After all, what other boss of a high-end brand would opt to create a limited edition, two-watch set in collaboration with a maker of entry-level ‘fun’ timepieces with dials based on fruits, soft drinks and ice cream?
That’s what Meylan did in 2024 when he established a partnership between his venerable, 200-year-old firm H. Moser and Co. and Studio Underd0g, a budget upstart launched in 2021 by Englishman Richard Benc which has attracted a cult following with its funky-dialled ‘Watermelon’ , ‘Mint Ch0c Chip’ and ‘Pink LemOnade’ models (to name but a few). To Benc’s good fortune, watch You Tuber Andrew Morgan introduced him to Meylan, the two met in the summer of 2023 – and within weeks a plan had been formulated to create a pair of watches with a ‘passion fruit’ theme.
The Studio Underd0g version has a spray painted dial and is powered by an inexpensive Sellita chronograph calibre; the Moser version features grand feu enamel and uses the maker's beautifully finished, in-house perpetual calendar movement. Each set cost around CHF 59,000 plus taxes / $65,000 (with the Moser accounting for around 99 per cent of the value) and just 200 sets will be made.
Controversial? Of course it was – but, as Benc observed, Meylan was about the only person in the industry who would be brave enough to form a ‘collab’ (as the youngsters call it) between his blue-chip dial name and Benc’s chocolate chip one. And the reason he thought Meylan would be game? Partly because he knew about some of the other surprising creations he has come up with in the past…..
2017
Back in 2017, Meylan poked fun at what he viewed to be the dilution of the criteria to earn the ‘Swiss Made’ label by removing it from all H. Moser watches and creating a one-off watch with a case made from actual Swiss cheese. The ‘Swiss Mad’ watch was designed to express Meylan’s disgust at changes to the ‘Swiss Made’ regulations that ostensibly ‘toughened’ to require at least 60 per cent of the value of a watch to have come from within the country – but , since ‘R & D’ was admissible as part of that value, it could be claimed to account for the bulk of the worth of a watch packed with parts from elsewhere and/ or assembled outside of Switzerland. Despite the 42mm case being made from resin mixed with Vacherin Mont d’Or cheese made in Meylan’s home village, the Swiss Mad had an in house movement and a proper, lacquered dial with contrasting white hands (cue Swiss flag imagery). The strap was cowhide (of course) and the price was set at 1,081,291 CHF, both to reflect the founding date of Switzerland (August 1, 1291) and to highlight the absurd prices charged for many unexceptional Swiss watches. A crossbow-wielding Meylan even made (and starred in) a video which lays bare the perceived falsehoods behind not only Swiss watches, but Swiss banking and Swiss chocolate making too. (Perhaps surprisingly) it’s still available to see on You Tube. Just type ‘H. Moser and Cie. The Swiss Mad Watch’….
2018
The ‘Swiss Icons’ watch shamelessly mocked six leading brands with a one-off pastiche piece that combined elements of each of their best-known models. But it caused a collective sense of humour failure among the various victims, leading to it being banned from the 2018 Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie – where it was to be unveiled in the metal – a week before the event had even opened. Meylan had planned to offer it at auction afterwards and donate the money raised to the funding of Swiss watch making apprenticeships. Instead, he was told (probably quite forcefully) to dismantle it and expunge it from the H. Moser website. An official quote published before the gimmick backfired said: "Many brands, even historical ones, create and produce nothing but substitute substance with artificial hype to stay relevant. Reinforcing their efforts with prestigious events and paying ambassadors who have no links to watchmaking; these tactics are just artifice that serve as smoke and mirrors. It's all about who has the longest history, the most famous celebrity ambassador, or influencer with the most followers. Their efforts are in vain, the essential lies elsewhere: with the product." Ouch!
2019
While some brands demonstrate their green credentials by publishing CO2 emissions charts, encouraging car sharing schemes and repurposing discarded fishing nets into nylon straps, H.Moser and Co did it by ‘growing’ a one-off ‘Nature’ watch. Looking like something a camouflage-obsessed sniper might wear, it combined a stainless steel case and in-house movement with a miniature garden of native Swiss plants, all grown outside the Schaffhausen factory. Many Moser employees were said to have had a hand in cultivating the succulents, mosses, cress, spiderwort and even onion sets that all but engulfed the watch, which had a lichen-covered stone dial and a grass strap. But, while it was certainly wacky, it served to promote the firm’s pledges to meet the requirements of the Responsible Jewellery Council,to use Fair Trade materials whenever possible and to limit its carbon footprint. On top of all that, Meylan promised to donate 10 children’s books to the ‘Room to Read’ partnership for every person who came to see the watch on the H. Moser stand at that year’s SIHH.
2023
April 1, known as ‘April Fool’s Day’ in many countries, is an occasion for pranks that someone with Edouard Meylan’s playful spirit simply can’t ignore. So on April 1, 2019, Moser released a mocked-up image of a black watch with similarly black hands that, if real, would have been all but impossible to read the time on. It was intended to be a jibe aimed at the many absurd gimmicks touted by the Swiss watch industry in the guise of answering buyers’ needs – except it led to such a deluge of requests to buy such a watch that Moser ended up developing one. The watch was an evolution of the 2018 endeavour perpetual Moon Concept, the brand’s first watch to feature ‘Vantablack’ , a carbon nanostructure coating used, among other things, for creating ‘thermo camouflage’ because it’s so velvety black that it absorbs 99.9 per cent of photons, the smallest possible particles of light.
2024
One of the most unexpected watch world collaborations of late was the one announced in February 2024 between Alpine Motorsports and H. Moser and Co. I mean, who could have seen that coming down the road? Named as Alpine’s first ‘global partner’, Moser took-over from Bell & Ross, which had backed Alpine in a lesser way since 2016 when it was still Renault F1. The first horological fruit of the Moser/Alpine deal was the oddly non car-like ‘Streamliner Alpine Limited Edition Pink Livery’ tourbillon, a steel-cased, skeletonised watch which ‘sported the colours of the second livery of the F1 team’. Just 20 were made and could only be bought from the Moser web site. While many people from both the car world and the watch world were initially baffled by the collaboration, it emerged that Meylin’s father - former Audemars Piguet boss Georges-Henri – was an enthusiastic racer of Alpine rally cars during the 1960s and ‘70s. Press info announcing the collaboration also claimed H.Moser and Alpine had ‘both emerged from rich histories to display a nimble and outsider approach’ while displaying ‘bold attitudes and maverick spirit’. The latter certainly sums-up Meylan jnr….
