H.Moser & Cie is the latest brand to enter the world of J Farren Price, which they launched recently in Sydney at Shell House, and we sat down with Bertrand Meylan to understand the brand, his family business and his love of watches!
H. Moser & Cie is a brand that doesn’t need a whole lot of an introduction to those that are really into watches, but for those that are more into the mainstream brands, H. Moser & Cie may not be as familiar, after all, they only make about 4,000 watches a year and they are not entry-level at all. In Australia, there have been very few retail outlets that have stocked them, and in a country like Australia, physical presence and accessibility are major factors when it comes to the success of a brand and its sales. While the mainstream brands have flourished here, the time of the independent watch brand seems to be burgeoning which is great for both the industry as a whole and collectors alike.
So when you have brand such as H. Moser & Cie that has 196 years of history, and makes some of the most beautiful and interesting pieces out there, you want them to be better known and more appreciated. If you’ve seen a Moser up close, or own one, you know what I’m talking about here! When it was announced that J Farren Price would now be a stockist of H Moser & Cie, it was exciting as us watch enthusiasts would love to see more of these on people’s wrists out here.
To celebrate, J Farren Price held a launch event recently in Sydney at Shell House, and I went along to see the watches, talk with the team at J Farren Price, including Julian Farren Price and more importantly, have a sit-down conversation with Bertrand Meylan, Co-owner of H. Moser & Cie and CEO of MELB Luxe subsidiaries, over coffee and get to know him, the watches and the brand just that little better!
As I touched on, H Moser & Cie has a history dating back 196 years, when a young watchmaker named Heinrich Moser founded H. Moser & Cie in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, making an estimated 500,000 pieces over his lifetime. Heinrich was known not only for watches but also for his involvement in the industrialisation of Schaffhausen itself, most notably the building of the first Swiss dam featuring hydro-mechanical turbines to produce energy. It goes without saying that ingenuity was in his and his family’s blood. But as the saying goes, the only constant is change and change itself, and H. Moser & Cie was not immune to this change.
Over the course of the 20th century, the business changed hands several times, until the quartz crisis of the late ’70s and early ’80s sealed its fate. But then in 2005, the Great Grandson of Heinrich Moser re-launched the brand, but unfortunately, it wasn’t a success due to several factors. Knowing this, I ask Bertrand about his family’s involvement in the business and how a family business such as his got involved and introduced to a brand like H. Moser & Cie.
“Well, unfortunately, or fortunately for us, he [Heinrich Moser’s Great Grandson] did great, created some good movements and started to build a manufacture. But he did not manage to create a business, for different reasons. He was probably missing identification of the brand, building brand awareness, the product’s price will not well positioned, some quality issues etc. Quite a lot on the list! So through a common contact, we got in touch with them [Moser] and they were looking for solutions. The owner at that time didn’t want to put any more money in the business and was looking for somebody to take the business over basically!”
According to Bertrand, the business when they took it over was in very bad shape, was bleeding a lot of money and was only a few weeks away from bankruptcy, so essentially, the second life of H. Moser & Cie was about to come to an end, and I feel that if that had happened, then it would have been probably for good. But thankfully, Bertrand and the Meylan family saw its potential and what it could be if it was run properly by people who knew business, and also had a love of watches!
“We saw it, we loved the potential it had we loved certain movements, especially the perpetual calendar that already existed at that time – we thought was one of the best movements and there was a nice story. So there were quite a lot of things that were interesting and we decided to as a family, well we had to be convinced a bit, especially my brother [Edouard], myself, and my father who was the biggest person who needed to be convinced at first that we should do it!
Following along, I ask about how they managed to convince his father and the rest of the family, and Bertrand continues his story…
“It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and we should do it!” Elaborating on this he continues; “It was a mix – there was a lot of little things where we saw a sparkle of potential like they had some iconic and amazing movements the start of a manufacture that was interesting, they were already using some interesting dials, the look of the case (the endeavour at time), so there were really different points that we believed were great to bring it to the next level.”
However, as shiny and sparkly as Moser seemed, it was not an easy journey at the start. Bertrands talks about those early days of the business, and just how much of a task it was to keep it above water, and what the feeling was at the time.
“It was not easy at first as it was still in very bad shape for quite a few years. To really start the turnaround was difficult. It was always growing, it was always going in the right direction but still, you know cash flow and all that wasn’t great. It was probably too big for our family and our family resources so it was quite stressful even with momentum for the first 4-5 years until it started to come out of the water”
Interestingly I can relate to this sentiment, being in a business and having good friends start and run their business, I know all too well the day-to-day frustrations you can have. And it seems that a brand that has almost 200 years of history isn’t immune to the economic effects of the world and markets either! He continues:
“It gets frustrating because you’re like OK! We’re doing much better with things, we should be starting to save, things are, but why are we still having issues to pay our suppliers you know? We should have money to pay our suppliers, you always are like, OK, who is sending us letters will be paid first!”
