Openwork: Inside the Watch Industry

For episode 101, Gabe Reilly and Asher Rapkin turn the analysis they usually apply to watch brands on their own business. A listener asked how Collective Horology started, how it was funded and what went wrong along the way, so this episode covers all of it. The story starts in a seventh grade homeroom in Manhattan and goes through a Facebook employee watch club and a Tudor Black Bay 58 that needed Mark Zuckerberg’s sign-off. From there it reaches the first Collective collaboration, a reworked Zenith El Primero Chronomaster, followed by projects with H. Moser & Cie., Urwerk, J.N. Shapiro, IWC, Armin Strom, Czapek, Montblanc and Oris.

Then it gets hard. Gabe and Asher explain why the membership and preorder model for limited edition collaborations stopped working as the watch market corrected in 2023. They cover the layoffs from Meta, the unsold inventory and the hundreds of thousands of dollars they paid out of their own pockets, which meant personal credit lines and a remortgaged house. They also talk about the dinner in Geneva where a watchmaker they admired turned them down with four words: “You don’t have the clients.” That shaped how Collective rebuilt itself as an independent watch retailer, starting with Fears and later J.N. Shapiro and Arkanaut, and how a commission-only pitch from salesperson Jeff Souter became their first hire.

Last, they share what bootstrapping a small business in the watch industry taught them. Collective is profitable with no investors or debt and is still fully owned by its two founders. They explain why they now plan every deal around what happens if everything goes wrong, and why a retailer’s biggest asset is its clients, not the brands it carries.

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 collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

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 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 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 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 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 collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.