When You Go To The Well One Too Many Times

Now in fairness, I will be the first to admit that I am biased. I did work indirectly for DOXA (Via Synchron) for three years. I was an active participant in two (one very notable) efforts to diversify the DOXA collection in North America beyond the SUB. In fairness, the DECO was pretty popular. A flieger was mooted, but removed from the site after only a week. The less said about the ill-fated Ultra Speed the better, that was a vanity project that simply did not pan out. I would be fair to say that, at least 15 years ago, the DOXA buying public had spoken, and they only wanted the SUB.

Courtesy of DOXA

Now back then, there were some sorta' clumsy efforts at branching into dive watches styled and sized for women. One squib was the Coralline. If memory serves it utilized NOS cases and was more of a miss than a hit. But it is also important, gentle reader, to bear in mind that those of us trying to sell DOXAs direct (Synchron) between 2000 - 2018 did so without the benefit of the largesse of the owners providing marketing monies or assistance. The partnerships with Project AWARE (via PADI), the Cousteaus via Ocean Futures Society in Santa Barbara -

When I bumped into Mr. Cousteau in downtown Santa Barbara

We did that on our own.

We had this absolutely crazy idea that relationships with our partners did not necessarily have to be transactional.

But it seems I've veered off topic. Let's right the ship! Today's topic is the DOXA SUB 200T Diamonds. I mean, c'mon! People love the DOXA SUB, and everyone loves diamonds...

Courtesy of DOXA

Now in fairness to the brain trust in Biel/Bienne - they have managed to expand their retail network beyond Watches of Switzerland. Although I will say it was a bit odd to see the DOXA booth at the Wind-Up NYC show not being manned by actual DOXA (or even DOXA adjacent) employees, but rather, they farmed it out to a third party - Analog Shift...

But again, back to the matter at hand -

Courtesy of DOXA

Now as far as jewel set watches go, if this is in your wheelhouse, then by all means on you go!
But this is where the DOXA strategy, in truth, leaves me somewhat baffled. In the (I believe) 5 years since the owning family took back the rights to the SUB, that is ALL that they have put forward. And in fairness, if that is the strategy, and the strategy is working - then more power to them. But with that said, it is sort of tragically ironic that if this is the "new" strategy? It was always the strategy of Synchron. 

Courtesy of DOXA

The SUB 200T Diamonds is available in 7 different colors. It is priced at $9,400 USD.

Here are the pertinents -

MOVEMENT

Swiss mechanical automatic, self-winding
Power reserve 38 hours
Frequency 28,800 vph (4.0 Hz)
Decorated by DOXA

CASE

Stainless steel case
Diameter 39.00 mm x 41.50 mm
Height 10.70 mm
Screw-down crown
Water resistance 20 ATM / 200 meters / 656 feet
Stainless steel, screw down case back

INDICATIONS

Hours, minutes, seconds
Date

FEATURES

Sapphire crystal
Unidirectional rotating bezel

DIAMONDS SETTING BEZEL

107 white diamonds – round / VS 1.30mm-1.50mm / F color
13 black diamonds – round / VS 1.30mm-1.50mm / F color

BRACELET / STRAP

Stainless steel bracelet "Beads of Rice", folding clasp with ratcheting wetsuit extension
Lug width 18.00 mm

DIAL

Mother of pearl dial

The DOXA SUB Has a New Captain

Now inevitably, some of this is going to sound a bit personal.  DOXA is where I started my true tenure in the watch business after working for Tourneau, and although it has been nearly ten years since I moved on, I have followed the ups and downs since.  I got to set up some partnerships and be involved in some particularly cool projects.

And I still treasure my 1/92 Project AWARE.  This was my first partnership project, and it still holds a place in my stony heart ; )


Today news officially dropped that many of us already knew.  The Jenny family will now fully control the DOXA SUB.  And if I am being honest, this is for many of us not so much a beginning, but rather an ending.  