This statement right here just goes to show you that no matter how well you can run a business or how much you have passion for it, the first years in operation are always going to be the hardest and the most trying. While all the family seemed to have second thoughts about the purchase, especially his father, many times he tells me as he chuckles, there wasn’t any doubt that they could and would make it work.
“I don’t think we ever really had a doubt. We had big worries, we had sleepless nights, or the worst was you wake up in the middle of the night and your brain starts working on it and that’s it, you can just get up and go back to work basically! But I don’t remember talking with my brother and being like – we are going straight into the wall. We always believed we were going in the right direction and we always saw where the brand could go.”
And they were right! While H. Moser & Cie doesn’t compete on a scale like the big brands out there, they’ve kept themselves niche, which works perfectly for them. A brand that has the tagline ‘Very Rare’, Bertrand and his family aren’t planning on getting away from this anytime soon. I mention to him that the independent nature of Moser, its design style and its size are what makes it appealing, to which he agrees. They design watches for people like himself and his brother who resonate with a watch that isn’t mainstream for lack of a better word.
“Exactly! In the beginning, we designed watches that my brother and I would wear, and for people like us. At the end of the day, we are the right target. But even in our collection, you can have something completely extreme in some ways, or you can have a little bit less, but always with an edge. We like to have an edge, we find that edge is what attracts people to our product so like the concept with absolutely nothing or using Vanta black or using more modern ways to do the enamel or doing something like the Studio Underdog collab – it’s important to always try to have an edge and that helps to differentiate ourselves, it’s important to differentiate ourselves!”
This differentiation is a major factor for Moser. There are very few other brands out there that compare to H. Moser & Cie in design, style and movement making. In the words of Bertrand, that are somewhere in between Patek Philippe and Richard Mille! And speaking of different, I have to mention one of the most talked about collaborations this year, and that is the one H. Moser and Cie has done with Studio Underd0g and the Passion Project.
“Yes the Studio Underd0g piece for example is not for everybody and it’s not meant to be for everybody. Even in our own community, I had big collectors telling me that they love the exercise, but it’s not for them. To that I responded with “no issues, I understand it completely”, but you need that. From the first day, we always say in order to be loved you need to be hated and you need to create this. If everyone says you’re doing good watches, you will not sell!”
But the watch turned out beautifully as well, and I echo what Bertrand says about his watches not being for everyone, and neither are Studio Underd0g products. But, people love them because they are vibrant and cool watches. Bertrand then tells me that while there has been some mixed reaction online, overall the response has been very positive, to the point that this collaboration collection has been the entry point in some cases to Moser!
“I mean I was in Auckland in New Zealand last night and I met a couple from there, it was the first Moser they ordered! And I was like, you go straight into it! They said they saw it and loved it and wanted it, and somehow they straight away found a way to get it! Sales have been extremely positive and we’ll be sold out of the 100-piece collection, and we’ve had some of our biggest collectors ordering it, it’s been quite surprising, and in a good way, even a few pieces in Sydney that have been sold!“
Funnily enough, this whole point about loving and hating watches (in general), is music to my ears as an ex-brand strategist – as the saying goes, if you try and appeal to everyone, you will appeal to no one. While this may sound funny to people not in brand or marketing, with luxury products and niche products, this is very much the case. You need to carve out a niche and find those people that your brand connects with and Moser does this very well I feel. Bertrand backs this up, thankfully:
“I don’t like to use the word niche but because the brand name when it comes to the large brands is so much stronger than us, so we will disappear if we do the same thing. We cannot fight on that level, so we need to fight on being different and creative. If people don’t understand us, fine, but we have people who do. It was funny to see the 12 years of our evolution to now. If somebody criticises us online for example, we have a community who are hard-core Moser lovers all over the world. They would come and defend us, so we don’t need to go and explain ourselves and explain what we’re doing. Now the community does it for us, and that shows us that people really love us. I mean, we have people with tattoos now of Moser, it’s quite interesting!”
It’s not hard to understand why this is the case. Moser watches are like no other on the market today. The style of the cases, the dials are another level and the movements are finished so well. On the surface, many of their pieces look simple, but if you go under the hood, they’re anything but. I talk about this with Bertrand calling them simplistically complex, to this he agrees!
