L&JR offers affordable horlogerie

L&JR watches offer

L&JR watches offer: New watch brand L&JR, which debuted in Baselworld, is aiming to revolutionise the world of horology by presenting good watchmaking at entry-level price points. The marque aims “to bring people modern, sophisticated and affordable timepieces”. Its first collection called Step 1 is described as “though unconventional, Step 1 is meant for anyone who appreciates high-quality, well-crafted timepieces which are ready to wear at any occasion. “Day & Night” magazine sat down with Jörg Hysek Jr, co-founder of L&JR, to find out about the brand, its products, and where it plans to go…

Can you begin by telling us about the brand, how you conceived the idea, and why at that price point?

The brand L&JR was founded by three of us: Philippe Cros, Lionel Ladoire, and myself. Lionel is in charge of creation, Philippe takes care of the production, and I take care of sales development and marketing. We had been thinking for some time to start something new, but were waiting to see what gap in the market we could fill; some segment that would bring something new to the retail industry as well. We all come from the high-end watch segment and we wanted to bring our know-how to a sector that we didn’t know about – the entry-level watches, priced at around CHF1,000, which is inspired by today’s watch.

If you look at the watch itself, you will see a lot of depth in the dial, which is made of different levels. We tried to push the finishing to really high levels, so we designed our own case. When I say that it is inspired by other watches, I mean contemporary watches of today, but our watches have their own identity. When you look at the watch – the lugs, case, and everything has been designed by us.

The reason we chose to go with a quartz movement is because we think quartz is under-valued; most quartz watches are boring. Why should quartz watches be boring? Why can we not have high-end quartz watches? Why is that if a watch looks high-end, it has to be mechanical? This means that the watch has to be now priced around CHF3,000 to CHF10,000. So we decided to use quartz, albeit Swiss made. We are speaking to another generation, the millennials, who want something reliable that looks nice – a watch that doesn’t have to be serviced all the time, and doesn’t need to be sent to Switzerland for service. Here you just have to change a battery, and the price point is just CHF1,100.

How hard was it to adapt to something so different to what you are used to – from high-end watches to entry-level price points?

Actually, we have put in the same effort and energy that we would put in for a high-end watch for L&JR too. First of all, we have the passion and it was not hard at all as we have used the same codes for creation, and for manufacturing; the only difference was the movement.

What are your future plans and hopes for the brand?

We are planning to go step-by-step. Our first collection is called Step 1; Step 2 is in the pipeline. In Step 2, we will use automatic movements, and not quartz. We also plan to come up with something mechanical as well as automatic, but the codes will remain the same – the code is to use not only quartz, but to be creative so that every watch and every step you see will be different. The idea today is to be creative and you will see new things coming up every year.

In which markets is the brand available now?

We had our soft opening only a few months ago and the actual launch was at Baselworld. We already have opened France; Chronopassion was the first to play the game; they were the first to come to us, and that was very encouraging to the brand. We have Julian Joailliers in Saint Tropez and Courchevel; Embassy in Lucerne; we also have Watches of Switzerland in Singapore, which owns the luxury brand chain, the Hour GlassoHour. We spoke to Michael Tay, and he loved it and straightaway said, “I am in”. Today, we had the good surprise of partnering with Seddiqi & Sons in Dubai, so it is very encouraging. We are already speaking with all the big markets so I would say that we are filling a much-needed gap and the future will tell us if we are right.