Tudor looks like a company on the path to a billion dollars. The question is whether it gets there on brand alone — and whether a watch that exists relative to Rolex can ever truly stand on its own.

Openwork is a weekly podcast about how the watch industry actually works. An unfiltered look behind the scenes — no press releases, no hype, and no sponsored takes. Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can find us online at https://collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

To mark 250 years of American independence, we're revisiting one of our favorite conversations: our sit-down with Josh Shapiro, the American independent watchmaker behind the Resurgence — the only watch that currently meets the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's standard for "Made in America." It's a fitting week to ask a question that feels newly urgent in an era of tariffs and reshoring: what would it actually take to bring watchmaking back to the United States at scale?

Josh takes us from the industry's staggering height — when American factories employed over 100,000 people and produced millions of chronometer-grade watches a year, so far ahead that the Swiss crossed the Atlantic in 1876 to study our methods and race to catch up — through the forces that dismantled it: the pivot from pocket watches to wristwatches, an aggressive Swiss cartel, Depression-era trade deals, and a postwar collapse that was already terminal long before the quartz crisis delivered the final blow. Along the way he explains why the single hardest thing to rebuild isn't machinery or capital, but people, and why "Swiss Made" and "Made in America" are two very different promises.

Told through the lens of building the Resurgence in his Los Angeles workshop — the CNC machines, the $150,000 balance-staff breakthrough, the North Dakota jeweler he coaxed out of retirement — this is a clear-eyed look at the slow, deliberate work of rebuilding an industry from the roots up, and what any of us can do to support it.

Openwork is a weekly podcast about how the watch industry actually works. An unfiltered look behind the scenes — no press releases, no hype, and no sponsored takes. Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can find us online at https://collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

This week we're proud to welcome Bamford London to the Collective line card. George Bamford is the OG of modern collaborative watchmaking, but it's his own designs — the D300 Ceramic Diver, the Monopushers, the GMTs — that pulled us in: pieces that read as instantly recognizable without ever aping the usual suspects, built from forged carbon, ceramic, and titanium, at a genuinely accessible price. They also slot perfectly into the decade-plus renaissance in English design and watchmaking. Then we get into the real subject of the episode, which is almost the opposite of Bamford's forward-looking material science: the rise of analog culture, and why it's quietly driving one of the strongest stretches the US watch market has ever seen.

US watch sales jumped nearly 30% in the first five months of 2026 — and that's sell-through reported by retailers, not sell-in. We felt it in our own business, posting our biggest sales month ever before June was even over. But the more interesting question is why, and we make the case that this moment is fundamentally different from the COVID boom. That run was narrow and speculative: a handful of steel sports references, mania, watches as assets to flip. What's happening now is broad-based and rooted in the intrinsics — design, handwork, the human connection between the person who cut the dial and the object on your wrist. The three segments leading the way tell the story: neo-vintage and vintage, independent brands, and the $50,000-and-up tier where handcraft lives.

We zoom out from there, because watches are riding a much bigger wave. Vinyl now outsells CDs, with most of Gen Z owning records — and plenty of buyers who don't even own a turntable, which tells you the object itself is the point. Film cameras are back in production, analog synths are having a moment, and a real backlash is building against a digital licensing economy where you rent your media instead of owning it. We get into what that physical, patient, you-actually-own-it impulse means for collecting, why automating the hunt drains the fun out of it, and where neo-vintage reissues might go in 2026 and 2027.

Openwork is a weekly podcast about how the watch industry actually works. An unfiltered look behind the scenes — no press releases, no hype, and no sponsored takes. Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can find us online at https://collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

We're on summer hours, but we wanted to keep something in your feed as much as we can — so this one comes from our Watches Of podcast, a conversation Gabe recorded in person with Claude Greisler of Armin Strom. Claude is one of the brand's two modern co-founders and its master watchmaker, and he made the trip out to Los Angeles for Open House, where a full spread of the Armin Strom collection was on the tables. Before the watches, the two sat down for a wide-ranging talk about how he got here.

Claude's path is what makes this one worth your time. He grew up in a family of watchmakers, trained for the better part of a decade across Swiss watchmaking, restoration, and movement construction, and cut his teeth on high complications at Christophe Claret. But unlike so many of his peers, he never put his own name on a dial. Instead, with his childhood friend Serge Michel, he took over Armin Strom: a legendary local watchmaker whose vision was a single, clear idea — the movement should be the star of the watch. That conviction is the spine of the conversation, from the decision to become a true in-house manufacturer to the brand's signature complications and its philosophy of transparent mechanics.

This is also, at heart, an Openwork episode. What we keep coming back to on this show is the power of a clear, strong brand identity, and Armin Strom is a near-perfect case study: a watchmaker who walked away from the obvious move to inherit a brand with a reason for being, then re-engineered it from scratch. Along the way, Claude demystifies resonance — what it actually is, and why Armin Strom's approach to it is so distinct — using a couple of analogies that made it click for Gabe, and probably will for you too. We'll be back next week with a regularly scheduled episode.