So hop into the "way-back" machine with me.  The DOXA SUB was, at its peak in the late 60s and 70s, super hot.  And then for various reasons that impacted all of the Swiss watch industry... it wasn't.  In fact, the SUB ceased production until a collector and, dare I say it, DOXA SUB fanatic paid a visit to the DOXA owners and convinced them to start manufacturing the SUB again.  Rick Marei was an industry outsider.  But in truth, that is the only way that the SUB could have been re-launched.  It took someone who was willing to think about what the customer actually wanted and would buy, rather than simply try to force the customer to buy what the brand wanted to sell.  This was a pretty radical concept at the time.

Time passed, the SUB's popularity grew, and a true cult was born.  When I think of my time at DOXA, Rick was the proud father, and I found myself often to be in the roll of the American uncle.  I handled press, retail (to the 2 store owners in California, you still owe me $), and direct sales and service in the US and Canada.  In the end, I moved on, but still did some contract work for the DOXA SUB and felt like sort of a "friend" of the brand. 

Now word had actually leaked during BaselWorld this past March that a change would be taking place.  The main DOXA brand would be taking back the SUB after approximately 20 years.  It was 1999 when Rick Marei started the conversation, and the first re-edition pieces came to market in 2002.  All direct, no retail.  And the SUB grew steadily to become a big player in the dive watch collector market.

Change is inevitable.  And this is going to be a pretty big change.  If DOXA's intention is to continue as a direct business with the SUB, then I certainly wish them the best of luck.  Should they be now thinking of distributing through retail channels (particularly here in the US), I will double the sentiment, because they are going to need a fair bit of luck, and staffing.  And if they are going to jump in bed with an official distribution partner?   Well, that promises to be an interesting story to cover as well.

Life moves forward, and the SUB will sail on in one form or another.  As someone who spent some time aboard, let's hope the next chapter is as successful.

For those of you who are interested, here is the official (and I have to be honest, slightly clunky) press release -

PRESS RELEASE - OFFICIAL STATEMENT
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Biel / Bienne, Switzerland, August 13, 2019 - On August 1, Swiss National Day, Doxa Watches headquarters in Switzerland officially regained 100% authority over the name and website http://www.doxawatches.com/
http://www.doxawatches.com/ is now directly handled by the headquarters of Doxa Watches Switzerland, which now manages all activities.

Now with a centralized management in Switzerland, and still 100% owned by the Jenny family in its second generation, DOXA Watches has been consolidating its positions and business activities around the world since 1 August 2019 to offer the best service to its customers.
In the meantime, for transactions and sales made by third parties and/or independent companies before August 1st, 2019, and in the event of a dispute, Doxa Watches HQ Switzerland will do everything in its power to help and assist customers.
You can contact Doxa Watches by writing to: customer.assistance@doxawatches.com
The current Doxa Watches website is currently in transition for a few days.

Very soon, the new http://www.doxawatches.com/ website, completely redeveloped by Doxa Watches HQ in Switzerland, will be online – with the brand's new graphic identity and many new features.
Doxa Watches very much values its end-customers, and is working diligently to finally have a direct contact with them.

With the launch of the new www.doxawatches.com website, customers will also be able to learn more about the new Doxa organization and discover the new collections of Doxa Watches for the next quarter of this year. Our dedicated team in the United States under the direct management of HQ in Switzerland will be happy to help and answer any queries.

Looking Back - Project AWARE

Courtesy of DOXA Watches

As I believe I might have mentioned one or two thousand times, I spent three fantastic years working for DOXA Watches.

PR Memories - Bob Roll Revisited

I still really treasure my DOXA days!    This was back when the dinosaurs walked the earth, and Facebook was just getting rolling.  We were smaller, and had to try harder, and did not have LVMH style advertising budgets.

It was a great job!

