What influence do Japanese collectors still have on the industry?
Laura McCreddie-DoakOn Friday, the 22nd November 2024, in Hong Kong, Phillips hosted an auction house-first. In the WKCDA Tower, situated in the Foster and Partners-designed arts development, West Kowloon Cultural District, a short walk from Tsim Sha Tsui, Phillips held an auction dedicated to a single country – Japan. “We wanted to pay tribute to this market”, explains Thomas Perazzi, Phillips’ deputy chairman and head of watches Asia. “Japan’s collectors have been around since the 1980s, taking the lead, alongside the Italians, when it comes to collecting rare and important watches of exceptional quality.”
The lots acted as a perfect snapshot of where Japan is, both in terms of popular Swiss brands, but also its burgeoning independent watch scene. In recent years, some of the most exciting and talented Japanese watchmakers, such as Hajime Asaoka and Masahiro Kikuno (a man so prodigious he taught himself to make watches by reading George Daniels’ Watchmaking, which he translated into Japanese from the English original) have developed a following both domestically and globally. Watches by both of these watchmakers sat alongside Rolexes, Patek Philippes, and Omegas, as well as well-known Japanese marques such as Grand Seiko and Credor, illustrating how varied Japanese collectors’ tastes are.
“Japanese watch collectors are less sensitive to the brand’s story”, says Pierre-Yves Donzé, professor of business history at the Graduate School of Economics at Osaka University. Donzé is an expert on the history and development of global competition in business, particularly those relating to luxury goods. Born in Switzerland, he has also written books on the watch industry both in Switzerland and Japan, as well as papers looking at the synergy between the two. “Most of them really do not care. They focus on the product and its technical specificities. Sometimes, collectors know the technical characteristics of the watches better than the CEOs! In Japan, we also have probably the world’s best watch magazine, entirely dedicated to products: Chronos Japan. It does not contain anything about storytelling. All the focus is on the products.”
This attitude has always informed Japanese collectors. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the collecting boom was spearheaded by a trio of dealers. These were Tomokazu Kawase, founder of vintage watch retailer Carese; Naoto Nakayama, founder of Jack Road, the legendary vintage watch emporium in Tokyo’s Nakano City; and Toshio Masui, a lesser-known dealer who started by buying gold-plated, square watches by the likes of Bulova (sold in abundance at flea markets in the US where he was living in the early 1980s), and sold on his return to Japan.
Through their travels in the US, buying up watches to sell to the Japanese market, they shaped the current attitude collectors have, which prizes mechanical prowess above everything else. The reason the likes of Rolex, Patek Philippe, and Omega became so popular was because Japanese collectors, unlike their American counterparts, saw the watches they were buying as practical tools. They didn’t care about provenance or the story behind it, they wanted a watch on their wrist that worked. If it didn’t, they weren’t backwards in complaining, which is why Japanese retailers were among the first to offer warranties on vintage timepieces.
Another factor in the late ’80s collecting boom was money. “This period was characterized by a skyrocketing value of the yen,” explains Donzé. “The Japanese started collecting mechanical watches, and never stopped.” It was the collapse of said bubble that also had a significant impact on the Japanese taste for watches. From 1991 to 2002, Japan experienced what has become known as “The Lost Decade”. Post-WWII Japan’s economy rose meteorically, and peaked in the 1980s as the largest per capita gross national product in the world. Then everything went wrong as a result of raised interest rates in response to the bubble about to burst, a stock market crash, and subsequent debt crisis. Interestingly, during this period, household savings increased, but people remained cautious about their spending.
If purchases were made, they were of the discrete variety. That meant identifiable brands such as Rolex and Patek Philippe were out, and independent watchmakers were in. And not just any Swiss independents, we’re talking the best – the likes of Philippe Dufour and F.P. Journe. The former shared his specific style of bridge finishing with the team at the Grand Seiko’s Micro Artist Studio when he visited in 2000. Located in the same facility as the Shinshu Watch Studio, it houses around ten watchmakers who are considered some of Japan’s best, and it is where the company’s most complex watches are made, such as the Credor Sonnerie and Minute Repeater. No wonder Dufour’s picture has pride of place on the wall. He was even immortalised in a manga called Tokei No Himitsu (The Secret of Watches). Journe, on the other hand, opened his very first boutique in Tokyo in 2003. “The Japanese like watches from these names because they are constantly trying to innovate classic watchmaking,” explains Perazzi.
