Atelier Wen: The New Chinese Chic - Quality Mechanical Watches - Official Affiliate Thread

[CanadaCal]

Target date for delivery to customers is?

April 2019

 

[LA Guy]

Congratulations. Also, I should hasten to add that we also reviewed the watch, found here: https://journal.styleforum.net/atelier-wen-odyssey-watch-review/

 

[Fandegrue]

You almost reached your goal within the first 10 mins. Congrats.

That escalated quickly.

Thank you so much guys! Please excuse my late reply; I was literally submerged by messages today!

Production on the video is excellent. Nice job

Thank you! I was actually quite hesitant at first to do it through a pro, as I thought at the time that it was a bit pricey. My partner insisted, and eventually I yielded to that... Now I'm not regretting it at all!

Target date for delivery to customers is?

April 2019

Yep, April 2019. We'll try to produce as fast as we can, but we have two large bottlenecks: the movements and the dials. The former takes a really long time to make because the Dandong Watch Factory is providing us with a custom product that has tighter tolerances and nearly a month of continuous testing... The dials take ages to make because making porcelain is quite "unpredictable", and we are facing huge wastage rates! And since we want everything to be perfect, we won't accept less-than-pristine dials...

Congratulations. Also, I should hasten to add that we also reviewed the watch, found here: https://journal.styleforum.net/atelier-wen-odyssey-watch-review/

Thank you very much, Fok. And thank you very much to Nathan; the review is awesome! Guys, please do check it.

Thank you, and have a nice rest of the day,

Robin.

 

[WhyUEarly]

@Fandegrue quick question about the Peacock movement. Is there any issue if the watch is handwound everyday? I read that the 2824-2 does not take well to daily handwounding

 

[Fandegrue]

@Fandegrue quick question about the Peacock movement. Is there any issue if the watch is handwound everyday? I read that the 2824-2 does not take well to daily handwounding

We asked this question to Dandong earlier on and they responded that their SL-300X series (2824-2 clone and derivatives) doesn't suffer from the same handwinding-related weaknesses that are prevalent in the ETA 2824-2

 

[Riva]

We asked this question to Dandong earlier on and they responded that their SL-300X series (2824-2 clone and derivatives) doesn't suffer from the same handwinding-related weaknesses that are prevalent in the ETA 2824-2

I actually welcome removing the rotor from the current movt so a newly designed thinner case can be used.

 

[clee1982]

I actually welcome removing the rotor from the current movt so a newly designed thinner case can be used.

+1 i’m fine with manual if it means thinner...

 

[Riva]

+1 i’m fine with manual if it means thinner...

Yes but I understand to appeal to the masses in a Kickstarter automatic is most likely a requirement. AW has actually done a great job getting rid of a fat caseback by elongating the case. Actually some of us have been taking the rotors out of the sub 2k watches and use custom casebacks. This isn't possible with AW and anyway we'd lose the nicely designed back. Sometimes we do get a quartz watch and remove the sec hand too. For instance this $95 Singaporean Moser homage will have its sh removed:

 

[Riva]

Btw huge congrats to Atelier Wen on doubling the KS goal in 1 day. Hopefully will reach $100k in a week.

 

[MrZBrown]

Btw huge congrats to Atelier Wen on doubling the KS goal in 1 day. Hopefully will reach $100k in a week.

Way to go Robin. I’m glad to see you have over 100 backers already! That’s pretty great to start. A lot of companies would kill for that. Follow through with some great watches and you could have the makings of a real following!

 

[Fandegrue]

I actually welcome removing the rotor from the current movt so a newly designed thinner case can be used.

+1 i’m fine with manual if it means thinner...

Yes but I understand to appeal to the masses in a Kickstarter automatic is most likely a requirement. AW has actually done a great job getting rid of a fat caseback by elongating the case. Actually some of us have been taking the rotors out of the sub 2k watches and use custom casebacks. This isn't possible with AW and anyway we'd lose the nicely designed back. Sometimes we do get a quartz watch and remove the sec hand too. For instance this $95 Singaporean Moser homage will have its sh removed:

View attachment 1056443

Thanks for your messages! As you correctly identified it Riva, outside of watch aficionado circles, it appears that handwinding can possibly be seen as a drawback. Back in September 2017, when we were in the process of choosing our movement, we hesitated for quite some time with the Beijing B18. But after talking with numerous friends of ours, who were not watch collectors in the first place, a pattern emerged: handwinding was seen as a chore, and automatic winding as an "upgrade feature".

Yeah, and I mean, even though our movement is nicely finished (production series will also have our brand engraved on the rotor), it is still a derivative of an ETA 2824-2 clone, which is not, due to its architecture, a particularly exciting movement to look at haha. So, at least with the solid caseback, there will be something cool to glance at

As an aside, we left a watch to a potential future retailer in Beijing, so that he could gauge local interest. Quite a few people were interested, and some of them asked for an exhibition caseback. Roughly the phenomenon occurred in Singapore... However, such a thing never happened in Europe. Maybe that's indicative of some geographical-dependant micro-preferences? Anyway, that's quite an interesting thing to notice! If we were to do a version with an exhibition caseback, a heavy work on the movement decoration would be needed. The rotor would need to be Kunpeng-shaped and the top bridges would need to have something that goes beyond simple perlage. Maybe they could even be perforated to allow to see more of the movement? If there is sufficient demand from one of our Asian retailers, maybe we could make a special edition for them in the midst of next year? Just thinking out loud here

Btw huge congrats to Atelier Wen on doubling the KS goal in 1 day. Hopefully will reach $100k in a week.

