When Czapek & Cie. released the Antarctique on May 26^th, 2020, it was at the height of the global pandemic, but CEO Xavier de Roquemaurel tells us that the company couldn’t have chosen a better time to release its first integrated bracelet sports watch. Demand for watches in this category was fast approaching fever pitch, a trend that was fuelled by diminished supply and skyrocketing prices of iconic models from the world’s top brands. But the Antarctique’s runway success was not just a corollary of consumer behavior at the time. There was a very real and positive reason why all 99 pieces of this watch sold out within 17 days, that has more to do with the way the product was conceived and crafted, and less indeed with the forces of supply and demand. See for yourself in this video of Xavier de Roquemaurel and Revolution founder Wei Koh.

To be sure, the hype of integrated bracelet sports watches shone much spotlight on all of such watches, and the Antarctique certainly benefited from it — although Czapek & Cie. did make it a point to enrich the dialogue a little more. The first model, Antarctique Terre Adélie, showed how it was entirely possible that such a qualitative offering could come from what is essentially a crowdfunded microbrand. Subsequent iterations of the Antarctique continued with the winning streak as watch buyers became increasingly appreciative of Czapek & Cie.’s watch creation philosophy which was highly appealing to an audience that was rapidly growing not just in size but in its appetite for horology.

Notably, Czapek & Cie. takes a collaborative approach to watch creation, working with some of the best craftsmen and women in the Swiss watchmaking industry. A strategy also observed at fellow independents such as MB&F and Simon Brette, this has proven to be a highly intelligent creation process for small-scale brands to make a big impact larger than the sum of its parts. At Czapek. Cie., movements are sourced from Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier and complications such as the SHX6 split second movement crafted with the help of Chronode.

Meanwhile, the company works with Metalem SA for guilloché pattern dials and Donzé Cadrans for grand feu enamel dials, as well as AB Concept & AB Product for all habillage requirements. These prominent industry partners enable Xavier de Roquemaurel to conceptualize unique offerings and more importantly provide the capabilities for these products to materialize.

Says Xavier de Roquemaurel, “Since the rebirth of the brand, Czapek has been proud of its ‘family’. We never planned to create a community, it just emerged from our way of working. By opening the books during our fundraise, we became naturally transparent, by being transparent we became collaborative, by being open and collaborative we attracted hundreds of watch lovers and made them become ambassadors and create a community. By collecting rare people, Czapek becomes stronger and more enticing”.

He makes it a point to develop close relationships not just with his manufacturing partners but his retail partners as well. On a recent tour of the Asian markets, Xavier de Roquemaurel visited the new SHH boutiques in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, which is an intriguing retail concept initiated by Singapore based watch retailer Sincere Fine Watches that spotlights watches rather than brand names.

Ensconced in the comfort of a Sincere Fine Watches boutique in the heart of Orchard Road, Revolution caught up with Xavier de Roquemaurel to reminisce the staggering success of the Antarctique and consider how such a watch should evolve as the sports watch hype subsides.

You’ve done an amazing job with the fit, the bracelet, the links, the case… Very well thought through and a unique distinctive design. This has to be one of the reasons why the Antarctique resonated with so many people.

It went all together, at the right time. It’s a combination of factors. It’s not chance, it’s hard work, and there is also a question of the right thing at the right time. Take the Antarctique Rattrapante for example. It’s a monopusher rattrapante chrono. To start the chrono is tough, around 12 to 14 Newtons per square millimetre. Normally it’s around 8 to 10. Then to stop, it is quite light, around 6, and reset is around 10 to 12. But with monopusher chronographs you always struggle because it’s not the same strengths [for different functions] and yet collectors expect it to all be the same. But it’s not possible because you’re not performing the same function. Every push is a different function, so it makes a different strength! Forgive me, I’m getting too technical here.

No but it’s true. From the user’s point of view it seems like a small ask, but yet it’s really rather complicated because as you’ve said it’s a rather different function, involving different sets of components.

You work on each part one by one, and you never give up before getting to the point you want to be. So to answer your question, the person who was critical in making the fit so good is Aurelian Bouchet. He’s a supplying partner. He’s a king of cases. Habillage. Parts that are external parts of the watch, not the dial, not the hands, but everything else. He also conceived the bracelet.

It looks really great, distinctive in design and also extremely flexible. Not many brands have this frame of mind to really obsess on details like that.

You’re right. There is an obsession there. The bracelet that is conceived with the idea that the outer part is like a sword, is masculine. Straight lines and strong angles, bevelling that simply disappears. Inside, it’s super soft, like the body of a woman. We wanted to have these two elements.

Before, I worked one year for Ebel.

And actually Ebel is also a brand with very strong bracelets.

Absolutely. It was also a brand that I discovered when I was young. I was a competitive snowboarder, and my enemy who eventually became my friend was a jewelry maker and he told me that the best for bracelets in watches is Ebel. He loves his Ebel. So I always kept that image of Ebel, which was the modern watchmaking brand of the 70s. When I joined the Ebel it was to restart the brand and it was really an exciting project.