I had the opportunity to meet the folks at PADI, get the Project AWARE watch made, and later helped negotiate the partnership with DOXA and Jean-Michel Cousteau's Ocean Futures Society here in Santa Barbara.  Pretty fun stuff!  But perhaps my favorite was one that while not producing the "INK" we were hoping for, did give me a chance to meet one of my cycling heroes.  So as Boxing Day is a day for leftovers, I'd like to re-heat this one today -

Giving Stuff Away

Perhaps one of the best parts of working in Public Relations is that every now and then you get called upon to give stuff away.  In my first year with DOXA I got to meet one of my cycling idols - Bob Roll and present him with a DOXA SUB 1000T Divingstar - yellow of course! For those of you not up on cycling, that is Bob on the right ; )

While many people know about Bobke from his cycling commentary covering the Tour de France, Tour of California and other notable races - I urge all of you to check out his two cycling collections - Bobke and Bobke II.  There is particularly great story on his Tag Heuer.  For Bob, this was the definitive answer to the question - when is a watch more than just a watch?

In his own eloquent words Bobke answers that question -

The Watch
When I signed my first pro contract, I got two things: a passport and a wristwatch. I vowed to race until all the pages of my passport were filled with stamps (like Sidney Poitier's Virgil Tibbs in In the Heat of the Night) or it had expired. In a lame attempt to expedite border crossings, most European countries no longer stamp your passport, and since mine doesn't expire for a couple of years, my original vow will give me an even decade as a pro. The wristwatch came from one of the team's co-sponsors. Not just any watch, but a TAG-Heuer titanium-and-gold piece of exquisite Swiss art.

That wristwatch exploded off Tour de France prologue time trial ramps from Paris to Berlin. That watch saw my arms and legs turn blue and counted 12 beats of my heart for one sweep of the minute hand during blizzard Giro stages in the Dolomite mountains.

That watch's crystal face glistened with citric acid from the peels of blood oranges in desolate hilltop Sicilian towns, and mirrored the vision of my jagged teeth turned crimson from the juice of the orange. That watch shook hands with Eddy Merckx and Gino Bartali, and feasted from the floors of Rio Grande pueblo homes. It was splashed with holy water in Lourdes and measured out 1:57:00 by the second in absolute terror on a flight from Chicago to Denver, during a wicked thunder-and-lightning shower while Richard M. Nixon sipped Shirley Temples in the first-class section.

In cycling, sponsors come and go and the jerseys change colors and names. Over the years, that watch passed from normal team swag into a rare living heirloom of suffering and deliverance. So this winter, when I lost my watch, I felt a sadness that made my bones ache, a sadness that hurt to the core.

"The Watch" - reprinted by kind permission of the author - Bob Roll, and Velopress.
"The Watch" first appeared in BOBKE II, copyright 2003 Bob Roll

There is, of course, more to the story! To read it in its entirety, and his other cylcing exploits you can get a copy of Bob's book at:

http://www.velopress.com/cycling_history.php?id=21


Bob Roll's two cycling collections - BOBKE and BOBKE II are both published by Velopress

Looking Back and Looking Forward

Courtesy of DOXA

It is interesting looking back on things.  The first big PR project that I had when I was with DOXA was liaising with PADI.  Anyone who knows diving, knows that PADI is synonymous with the instruction and promotion of SCUBA diving not just in North America, but around the world.  What was fun was getting to know people like Karl Shreeves, and well as many of the other folks at PADI.  Hearing their stories - what got them involved in Diving, what brought and kept them with PADI as a career choice.

Getting to know the PADI folks, I also got to know the people at Project AWARE,  a non-profit dedicated to the preservation of the earth's oceans.  I proposed the idea of a co-branded Project AWARE watch with some of the proceeds going to them.  The folks at DOXA HQ liked the idea, and in fairly short order, the DOXA Project AWARE was released at the Las Vegas DEMA show in 2008. 

And looking back on it all, its funny.  I met Karl Shreeves quite by accident, in an earlier "professional life" in 2007.  I was working for a photography school and my colleagues and I were hosting a booth at a photography convention in Pasadena.  Karl came by the booth.  We got to talking, and he agreed to come and give a "career day" presentation on being an underwater photographer.  The very day he came to the school was the day that DOXA invited me to an interview.  The VERY SAME DAY!  He then became my main point of contact at PADI, which led to Project AWARE, and later the Ocean Future's Society and Jean-Michel Cousteau.



Life is pretty random, but sometimes the randomness seems to have a direction.  So keep your eyes and ears open pals and gals!  You never know were things are going to lead you.