Openwork is a weekly podcast about how the watch industry actually works. An unfiltered look behind the scenes — no press releases, no hype, and no sponsored takes. Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can find us online at https://collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

Gabe heads to Las Vegas for one of the largest trade shows in the watch and jewelry world — a B2B behemoth that's quietly making a bigger play for watches than ever before. He breaks down what the show gets right, where it falls short of the events collectors actually obsess over, and the one brand on the floor that genuinely stopped him in his tracks across every price point imaginable.

Then the conversation turns to the topic everyone assumed was behind us. Tariffs didn't go away — they just changed costume. Gabe and Asher trace the legal shell game playing out right now: what got struck down, the new justifications being rolled out to take its place, and the deadline this summer that could send rates climbing all over again. If you thought the worst was over, this is the segment to hear.

Underneath the legal maneuvering are some genuinely serious accusations being leveled at brands the guys know personally — claims they can say, with absolute certainty, simply aren't true. It's a conversation about what's being said versus what's real, what it means for prices and the collectors who love this hobby, and why there's still far more to look forward to than to fear.

Openwork is a weekly podcast about how the watch industry actually works. An unfiltered look behind the scenes — no press releases, no hype, and no sponsored takes. Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can find us online at https://collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

Morning after Open House 2026 — the biggest event Collective Horology has ever thrown. Now in its third year at The Aster in Hollywood, the fair pulled 400+ people through the door, a line down the street, a closed RSVP, and attendees who flew in from as far as Boston. Gabe and Asher dig into why a show built entirely around esoteric, left-of-center independents draws such a self-selecting crowd: not casual passersby, but a curious, informed audience that knows exactly what it's looking at.

Every brand got an identical table this year, which Asher argues strips everything away but the watch — a half-million-dollar Armin Strom repeater feet from a sub-$20K Fears or MING that more than holds its own. Gabe relays Ariel Adams' surprise that Collective lets brands talk directly to clients, something most retailers avoid for fear of being cut out. The reason is the whole advantage of independent retail: when you choose every brand you carry, you trust them — the same camaraderie that had competing watchmakers breaking bread together after the show.

Big thanks to everyone who came out, to the brands who flew halfway around the world, and to operations lead Ellie, whose execution made the day run.

Openwork is a weekly podcast about how the watch industry actually works. An unfiltered look behind the scenes — no press releases, no hype, and no sponsored takes. Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can find us online at https://collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

While preparing to speak on a panel about the rapidly changing state of American watch retail, Gabe stumbles onto an annual industry report that ranks the largest jewelry and watch retailers by revenue — and what he finds stops him cold. The company sitting at the very top of the list is one neither he nor Asher had ever heard of: a quiet giant operating thousands of doors in plain sight. And the name long assumed to rule American watch retail? It's quietly been overtaken.

This week, Gabe and Asher dig into what the numbers actually reveal — an industry consolidating faster than most enthusiasts realize, on both the retail floor and the brand side. They trace how one retailer went from almost nothing to the brink of a billion dollars in a single decade, why brick-and-mortar still rules even in an online-first world, and how a single dominant brand quietly pulls the strings behind some of the biggest players. Along the way, a long-held assumption gets turned on its head: the position everyone once considered the safest bet in watch retail may now be the most exposed.

The bigger question hanging over all of it — as the giants get bigger and the old rules fall away, is any of this good for the people who actually love watches? Gabe makes his case, Asher pushes back, and they map out where the independents, including businesses like their own, might fit in a landscape that looks nothing like it did just a few years ago.

Openwork is a weekly podcast about how the watch industry actually works. An unfiltered look behind the scenes — no press releases, no hype, and no sponsored takes. Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can find us online at https://collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

Seiko, Citizen, and Casio each pulled in over a billion dollars in revenue last year — in most cases record-breaking, and all three landing neck and neck around $1.3 billion with healthy 9–14% net margins. That's remarkable on its own. It's stunning when you remember it happened in the same sub-$5,000 segment that's been punishing the Swiss. While Swatch Group struggles and the broader industry hunts for its footing, Japan's big three are quietly having their strongest year in decades.

We dig into why. The short version: they're counter-positioned to everything that's currently working against Swiss luxury. A weak yen against a punishingly strong franc, a value-and-reliability pitch instead of a luxury-and-heritage one, a technology focus (spring drive, solar, high-accuracy quartz, the entire G-Shock universe) at the exact moment tastes drift away from vintage reissues, and diversified distribution into markets like Latin America and India that the Swiss lean on far less. We also get into how different these three businesses actually are under the hood — Casio's pivot to watches as a majority of revenue, and Citizen's sprawling structure spanning La Joux-Perret, Miyota, Bulova, Frédéric Constant, Alpina, Arnold & Son, and Angelus — and why Seiko still doesn't get half the respect it deserves.

Before all that, we welcome Niton and the Niton Prima to Collective, and put a final cap on the AP x Swatch launch — the crowds, the resellers, the injuries, and Nick Hayek's remarkably flip BBC interview — a moment that revealed real cultural relevance for AP and a real crisis-management failure for Swatch.

Openwork is a weekly podcast about how the watch industry actually works. An unfiltered look behind the scenes — no press releases, no hype, and no sponsored takes. Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can find us online at https://collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.