Grégory Pons, founder of Business Montres

Grégory Pons is the journalist whose quips and analysis the watch trade eagerly awaits at the close of every fair. A Frenchman who moved to Switzerland to be closer to the heart of his favourite subject, Grégory wrote for many specialist titles before winning his freedom by founding his own “Médiafacture” (a media manufacture) of watch news: Business Montres. Part Canard enchaîné, part Charlie Hebdo of watchmaking, always first with the horological scoop, the Business Montres pen stands apart from the “parrot media”, as Grégory likes to call them, through its tone and its freedom of speech. That inalienable freedom, and the independence he holds so dear, are the fruit of a business model unique in the sector. Business Montres earns its revenue solely from subscriptions and carries no advertising at all. It is a singularity that Passion Horlogère supports and encourages. To that end we ran a subscription campaign at the end of last year, and we will certainly do it again soon if Grégory still gives us his blessing. But before that, what matters most to us is to give the floor, and a free platform, to this brilliant journalist and friend of Passion Horlogère, who can by turns be endearing and infuriating. A mind that never leaves anyone indifferent!

Hello Grégory Pons, thank you for giving us a little of your time.

Hello. We can drop the formalities, we are colleagues after all… (Laughs).

It is a real pleasure to be able to interview you, Grégory. First of all, I would like to ask for your analysis of the SIHH, right here, in the heat of the moment.

Well, it is not closed yet. It closes in an hour, so it is not all over (interview conducted on 19 January 2018 in Geneva, editor’s note). But overall it is a good SIHH, with some lovely products and real efforts from every brand to do their job properly, take care of the details, try to bring prices down… Now, did sales follow? We will know that in a few weeks. Especially since orders placed at the SIHH are not always followed by actual sales. Retailers, carried away by the euphoria and the champagne, order ten watches and then realise three weeks later that two will do. So let us wait, we cannot draw a final verdict now, but I think that overall it is a rather good vintage. Not an exceptional vintage, but not a shameful one either. So, pretty good.

Did anything win your heart? A product, or perhaps something else?

I did not have one big crush. I did not see the ultimate watch, the one you want to buy straight away or the one that blows you away with its qualities. But I had plenty of small crushes. I think everyone worked hard, but when you look at the Baumatic movement from Baume & Mercier, you think: “There you go, they have understood everything about the new luxury!”. It is a superb movement, mechanically very strong, highly innovative and inexpensive to produce, which makes affordable watches possible. That is a good thing, because it will bring back to fine watchmaking lots of young people who cannot afford to put 2,500 bucks, which is already a big sum, into a watch. There you go! The Hermès square watch is more expensive. It is 6,000 francs, but it is a pretty, well-executed watch. The Girard Perregaux Laureato chronograph is very good. A bit pricey, but very good. At stratospheric levels, take the watches Roger Dubuis makes, like the Excalibur Aventador S, which is not exactly my style, but I admit they have done good work. That is nice, but it costs 200,000 francs, so it is neither for me nor for the average Frenchman.

Grégory, I should have started there… I will ask anyway: you are a well-known and respected figure in the watch world, everyone at the fair knows you. The general public, however, does not necessarily know who you are. Could you introduce yourself in a few words? Tell us about your career and about what you call your Médiafacture.

I am a journalist by profession, and have been for quite some time, too long in fact, since age is starting to weigh, but I have always been a journalist. I have done every kind of journalism, every kind of writing work, whether in radio, in print or even in television. I founded Business Montres in 2004 to have a completely independent medium, since I systematically refuse all advertising so that I can talk freely about what I want, when I want and with whom I want. At first it was a paper newsletter, printed in a very traditional way, and today it is a subscription-only website where you will find a bit of everything. Some people say it is a real mess; I think there is a certain rigour to it. Readers find their way around more or less, we talk about expensive watches and cheap watches. We talk about big brands and small brands. I love new brands, so I really favour young independent watchmakers. I even favour new brands that often make crappy watches, but likeable ones. On Kickstarter, on crowdfunding platforms… I cover auctions, I cover watch news in the broadest sense. Anything that goes “tick-tock” interests me, with no preconceptions about brand prestige or anything else. And I would also say that, oddly enough, my publication has a rather particular spirit. The illustrations are very particular, since I do not favour watch photos at all. I am not really aimed at the general public. I am more corporate, and I love parodying comic strips, parodying American comics. It is a distinctive identity: you either like it or you do not. If you like it you subscribe, and if you do not, you do not subscribe. It is that simple!

How did you come to watchmaking? How did you come to write about watches?