“We put a lot of thought into our watches actually, minimalism doesn’t mean simplistic! It’s even sometimes harder to make something complex minimalist, like our perpetual calendars such as the Salmon we launched this year – that was probably the most minimalistic perpetual calendar ever done in terms of design. It’s an extremely complex watch that’s for only those who know, will know how complex it is. I mean it’s over 400 parts it’s the easiest perpetual calendar to use, to go forwards, backwards, can change the date at any time. This doesn’t exist with any other brand, it is extremely complex but the exercise is to try and we try to repeat that even our minute repeaters and on the chronograph.”
While something like a simple-looking piece may sound easy to design and deliver to market, it is anything but. It takes time to develop a complex movement like a perpetual calendar, and then go one step further than other brands and essentially strip back the elements to make it as clean as possible. We talk more about this process in detail and Bertrand explains…
“It is different and depends on the on the different levels of design for each watch or collection. Let’s say we designed this streamliner collection, so coming up with the streamliner that’s a very very long process. I think we took five or six years to design it and we had an outside designer helping us. We told him what we wanted to do, the direction we wanted to go and we really needed that. Then there is when we work in the streamliner collection itself. So we say to ourselves, “OK how do we want to develop the streamliner?” We have almost monthly calls or meetings with my brother, myself, Nicholas who is a key part of the team, and Morizio our production manager. Usually, Morizio says no, but I always ask to find a solution and we do find a solution in the end.”
“We go through a lot of different tests and designs first up, and then through prototyping and testing sometimes it does work, and others it doesn’t work, so we say, let’s evolve let’s try something else! We tried a new technique of dial recently that did not work. On the paper we thought it would be amazing and the prototype came over and we were like, that’s horrible! It doesn’t work! Yeah that happens!”
I ask Bertrand about this a little more, how this process happens, and how they get to the final product, and the answer is not quite what I expected!
“There are some products like this year with the Pioneer Citrus. We actually designed it through WhatsApp and sending each other Photoshop, stopping on the video of Photoshop to see which colour we liked and sending it back and forward. We spent two hours one evening because we were not happy about the products we designed another product! And it turned out a huge success which is quite interesting because we achieved what we wanted, but thought, it’s amazing but will people understand it? We love it and we sent it the next day to production and told them…”that guys, exactly like that!” And they did it, they were very good and did it exactly as we envisioned. They even added the detail of the Super-LumiNova on top which we didn’t think of at first. We launched it and since then it’s been a huge success!”
With this talk of success, I broach the topic of the market. Not just here in Australia, but globally and what this shift means for H. Moser & Cie. As we all know, the market has softened considerably, pieces that were flying off the shelf 18 months ago are not anymore, and when you speak to most brands here and overseas, they will tell you that 2024 has been a challenging year. Moser, however, seems to be bucking this trend a bit…
“Well everybody knew 2024 will be a much more challenging year, at what level? That was difficult to read, but we always believed, because it’s been like that in the past. You know, it’s all cycles, even in our 12 years with Moser it’s not our first cycle where you have better years and less so. We believe that during harder years is when you gain momentum compared to others, and it’s what we did in the past. So we quickly decided to do 2 things this year – to continue to launch good products, so be aggressive on our launches, products that we believe will be commercially interesting and having talking points and being interesting.”
“At the same time we decided to double down on marketing, so this year we’re investing double what we were investing last year. Everybody’s cutting, so again I’ll give you an example: We started to develop China in the last 2-3 years and we opened boutiques in Beijing and Shanghai and we are planning to open a couple of others. Traditionally it’s difficult to be seen because everybody was putting so much money in China those last few years. This year, everybody has cut (budgets) drastically in China, so suddenly you are the one doing bigger events, you’re the one being seen!”
And it is this growth mindset that is setting Moser apart, and will continue to set them apart I believe moving forward, here and overseas. And retail partnership such as this one with J Farren Price will only help this visibility in the country and expansion plans to target a growing enthusiasts community.
“We believe Moser is only at the beginning of where it will be, but for that, you need to take risks during those moments. August was probably our best-ever sell-out in the history of the brand, with people are buying to put it on the wrist. We are in double-digit growth in terms of sell-out this year – I don’t believe many brands can say that. I know every brand would say everything is good but for us, it really is good!”
According to Bertrand, not all markets are firing on all cylinders, but thankfully where they have softer markets, other markets are on the rise and have picked up the slack more than enough. So I ask, where does Australia fit into the mix?
“We did very good in Australia this year, it’s in our top eight countries in the world, it’s high, and I believe it’s only the beginning. We have just started now with J Farren Price here, is it’s our exclusive partner here in Sydney, and I’m convinced they’re the right partner. They’re historical, an institution when it comes to watches and doesn’t have too many brands which I like as well. So they are representing us well. We have this big event tonight here and I believe in the potential of Australia which has been a difficult country for many years in the past for us so I’m happy to see it’s going well now. I’m even surprised in New Zealand actually – nobody else is in New Zealand, we’re probably the only independent brand in New Zealand and I’m surprised by the number of sales we do in New Zealand!”