You work on each part one by one, and you never give up before getting to the point you want to be.

Both, and it was deemed to happen. In 2016 I was interviewed by a magazine and they asked me “What do you think of the future?” And I said, The future is bright because indies represent 2 to 3% of the business of high end watchmaking and we can only grow from there. We will multiply by our size by three without any effort because of the tiredness and lack of creativity of the other players. And so the creativity in independent watchmaking will, by force, capture the attention of all the youngsters and everybody’s rejoining this new segment.

We just have to unite forces, because the more we make people speak about us, the more we will capture the attention, the more they will buy watches from independent watchmakers. And we can become 10% of the market easily. We are worth it. The press is giving us, by the way, 30% of share of voice. This is also coming from the lack of creativity of the bigger players, and also the maybe the fact that there was no clear reason to love them. It was too much marketing, you know.

So I probably was saying that to convince myself that was that I was not in deep shit. [Laughs] Because I was an entrepreneur with nearly nothing. No clients, no money, no operations, no product… well some product, but not much more than that. Very quickly though, there came a moment of change, shifts in the market, around 2016/17.

Those were pretty tough times.

Richard and Max and Felix, they’re the ones who started seeding in 2001, and they struggled to 2011/15. They struggled for 10 years, really, and we benefited from their investment. So we should pay tribute to what they did, because we would not be here today if they had not paved the way. Things have changed completely now and it’s good, but it’s a fruit of so much work, and that created the market because the offer has influenced the market. The creativity of indies have created a market for that kind of watches. And the fact that some of the bigger brands fell asleep slowly because they were lacking vision has paved the way for us.

Well, another group of people who’ve contributed to developing more understanding and appreciation for indies are the retailers right? We’ve seen how important community building is in different regions around the world, and consumers have responded very positively to that as well.

We have a limited distribution and we are very happy to work with Sincere Fine Watches because they are good partners, and we like the notion of partnership. That’s why I was telling you about Aurelian Bouchet, my partner on the creation side. Then you have partners on the customer side, and that’s the retail partners that we have. What is important is to feel at ease, to feel that we’re talking the same language, that we have the same culture, same values, we look in the same direction. As of today, we are happy the way we are.

It was the right product at the right time. Covid was an accelerator. It’s as if Covid was a gas leak, and we just lit a match. We started in 2019 and we were clear about why we were doing it, the reason, the purpose, everything. At that time we have to decide between going forward with the Antarctique or shutting down the company. And probably that saved the company. We don’t know if we would have survived if we had not gone ahead. So the notion of courage, the notion of boldness, are critical in Czapek and are critical in independents in a large sense. You should take the risk when, when no one necessarily is taking the risk. Then you should take it because that’s what you stand for.

Very well. Very, very well. I called my board members (we were six at the board) to ask them for an opinion about the situation. That was around March 12/13. Two were risk adverse, one was a risk seeker like me, and the last one was neutral but more on the risk side. And I remember very well he said to me, “Xavier, fortune favors the brave.” There are so many opportunities when there is a crisis that now, if you accelerate, the moment the crisis will be over, because it will be over, you will be the first one ready. So March 12, we said, okay, we go for it. On May 26 2020 we launched the Antarctique and on that day it was all everyone was talking about because there was nothing else. All the big boys have shut down and so that’s the watch you remember. We got the best coverage ever and we sold the first 99 pieces in 17 days.

Amazing.

The following limited edition was 40 pieces, we sold it in 23 hours and 23 minutes. It remained like this for many more launches. Just incredible. That was the craziness of the post Covid moment. Now we have a market consolidation, an adjustment, not unlike a correction in the stock market.

No more crazy buying.

It’s not a drop, it’s not a decline, but it’s a slowdown. That affects everyone, every brand, big or small. We have to go through that, and thereafter it will start to grow again. But there was a small bubble, so it’s not bad that it becomes a bit more relaxed, you know. Less flippers, and no more speculators. That’s really good for the brand.

I’m asking myself the same question. What is the key? It’s always a combination of factors. On one side, independents have paved the way for the next, and they have paved it with creativity. Czapek has shown that a newcomer with 228 shareholders could actually make a great brand, create watches, even though me, Xavier de Roquemaurel, I’m not a watchmaker. That’s the rise of microbrands. And these micro brands are coming now, made of guys who sometimes don’t even live in in Switzerland, but customers couldn’t care less.

What we see that the ones that survive are the ones that are very creative in design. For instance you can like or not like Studio Underdog, but the Watermelon is something very clear, you know. It’s there. Chapeau. So for me, this will continue to shape the market.

That bodes very well indeed.

So I believe that what will happen now is a resurgence in creativity among a number of independents that will more than ever continue in the direction they go. We’re pushing the boundaries of creativity, and I think it’s going to be very interesting