Maurizio Mazzocchi, CEO, Purnell

Will you start by giving us a brief introduction to where the company stands today?

The company started in 2020 here in Geneva. And so we were quite recent. So, 2020 was the beginning of Covid. Not the best time to launch and promote a brand, but it turns out years down the road, even though it’s only four (years) that it was almost lucky to start in that period because it allowed us to be very free and unique. Many people had a lot of time on their hands, and it was a great time for watches. People were stuck at home and spent a lot of time on their telephones or on their iPad or whatnot. We’re looking at social media. I don’t have the statistics if it’s twice or three times as much as a regular ongoing work day. That gave us a great audience immediately. That was the beginning of 2020.

Fantastic. And what would you say are the keys to success for the company so far?

The keys to success are, you know, in marketing, they say there are the 4Ps. It was definitely marketing. But marketing through product. So, the 4Ps to me were product, product, product. So we have a unique product. But really in terms of design, we’re absolutely unique in terms of technology. We are absolutely unique in terms of performance; we are totally unique.

So, we have this unicity, where people cannot associate us with anything else. Plus, due to this technology and unicity, the price point starts at  $400,000. So, when people hear $400,000, it immediately creates a buzz because that was not at all the desire to create a buzz. We are not about making a buzz but about making an established brand for the long term. 

But price point was a factor that people started talking about. Oh, what’s that brand? What’s this? What’s that? And that curiosity allowed us to open many doors, and the brand kind of organically grew pretty fast, and then the success was probably not even a year later. Immediately after we created the brand, we did the Ballon d’Or™ ceremony, and we became the partner of the Ballon d’Or™. That was definitely a big bang for us.

Understood. What would be the DNA of the brand? What would be the key elements that make you special?

When we talk about watches and high-end watches, the first thing that comes up is tradition, the Swiss watch, the tradition of this, the tradition of that. So, what makes us unique is that we’re not about tradition; we’re about the future. So, how can a $400,000 watch with all these watch industry giants with history, with this, with that, how can we fit in that industry? Well, we can because our motto is more future than past. What does that mean? That means that today, something like the tourbillon, which existed since 221 or 222 years, is something extremely traditional but has always been, and still is today. Besides a few brands, Purnell is the one that interprets this the best and revolutionizes the tourbillon.  

The tourbillon was a device for something technical to fight gravity, but it stood still for 220 years until Eric Coudray, a genius watchmaker, actually took the invention spirit, which was again to fight gravity, and focused on that. And he said, “Wait a minute. It was not about gravity; it was about fighting precision because when you have too much gravity effect on the watch, then you lose precision.”

But that was 220 years ago. Now, in the 2020s, we have new technologies, we have new ways, and we completely interpreted this way of thinking of Abraham Louis Breguet, who was the inventor of the tourbillon. And from this, without any watchmaking ideas, concepts, or vision, he didn’t care. He just didn’t. He thought as an engineer, not as a watchmaker.

What happened? He came out with a ball with a sphere like this. But how can you put a sphere in a watch? Because watches are usually thin. The thinner are the best. High watchmaking is understood and appreciated by how thin and small things are, not by how big they are. We went the other way. We said, “No, we don’t care. We’re going to go big. We’re going to make it big, not because it’s big but because it’s the only way to really bring this to the 2.0 level or the 3.0 level of the tourbillon. Today, we have the tourbillon, which is absolutely the most sophisticated, the most performing, and the most incredible, the triple axis tourbillon. 

And not only did we do it, but around this, we build a brand. It’s not a brand that makes movements, and we do this and that and this and that. No, it’s like we build the Louvre around the Mona Lisa. We don’t open the Louvre and put things in it. We have a Mona Lisa, and we build around it.

This device is so expensive and difficult to make that we’re not going to be able to produce a huge volume. Making one watch takes 8 to 9 months.

It will be closer to a sculpture than a watch. A sculpture that can move.

Exactly. I said Mona Lisa just to give you a little idea of the concept of our approach. So, the success is definitely the movement, the product that you can identify. See, the arts are all over our place because I’m inspired by art. And I say another thing about our watch. I put it because I want you to see how evident and strong the look is when you go to the Louvre, where you go to look at a piece of art. You don’t look at it like this or with a binocular like this. You look at it from afar because you must receive the emotion. You must see the whole art.

And to me, for a watch, it’s the same thing. It makes no sense to only look with a binocular. That must be beautiful also, of course, but you must be able to recognize it from as far as 2 or 3 meters away. It’s like you only see a Ferrari because you open the hood, and you see how beautiful the engine is. No, you see a Ferrari because it’s from far. But when you open the hood, wow! Of course, we’ve got the whole history.

So for me, it’s the same thing. I want it to be recognizable from afar, which is not something Swiss, which is not something that the Swiss industry typically does. The Swiss watch industry is more about the movement. We want to do two things:

We do the movement, and we do the look. 

A recognizable look, such as the Porsche 911. The front hasn’t really changed in more than six decades.

I want to do exactly the same thing. All our watches must have the same look. You have a brand. You have a brand spirit through the look due to the movement. Because you don’t invent a look because you have a look in mind. You have a look because you have to build around the engine and around the engine you designed to look.

And would you say the Spherion is the component that really makes the watch outstanding?

Absolutely. In terms of performance, it turns in 8 seconds on the first axis, 16 seconds, and 30 seconds on the third. Knowing that a tourbillon usually turns in 60 seconds when it goes ultrafast, it’s 30 seconds, and it’s one axis. We have three axes: 8, 16, and 30. So, it’s basically like a car going 400 kilometers an hour, never stopping, never stopping, never stopping, never stopping, never stopping. So, it’s a lot of power. It’s a lot of engineering. It takes a lot of time. It’s a lot of studying of the materials, of the weight.