Proud uncle

Back in my DOXA days, I had the opportunity to work on some fun and interesting projects.  Perhaps the high mark for me was the Project AWARE.  It was my first real opportunity to work with a partner and create something new -

That was back in 2008.

Later, in 2009 I was walking through the Tourneau store in Boston, and while looking at the selections one of the sales people grabbed my wrist and said - "That's the Project AWARE!"  And then grabbed one of the copies of Watch Time, and pointed out the article - a belated thank you to Norma!

And now time has moved on, I have moved on - but I heard the news that there was now a successor to the original Project AWARE -

Courtesy of DOXA

And like a proud uncle, I smile at my new "nephew", and wish him a long and healthy life!  Best of luck to DOXA and Project AWARE!

DOXA Project AWARE SUB

Every now and then you get to work on something really fun on the job. And sometimes, if you're very lucky, that assignment will benefit something important as well. This is the Project AWARE DOXA SUB. This watch was the result of a commitment by DOXA to produce a watch to support Project AWARE, a non-profit environmental group. I was lucky enough to get to work on this watch with the folks at Project AWARE. I woke up this morning with the Project AWARE SUB on my mind as I hear that it is now nearly sold out. This was my first brush with a "co-op watch" and it is nice to look back on the experience. One of 92 in the world.

www.doxawatches.com

Karl Shreeve's Aquadive

This is the first of what I hope will be a recurring section of the Tempus Fugit blog - a sort of "guest blog".

A bit about the contributor - Karl Shreeves has travelled around the world, participated in some of the world's most challenging dives, gets paid to do what he loves as an underwater photographer, is rated a "Legend of Diving" and contributed to Peter Millar's Diving With Legends book.

I met Karl back in 2007, before I started working for DOXA Watches. It seems fitting that he is the first contributor here. He is generous to a fault, thoughtful, intelligent and in all honesty looks a lot better than me. Despite all of this I am proud to call him a friend! In all seriousness, I am very pleased that Karl is sharing his story here.



Thank Goodness for Mothers

A few years ago, my mother surprised me with the pocket watch on the left. Manufactured in 1900 (about), it is a gold plated Centra Lanco, inscribed on the interior with Metal Plaque Lamine Garanti 10 Ans, Centra Lanco 1399. She’d had it restored and it runs (well, sort of – I don’t push my luck.)
The watch on the right is a dive watch I’d bought in1975 or 1976 and used until it flooded on a dive in the Bahamas, in the mid 1980s. At that point, I tossed it in a drawer and forgot about it -- until 2008, when I was online and landed on a picture of a Jenny that looked identical to it. I had to check with the one person I know who knows way too much about watches – James – and sure enough, he confirmed what I suspected: Jenny released watches in the US under the name “Aquadive.” Could have some collector value – if I could find it and get it restored.

As far as I knew, it was long gone. But, an email to my mother with the picture proved otherwise. Moms don’t throw away anything that relates to their kids, and a few days later it showed up. With James help, technicians at Jenny restored it – astoundingly, they still had parts after 30+ years (I guess watch technicians don’t throw anything away either).
In truth, both watches only exist because of my mother, and they have a scuba-related connection for me. The Aquadive is obviously a watch I used to use diving (I wear it but I don’t dive with it today.) The Centra Lanco? Today, the Dutch ABC islands are among the Caribbean’s top travel and scuba destinations; I had the pleasure of visiting Curacao in connection with an article I wrote for Skin Diver magazine. When my great grandfather carried the watch, he owned a plantation and landhouse called Savonet, on Curacao. The island’s tallest mountain, Mt. Christoffel, was on the property. After he passed away in the 1960s, the plantation eventually became the center of today’s Christoffel national park – a popular stopover for visiting divers and nondivers.


An editor's note - as some of you know, DOXA is owned by the Jenny family. Karl sent his watch to me and I took it with me to BaselWorld in 2008. Mr. Jenny senior and his son, Romeo Jenny both recognized it immediately, and were pleased to help Karl with his watch.

For those of you divers out there, I urge you to check out Peter Millar's book.