Heroes And Villains 2021 - Villains Who Rewrite History

BBC - Credit Fourandsix.com

Regular readers will note, I worked (albeit indirectly) for DOXA from 2007 - 2010.

At that time, Synchron was, essentially, a licensee who had successfully negotiated the rights to design, order, market and sell a revived DOXA SUB collection from the Jenny family who owned the brand. It is worth noting that this essentially meant that Synchron footed the bill. The watches were manufactured by Walca, a white label company owned and operated by... the Jenny family! Marketing, promotion, after sales service? That was all handled by Synchron, who if we're being honest about things, paid for that privilege.

So with next to no money, we had to find any way we could to make sales and get coverage. 

Spoiler Alert -

We did! 

This was helped greatly by partnerships like the one with Project AWARE -

Which led to later partnerships with Jean-Michel Cousteau's Ocean Futures -

After 3 years, it became clear to me that despite the amount of effort I put in, the number of watches sold, and the partnerships I created Synchron wasn't really that bothered whether I stayed or went. 

So I went. 

History was revised, others painted their own images into the three year picture, and in truth? It was disappointing, but as that other great commentator on the watch business, Napoleon Bonaparte once opined -

Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self interest.

But then, what had "gone around came around". A new CEO was brought into DOXA/Walca, and he believed (and I think rightly) that there was much more money to be made on the DOXA SUB if the company did not license the name to a third party, and did it themselves. While not nearly the scale of value, it is not unlike when Gucci bought Gucci Watches back from Severin Wundermann. 

Photo credit Fourandsix.com

And that would have been fair play all around, but then DOXA served it up cold, with a recreation myth that would have made Thierry Nataf blush. Now don't get me wrong, I can honestly say that the Jenny family were well within their rights to make the change and take back control of the DOXA SUB. But to offer up a narrative that they (the current management team) are solely responsible for reintroducing the SUB, and DOXA to the general public and retail outlets is patently false. 

Am I a fan of Synchron? 

No, not really. But credit should be given where credit is due. Without Synchron, the DOXA SUB would never have surfaced. All of the people at Synchron (not just one despite what he may say or think) made it possible for there to be something for the Jenny's to hand off to a new CEO. 

So just what changed between Synchron and the new owner-backed management? 

Simple.  Money. If you plenty of money to spend on prototyping, production, media buys and the engagement of press agencies? Let's just say that money makes a lot of things possible. 

I am glad that the Jenny family finally decided to put some money into the brand, and hopefully DOXA is not solely existing on memo at Watches of Switzerland here in the US. And I sincerely hope that this latest iteration of the DOXA SUB continues to be supported by the brand's owners. 

With that said, in my own humble way, I would like to encourage the current regime at DOXA and their press agency representatives to stop painting all of the people who contributed to the DOXA SUB out of the picture. We were there, putting in the hours, and making something out of next to nothing for not a whole lot of money.  And no press release will change that fact.