Well, there is a real scoundrel called Stephan Ciejka, the editor-in-chief of la Revue de Montres, who is a true dealer. He knew I had a soft spot for military watches. He sold me loads of them, and after he kept talking about watches to his friends in newsrooms, one day I was asked to write an article about watches. So I wrote an article that some people liked. Then they asked me for a second, then a third, and within four or five years I was completely absorbed, and at some point I told myself: either I carry on and do this seriously, or I stop! Because it eats up too much time, between the travel, discovering brands, interviewing CEOs, visiting manufactures… So I chose to dive in full-time, and I went even further, since after a few years I decided to move to Switzerland. Simply to live here and be at the core of the nuclear reactor, in Geneva, an hour by train from the nerve centre, an hour by train from La Chaux-de-Fonds. When you are in Paris, where I used to live, coming to Geneva is complicated. You have to book appointments… Here, from Geneva, I can now call anyone in La Chaux-de-Fonds, tell them I will drop by for a coffee in an hour, and turn up at their door. It is just easier.

Are you passionate about watches and watchmaking?

I am fundamentally a collector! Passionate about watchmaking…? I love the watch as a product. I think I love watchmakers more than watches, and I love watchmaking in the broad sense more than watchmakers. That is to say, I am always concerned… Everyone always asks me about my values. My values are that for four centuries, something has been happening in watchmaking. Here, right here, between the lakes and the mountains. And it is something infinitely precious that absolutely must be preserved. I take an interest in brands, but I often find that brand managements unmake brands more than they make them.

What watch are you wearing today?

Today I am wearing a Girard Perregauex Lauréato. A steel watch that I find very handsome, very interesting and that satisfies me completely. But in a week I will have another one. I am lucky enough not to be obsessed with owning watches. I like wearing them, I like borrowing them and I like changing them. And when you are here in Geneva, it is easier to borrow watches than when you are in Paris. I also collect vintage watches, and military watches.

In your view, what is the greatest success in watchmaking?

What does that mean?

Precisely, it is up to you to interpret it. Will you tell me about a product? About a brand? About something else entirely? The greatest success in watchmaking: what does that bring to mind?

If that is the question, off the top of my head I would say Rolex. I am very fond of the Rolex brand. And I find Rolex’s journey through the twentieth century astonishing. This little man, Hans Wilsdorf, who decides in 1908, when the world is flooded with pocket watches, to make wristwatches. Who manages to make them more accurate, more water-resistant, more functional and sportier than everything else. Who builds a fantastic reputation through communication. You can only admire someone like that! And who then achieves industrial success. He set out to conquer the world before anyone else. Rolex went everywhere. That is a magnificent success, and it is no coincidence that Rolex is today the best-known watch brand, along with Swatch.

Do you like watch complications? And if so, which is your favourite?

I am rather torn. I like complicated watches, but if it is a triple tourbillon with a quadruple minute repeater and a quintuple split-seconds, frankly that no longer impresses me. Not that it is bad, thank goodness there are some from time to time, but I have no particular affinity with that kind of complication. I find that a sober watch with no complication can be just as beautiful as a highly complicated piece. But it is true that I have a soft spot, even though I have relatively few in my collection, for the moon phase. I find it magical. It serves no purpose, it barely moves, but generally speaking I like playful watches. Ones you can have fun with, where you can set off an animation. That sort of thing… But there are relatively few of them on the market.

Do you have other passions besides watchmaking?

Well, (laughs) I do not have the time! I am a big reader… Yes, I do have one passion, but as I am starting to get on a bit… It is wine! I have a rather fine cellar that I built up at a time when I had quite a lot of money. I rarely drink anything under twenty years old. And I am crazy about Bordeaux, so there you go… And the great passion, which luckily I share with my wife, is Sauternes. We named our son after a Sauternes château. It is a passion that has never let me down. It is a bit like watches: every year brings its novelties, it is never quite the same thing, yet it still resembles what came before, and you get real physical pleasure from it.

You mentioned reading. Who is your favourite author?

Ha! For me it is Balzac. At 13 I read the first works of Balzac that fell into my hands, and I have been reading and rereading him ever since. I collect complete editions of Balzac’s works, which is completely silly since it is the same books four, five, six times over, but… it impresses people (smiles).

The watch world has gone through several eras and several transformations. You will remember that before the 2000s, the watch went from an everyday consumer product to a product that was meant to be luxury. Tell me, what would your definition of luxury be?