If you’ve not picked up from this so far, Bertrand is a very level-headed, and pragmatic kind of guy who looks at things with an honest lens, albeit a positive one at that. So when he talks, you know what he says will be as close to the truth as anyone can be, and isn’t afraid to admit where they need to improve. It’s very refreshing to say the least. So as we talk about the business, where it is today, and where it is heading, the inevitable next question is, what is next for H. Moser & Cie and where does Bertrand see it heading over the next few years?
“Yes we produce more watches and we used to but still, so much less than the majority of those big guys. What is most important for us, I believe today, is not about what is our production is or how many people buy, but how do we build the brand’s awareness. I don’t believe enough people know us, I think slowly we growing, of course, there are still people who are collectors who know us, but we need to continue to slowly widen our audience, it is something that is important! That’s why we are in Formula 1 now, sponsoring Alpine. We are in a global sport with very good visibility on the car etc so we’ve a lot of activations around that and that helps to slowly widen the audience.”
For Bertrand and the family, it is still about keeping Moser relatively exclusive in terms of the production numbers, as this is working well for them currently but it does seem they want to slowly expand their brand awareness and in time, potentially (not that Bertrand has indicated this to me) production numbers. Don’t forget that this is a brand that while has a lot of history, in its current second life, isn’t all that old. So I ask, what is he most proud of since taking over H Moser & Cie?
“The most important thing, probably what I’m the most proud of is when my wife meets people who know what I’m doing. Because for many years it was like “oh what’s your husband do?” and she’d answer, “Oh, he runs this brand H. Moser”, and they had never heard of it. Now when she is meeting friends, they’re like, oh, H.Moser, year we know it. So suddenly she’s happy, all those hard years of work paid off because it’s been very hard on the on the family as well. Travelling, stress etc and to suddenly meet more and more people who are familiar with the brand, or even own one, she’s now proud and I’m proud. At the end of the day, it’s your little circle that counts!”
The next thing Bertrand says does hit home for me, as I’m sure it will for many people. Why he does what he does. It’s not for the money but for legacy and purpose. Again, something that you don’t hear all that often with large brands as they have big businesses, shareholders, boards etc. But for H. Moser & Cie which is family family-owned and run business, yes the money helps, but it’s not the driving factor and gives you an insight in Bertrand’s previous comment on being recognised.
“To be recognised for what you do at the end of the day, it gives you purpose. At the end of the day, I don’t believe money or anything can excite you in life. I think the legacy of what you will leave is what excites you in life, and by building a brand and what legacy you will leave through this brand is just that. I believe this for Moser. It would be my biggest hope is that Moser will be well managed afterwards, and will be established so that others can continue to build it. Maybe it’s our kids, maybe it’s not, only life will tell!
H. Moser & Cie is on a good path, an upward trajectory, and seems to be doing all the right things. For a business that is pretty much vertically integrated – they are one of the very few brands who produce their own hairsprings for example, in fact, they make their own for their circa 4000 pieces, but this year will produce about 300,000 hairsprings for other brands as well, they are carving out a path that it unique to them, and Bertrand wouldn’t have it any other way. As we finish our almost hour-long conversation, I had to know, as I’m sure you do as well, what does the CEO and co-owner of H. Moser & Cie wear on his wrist day to day? Well, I’ll let him tell you this…
“So I’m wearing the Streamliner micro-rotor with small seconds, which has the beautiful hammered and enamelled dial with this beautiful fumè blue finish on it. It’s a very comfortable watch so I wear it quite a bit with the 39 millimetres it is also our slimmest streamliner ” (talking about the 10.9mm thickness of the case). And I will say it’s stunning in person, as are all Moser’s, but there is something about that blue…
This is where we wrap the interview up as we’ve now been talking for an hour, and the J Farren Price event is about to start in the next room and I can’t hold the guest of honour up any longer! It’s clear that Bertrand, and his family, have a big passion for watches, and the brand they decided to acquire. You have to in this world otherwise you won’t be successful. The Meylans have taken H. Moser & Cie and given it another life, one that is much deserved and pays homage to the brand that was started by Heinrich Moser almost two centuries ago. I for one look forward to seeing how it evolves over the next few years, and while the year is going fast, there are still some great pieces to come. Stay tuned for these, and don’t forget to see all the images below from the J Farren Price x H. Moser & Cie event.
If you want to see more H. Moser & Cie, head on into see the team at J Farren Price in Sydney or see their collection of Mosers over at their site. Jfarrenprice.com.au
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