Rebellion: connecting cars and watches

Founded by an industrialist passionate about watchmaking, high technology, and car racing, Rebellion Timepieces present the best of these three worlds. “Day & Night” magazine speaks to Calim Bouhadra – CEO of Rebellion Corporation – about the brand’s inception and how the marque is all about connectors, and connecting the worlds of car-racing and watches

Can you first tell us about Rebellion and how the company started?

Rebellion was started 15 years ago by my friend Alexandre Pesci, who is the owner of the brand and the President of Rebellion Corporation. He is also the owner of LEMO Connectors – a big group that manufactures the best connectors in the world, and we are the world leaders in connectors.

Making a connector is similar to horlogerie; connectors are used in a wide range of industries, such as Formula 1 and robots. The robot that is currently exploring Mars features LEMO connectors; we are present in the space, manufacturing, nuclear, electric, and electronic industries. In all of these industries, when they need high-end connectors, they use LEMO products. Our products are very famous and we have a big team of around 1,800 employees. We have more than 300 CNC machines for making connectors; we use these as I am the COO of the group and I take care of all the production – the investment, machines, and technology – of the group.

We have all that is needed to create a watch brand; Alex is passionate about cars as am I. We love mechanics; I am a mechanical engineer and that is the connection between Rebellion watches and cars. We did not find anything in the market that reflected our interests, so we decided to design our own watches. We are both entrepreneurs and we committed ourselves fully; when we do something, we do it right. We are very happy that, today, we and Rebellion have grown to this level. Horology enthusiasts now understand us, what we stand for. We now receive good feedback from watch lovers and this is important for us.

Which market did you first enter worldwide when you began the brand?

Dubai; our first and best market is Dubai, where we work with our local partner Levant. We had a presence in Baselworld and obviously sold some of our watches in Switzerland, but for many years, Dubai was our biggest market. Russia was a big market as Russians love our products because our watches were bigger in size earlier. Our watches were really big and people who like big watches and a bit of bling loved us. But then, due to various reasons, we could no longer operate there.

By this time, we had been developing other markets – such as Mexico and Japan – in parallel, and today, we are everywhere in the world, except in China and the US, two of the biggest markets. I am very optimistic about the future as we are doing very well right now, without tapping into the two biggest markets.

How many watches do you sell now? And what are you aiming at for the future?

We are now selling 800 pieces every year, and my goal is to sell around 2,500 watches every year and not more than that. I can do more, but production of more than that would be difficult.

Where in the Middle East are Rebellion watches available?

We are very proud and happy about the Middle East because we have signed a partnership with a local entity – Ali Al Mulla – that was supposed to come into effect two years ago. Due to COVID, we postponed our plans. We will be opening our own boutique – the first Rebellion outlet – in Abu Dhabi at Emirates Towers, shortly. Ali Al Mulla is not in the watch industry, but he knows the market well. He trusts us, loves the brand, and believes we have a great future. He wants to take us to all the countries in the GCC.

Is Rebellion present in the other GCC countries?

Not yet; right now, we have a presence in Dubai with Levant, and we are in Abu Dhabi. We are working to develop the brand in all the countries of the region.