It was these independents that encouraged the domestic talent as well, inspired by a shift in perception from the watch collectors. “In the past, Japanese watches were not perceived as luxury, but over the past decade or so, independent luxury watches have emerged and large Japanese manufactures have begun to focus on luxury watches,” explains Masahiro Kikuno, the youngest member of the Académie Horlogère des Créateurs Indépendants (AHCI).. As well as translating Daniels in order to learn how to make a watch, back in 2011, he was the first person to make a wristwatch version of the Japanese wadokei clock by hand. Until 1872, when Emperor Meiji got rid of lunar calendars, Japanese clocks used traditional timekeeping practices that required the use of unequal time units: six daytime units from local sunrise to local sunset, and six nighttime units from sunset to sunrise. As such, Japanese timekeepers varied with the seasons; the daylight hours were longer in summer and shorter in winter, with the opposite at night. Kikuno decided to minimise it.
He’s not the only Japanese talent garnering a global reputation. There’s also fellow AHCI member Hajime Asaoka, who recently resurrected Takano and also oversees Kurono, two more accessibly priced brands, on which he works with fellow independent watchmaker Jiro Katayama of Otsuka Lotec. Katayama, on the other hand, makes designs inspired by car dashboard instruments and gauges, and if the results of the auction are anything to go by, collectors are paying attention to what they are producing.
“Rolex is definitely still the most popular brand, followed by Patek Philippe. Vintage and classic-style modern Cartier is also becoming popular,” says Kaz Fujimoto, senior consultant, Phillips Watches, when asked about the lots at TOKI show, if taken as a snapshot of where the Japanese market is now in terms of taste in watches. “However, many young people are entering the market, and tastes are becoming more diverse. Before, collectors were more into movement and history, but today, design is the most important element. I think that is the reason independent watchmakers (both Swiss and Japanese) are becoming popular.”
The results of the auction certainly paint a similar picture. Lot 107, an Otsuka Lotec No. 6 Shinonome made especially for the auction had an estimate of approximately US$2,000 to US$5,800, and sold for ~US$68,500. A regular No.6 with the same estimate sold for ~US$60,000. The Masahiro Kikuno SO, with an aluminium bronze case, month indication, and sky chart, went for ~US$111,000 from an estimate of US$650 to US$2,300. His Tourbillon 2012 sold for ~US$230,000, from an estimate of US$25,700 to US$51,500.
That’s not to say that the big names weren’t doing well, but the margins between estimate and sale price just weren’t the same. Take a Rare Handcrafts Calatrava ref. 5077P, with a platinum case and cloisonné enamel floral kimono pattern dial – Phillips believes only four were made. With a US$76,900 to US$128,000 reserve, it went for ~US$90,000. Even Roger Smith only did ok, selling his third-edition Series 2 for ~US$441,000 – but it had a top estimate of US$603,000, meaning it sold for less than the Series 1 auctioned at the British Watchmakers’ Day in March. Granted, you can manipulate auction results to fit a certain narrative, and there is no suggestion that the desire for Pateks and Rolexes is on the wane, it’s just interesting seeing the desire for domestic independents. Donzé believes this goes back to the other emphasis the Japanese collector has, which is on technical prowess rather than a good story.
“[There is] a deep interest in mechanics. Don’t forget this is the country of the automobile industry. Japanese men in particular love mechanical movements and collect them”, he says. “The impact of the Japanese on this market now is not quantitative, but qualitative. They know better than anyone about watches. If they collect a watch, it means its technical specificities are excellent.” It may also be that a new breed of collectors are coming through who favour independents over established brands. “There was a time when we thought that the watch industry in Japan would die, but that hasn’t been the case”, says Perazzi. “I now see collectors in their twenties who want to start collecting watches.”
This desire for new brands is also being facilitated by the likes of Shellman, Tokyo’s iconic watch retailer. Shellman was founded 50 years ago as an antique watch store, now with three storefronts in Tokyo’s most respected department stores, including Mitsukoshi Ginza, Isetan Shinjuku, and Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi Main Store as well as four antique watch stores. About 25 years ago, it started collaborating with independent brands. It has worked with the likes of Habring², Czapek, Armin Strom, and most recently Ressence, which saw the future-forward brand work with Buaisou, a company based in Kamiita-cho, in Tokushima Prefecture, near Honshu, to feature thread coloured using the ancient Japanese craft of indigo dyeing. The result is a dial that looks like someone trapped the sea underneath glass; the stitching mimicking its restless eddies.
In many ways, it embodies the type of watch it appears Japanese collectors are hankering after now. Ressence’s mechanics are a marvel, the dial has a unique aesthetic beauty, the brand isn’t flashy – it’s discerning. Just as we appear to have turned our eyes towards Japan, it feels as though Japan’s influence on watchmaking both from a practical and consumer point of view is being felt more and more. Will this mean that mechanics will be back on brand’s R&D menus rather than this current exploration of form instead of function? That remains to be seen. If TOKI’s lot results prove anything, it’s that independents might well be the future.