I disagree! Luxury has always existed. And if you look far back, well beyond watchmaking in the history of humanity, every culture has produced its own luxury. The earliest jewellery ever found dates back 130,000 years. Painted shells, shells that came from 500 km away, which were works of art. That was luxury. It was pure adornment: it was not for eating, it was not for fighting… So there has always been a form of luxury. For roughly four centuries, watches have been one of the most dazzling, most powerful symbols of that luxury. My definition of luxury is… It is very complex, and I can say better what it is not: it is not a question of price, it is not a question of material, it is not necessarily gold or diamonds. It is a question, I would say, of the intelligence of the object. Saying that, I am not saying much. But this intelligence of the object is a subtle alchemy that forms between function (there must be some function), uselessness (we are somewhat in the realm of the superfluous), rarity and exclusivity. It is quite hard to define, and I must say, having studied the question quite a bit, that I have never found a definition in academic or university books. I have never found a definition that holds water, let alone a definition of watchmaking luxury. There are a few luxury experts; they do not always convince me, but when those luxury experts talk about watchmaking, they get it wrong every single time. And they know it, by the way.

Is there, for you, a watch brand or a brand from another field that best embodies luxury?

Given that I do not really believe in the notion of luxury, no. But I would say that all watches… Swatch is a luxury brand! To me it is a luxury watch, because nobody needs that watch. On the other hand, there is a design, there is a material, there is distribution… Even if it is a product that costs 50 bucks, nobody needs it! There are Chinese watches that cost 10 francs! I believe every brand belongs to luxury, and as a consumer I have several luxury cravings in the same day.

My luxury can be my shoes. I have 130 or 140 pairs of shoes, even though I only regularly wear 10 or 20. But that is luxury! I could own just one pair of sneakers. But each time there is a toe shape, a leather, an excuse, a little story… Coming back, with hindsight, to the previous question, I increasingly believe a luxury product must tell us a story. Whether that story is true or false, it tells a story.

Is there a historical or contemporary figure who inspires you?

I greatly admire various historical figures, but above all General de Gaulle. This man who comes out of nowhere and, in London, in the middle of defeat, says: “I am France!”. To me, that is a symbol of resistance to conformism that has never been replaced. There are plenty of others, but off the cuff, when you ask me that: in my office, as those who watch my videos can see, there is a photo of General de Gaulle as he leaves for London, from his London days. He is in uniform with glasses, with a kepi… No, binoculars, sorry, and in that photo I see the man who resists against all odds. He had a 1% chance of succeeding and he rebuilt France.

At Business Montres, do you work alone or with collaborators?

That is the big secret! Some people think it is impossible. That I cannot possibly write all that on my own! Well, yes I do, I am all alone with my two little arms, and after the SIHH I will spend hours going through the press kits. There you go, I am on my own! It is not that I am not looking for collaborators, it is that it is me, my voice, my judgement. Sometimes I may run an op-ed by Stephan Ciejka, or an op-ed by the delightful Florence Jacquinot. As they see fit: friends, or you, the platform is open to you. As long as I respect you and know you write reasonably well, I have no problem with it. Or our friend from Forumamontres, that does not bother me! You have intelligent things to say, you want to say them on my site, come and say them! But by default it is me, it is my point of view.

What qualities do you value in other people?

I really value frankness. I hate being taken for an idiot. But I think that is very human. And I hate it when a brand CEO tells me “this is white” when I can see it is black! I think he is mocking me and taking me for something I am not. Whereas if he said “this is white, but do not repeat it because it bothers me for such and such a reason”, I would understand. If I were to write everything I am told, I would write ten times more. Fortunately I keep a lot to myself, because I am not stupid and I do not say things that could cause embarrassment. That is why many CEOs trust me. Because they know that by telling me things, they help me think, they help me be intelligent. You should always thank the people who help you be intelligent. And then some use me to get messages across. Well, some do not like me at all. Too bad, it does not matter, I can live my life without them.

Is there a quote you are particularly fond of?

I would be tempted to say: “Bien faire et laisser braire” (do the right thing and let them bray). It is untranslatable into English. I tried once with Peter Speake-Marin, but it went nowhere. We are who we are, we do what we can, and as for those who are not happy… The jackals howl and the caravan moves on!

Grégory, one last and essential question. By the Business Montres clock, what time is it?

What does that mean?

Free interpretation.

Right now, I have to say, at the end of the SIHH, it is time to dig into the files, go through the 300 watch sheets I have flagged, and sort them out. To try to see clearly: what was good, what was not, what the trends were, the tops of the year, the flops of the year… That is it: it is time to get to work!

Thank you very much.

See you soon.