Way to go Robin. I’m glad to see you have over 100 backers already! That’s pretty great to start. A lot of companies would kill for that. Follow through with some great watches and you could have the makings of a real following!

Well, thank you so much for your support guys! And thank you for the kind words.

We are currently thinking about ways to keep the momentum going. Hopefully we should have to something to put on the table by Tuesday. But if you guys have any suggestions, I'd be keen to hear them! Thank you!!

Have a nice day,

Robin.

 

[Riva]

Thanks for your messages! As you correctly identified it Riva, outside of watch aficionado circles, it appears that handwinding can possibly be seen as a drawback. Back in September 2017, when we were in the process of choosing our movement, we hesitated for quite some time with the Beijing B18. But after talking with numerous friends of ours, who were not watch collectors in the first place, a pattern emerged: handwinding was seen as a chore, and automatic winding as an "upgrade feature".

Yeah, and I mean, even though our movement is nicely finished (production series will also have our brand engraved on the rotor), it is still a derivative of an ETA 2824-2 clone, which is not, due to its architecture, a particularly exciting movement to look at haha. So, at least with the solid caseback, there will be something cool to glance at

As an aside, we left a watch to a potential future retailer in Beijing, so that he could gauge local interest. Quite a few people were interested, and some of them asked for an exhibition caseback. Roughly the phenomenon occurred in Singapore... However, such a thing never happened in Europe. Maybe that's indicative of some geographical-dependant micro-preferences? Anyway, that's quite an interesting thing to notice! If we were to do a version with an exhibition caseback, a heavy work on the movement decoration would be needed. The rotor would need to be Kunpeng-shaped and the top bridges would need to have something that goes beyond simple perlage. Maybe they could even be perforated to allow to see more of the movement? If there is sufficient demand from one of our Asian retailers, maybe we could make a special edition for them in the midst of next year? Just thinking out loud here





Well, thank you so much for your support guys! And thank you for the kind words.

We are currently thinking about ways to keep the momentum going. Hopefully we should have to something to put on the table by Tuesday. But if you guys have any suggestions, I'd be keen to hear them! Thank you!!

Have a nice day,

Robin.

After you've shipped first round of KS next year you'd be able to see where most of the buyers are located and cater the next watch towards their taste. Perhaps this is too early but I'll ask anyway. Given the waste rate of the porcelain dial, would the first 2 models be limited in production? Perhaps when you offer the "red clay" dial they'll be discontinued?

 

[Fandegrue]

After you've shipped first round of KS next year you'd be able to see where most of the buyers are located and cater the next watch towards their taste. Perhaps this is too early but I'll ask anyway. Given the waste rate of the porcelain dial, would the first 2 models be limited in production? Perhaps when you offer the "red clay" dial they'll be discontinued?

Hello Riva

Yep, that would be a good indicator of where our most "compatible" audience is located. But that should be nuanced with the fact that our media coverage was fairly uneven; i.e. it was strongest in France and that could lead to some misleading conclusions on our side. We are planning to launch in China after CNY, and this, as well, should give us some additional useful insights. I am surprised by the number of American backers on Kickstarter; our coverage there wasn't awesome, but, still, it's doing as good as France (where our coverage was excellent)! So I'll try, over the next few days, to intensify a bit our efforts over there. Same with Singapore and HK

Nope, the watches won't be a limited edition. We're really new, and I don't think that we have the sufficient brand equity to justify making a limited edition just yet. I don't know, I feel that it would be a little bit... arrogant of us to do it. That being said, the watches, because of both the movement and the high waste rate of the porcelain dials, take a long time to make. So while we will make some more afterwards, production will be in very small batches, and it will take a lengthy amount of time to create them. Thus they may be tough to acquire

If we make some additional dial colours, these ones though will be strictly limited in quantity. Red clay, Celadon green, "Imperial" yellow... all would be awesome!

Have a nice day!

 

[RogerP]

Perhaps off topic, but why would anyone want to hand-wind an automatic watch every single day? I get winding it after it has run down and stopped, but daily hand winding makes no sense to me for an automatic. Because automatic.

 

[Riva]

Hello Riva

Yep, that would be a good indicator of where our most "compatible" audience is located. But that should be nuanced with the fact that our media coverage was fairly uneven; i.e. it was strongest in France and that could lead to some misleading conclusions on our side. We are planning to launch in China after CNY, and this, as well, should give us some additional useful insights. I am surprised by the number of American backers on Kickstarter; our coverage there wasn't awesome, but, still, it's doing as good as France (where our coverage was excellent)! So I'll try, over the next few days, to intensify a bit our efforts over there. Same with Singapore and HK

Nope, the watches won't be a limited edition. We're really new, and I don't think that we have the sufficient brand equity to justify making a limited edition just yet. I don't know, I feel that it would be a little bit... arrogant of us to do it. That being said, the watches, because of both the movement and the high waste rate of the porcelain dials, take a long time to make. So while we will make some more afterwards, production will be in very small batches, and it will take a lengthy amount of time to create them. Thus they may be tough to acquire

If we make some additional dial colours, these ones though will be strictly limited in quantity. Red clay, Celadon green, "Imperial" yellow... all would be awesome!

Have a nice day!

I wouldn't mind an ultra rare Chinese ironwood dial