Just one little statistic in terms of performance. One cage, the cage is the thing that you see that turns on the watch, sometimes it’s blue, sometimes it’s got diamonds, well, that cage is 0.79 grams. A drop of water is 2 grams. And on that, we come, we set diamonds, we paint, we do so. It’s, as we say in French, a masterpiece. Each watch is our masterpiece individually.

Understood. Could you please tell us a little bit more about the different collections and the partnerships with football clubs, Monaco, and so on? 

Sure. Since we developed this concept of the Spherion, we decided that we needed to give animation. And even though our brand is in the mega, ultra, or super luxury, whatever you want to say, we wanted to consider ourselves a lifestyle brand. So, we want to provide not only an exceptional masterpiece but we want to go above and beyond the masterpiece. We want that masterpiece to be communicative and fun. 

So, we started to see how we could improve or evolve our product with a more lifestyle message. So that’s how, through the Mexican market, we came out with a skull. That’s how we came out with a football through the Ballon d’Or™, and then we’re going to come out with many, many different ideas that are already in the pipeline.

May I ask you a little bit about your plans? If you can say anything about it.

Yeah. So, basically, as a lifestyle brand, we want to communicate and provide the

lucky few on this planet who really enjoy and have the ability to express their fun through the purchase of a watch. So, I feel that the market is ready to receive products, or the Purnell proposition in terms of product is mature for the market. And that’s a mix of 

technicality, engineering, and serious watchmaking mixed with lifestyle, which could be sports, entertainment, royalties, of course, celebrities, and again, cinema and singing.

Of course, it could be car racing, sports, football, basketball, cricket—basically, everything. It’s a fun brand.

People want to have fun. Not everybody can afford it, but it’s not because you are super rich that you don’t want to have fun. It’s quite the contrary. I want to give a smile. One of the things I always say, our collectors have many, many brands, but when I want to make sure that when they open their collection of watches, when they see the Purnell, it’s the one that they take immediately because they have the smile immediately, because we’re easy to use and with fun. 

Life is too short, definitely. 

We need to have fun. So, sometimes I feel Swiss watchmaking is a little too serious, especially on the very high end. And it doesn’t mean that because you’re fun, you’re not great in the finishing. You’re not great in the details. I think it’s even better to have fun when you finish your product than to be too stressed. So, that’s our idea. Our idea is to be a lifestyle. 

So, whatever will be the opportunities, and we have our idea, so it will be music. It will be entertaining and sports. I believe in sports for many, many reasons. A. Because myself. I think that sports, as an ex-professional footballer, it taught me many, many things in life that I apply every day, and that brought me a great deal of respect and discipline on how to manage in general. Sports is a great school of life.

In sports, to be great, you need performance, and it’s exactly what we have in our watch. I think that our watch would be an Olympic winner if we had to perform a performance in technology. And because our performance is so high and so good, we can easily transfer and translate our watch with athletes. In general, I’d rather go with legends. As far as athletes, more than active players for a reason: legends live longer, and players may 

go and be linked to teams. It’s more difficult to communicate when players are linked to a team, and legends are more established as we are an established brand. So, that’s a little thing I have in my mind, but we never know. But this is a principle we have today.

What about partnerships? What are your next plans or your wishes when it comes to potential partnerships?

Partnerships. Well, I definitely want to go. The U.S. and Japan are our two biggest markets. The Middle East is also very big, so we’re looking into… I’m not going to go into great detail for now because I’m in discussions, but we’re definitely going to go into key North American sports, and we’ll see how we will attack it, whether through a team, whether through athletes, whether through legends, but definitely, the U.S. sports market will be our next partnership and collaboration.

That’s definitely a message we can highlight in the article. What is the key message you would like to send?

I guess every day, maybe I can answer that question differently but with the same sense. But today, what I feel like saying is that we need stress. Stress is good. Without stress, you’re not going anywhere. But when you deliver, you need to be good and happy in your mind, and we want to provide a smile. We want our watch to bring sunshine into everybody’s life.

By providing sunshine, again, it’s not because it’s fun or you give a smirk with your watch because we’re not serious. Of course, you can be an unbelievable artist, still have humor and still have a way of doing things with joy.

So that’s my message. Today. I think we work very hard on the details. We work as much at night, then, when there’s sunshine or under an umbrella, talking with the customer or having fun, I think work is 24 hours. It’s 360 degrees. It’s not only one thing, it’s many, many things together. And this ability to cover many aspects, I think, makes Purnell quite quite unique.

My last question will be: What is your vision for the firm for the next 3 to 5 years? Where do you see Purnell going?

I want Purnell to establish itself as an established ultra-lifestyle brand. It’s above luxury because luxury is something that you buy that has a higher perceived value than what you actually pay for. So, it could be a scale of many things. But we are in the business of hyper luxury, and to establish a brand worldwide in hyper luxury, making small volumes is a challenge because we make small volumes. But I want the brand to be known, and I want to be known everywhere. 

The objective is to open boutiques in the US, Japan, and the Middle East and to control our distribution network to establish our current partners, whether they are retailers or distributors, and keep growing with them. Keep growing with the partners that gave us trust from the beginning, and keep that brand growing. 

But the idea is for kids to dream like kids. You know, I saw my first Rolls Royce when I was 20 years old. I knew what the Rolls Royce was, but I’ve never seen it, but I knew about it. That’s what I want to achieve with Purnell. Kids dream about these things that we never see.