We here in the UK love an independent brand. Our watch industry is dominated by small, agile watchmakers that lavish inventiveness and value on their watches, often with lashings of colour, always with a healthy dose of self-awareness. But we don’t have the monopoly on that particular vibe. Even if most Swiss brands err towards the traditional, there are some that – to lean on an overused phrase – blaze their own trail.
And yet when it comes to one of the most fiercely independent watch brands in Switzerland, we have until recently been left in the proverbial dark. I am of course talking about Norqain. But thankfully, there is a reason.
As Norqain founder and CEO Ben Küffer puts it, “The UK’s one of the most important watch markets for us so yes, it’s surprising that it’s taken us so long to get here. But there is of course a reason: Covid. We were planning to come to the UK in 2020 but with what was going on, well, we stopped. By 2022 we just had other markets to focus on and we knew that when we entered the UK, we needed to do it properly. Now, the time’s right!”
Ben Küffer
For Ben, it’s more than a new sales opportunity. His mother’s British (from Birmingham, specifically), he holds a British passport and he grew up visiting every autumn. It’s not exactly a homecoming, but it’s definitely where he wants to be.
The thing is, it may have been a very different story if Norqain had made it across from the mainland back then. That’s because the Norqain of 2018 to 2020 is not the Norqain of now. Like many a solid independent watch brand, Norqain started with that often-cited aim of offering great quality for great value. It’s a refrain we hear a lot outside of the big groups (which says a lot, honestly), but one that does have some glaring omissions. Sure, you can offer a well-built watch at a great price but… what’s actually different? And if money is the only reason collectors will look at you over the myriad other watch brands out there, what sets you apart? It took a global pandemic for Norqain to find the answer.
Norqain Adventure NEVEREST Bi-Colour Limited Edition
“We started in 2018, that was the foundation year where you begin to build everything. Then we started selling watches in 2019. Then Covid hit. It was a hard time. But during the pandemic, I started to completely rethink the brand. 2019 was based on a price point/quality ratio, using the best Swiss suppliers and making Norqain watches aggressively good value. But I began realising that this was me, Norqain was mine and if it failed, I wanted it to be on my own terms. In 2019 I had 200 people telling my what price segment we should focus on, how to change my designs, and ideas to make them sell. But 2020 made me realise that I needed to go my own way, to take Norqain from ‘another’ watch brand to carving out our own space. I’ve never seen what we do as clearly as I did post-Covid.”
I for one nailed Covid, smashing negronis in a blanket fort in my living room in the ultimate act of regressive cocooning. But then, I didn’t have a fledgling watch brand relying on me to navigate the twists and turns of keeping a business alive in a locked-down world. Many might have given in and called it quits, but Ben found focus. And so, he cast off the stockholder shackles and decided to completely upend what Norqain was and what they were hoping to be.
Jean-Claude Biver
“You can imagine the first board meeting of my new vision. But I’m fortunate enough to have surrounded myself with some incredible people and I was surprised to see how positive the reactions were.”
Of those board members however, there’s one who stands out as a titan of the watch world and arguably one of the most important innovators in modern horology: Mr. Jean-Claude Biver. For a fiercely independent brand like Norqain, there couldn’t be a better advocate than the man behind Blancpain and Hublot.
“Part of me thinks it was destiny to receive that text”, Ben reminisces. “He sent me a text two weeks after lockdown in Switzerland and it was just a nice message saying, ‘hey, I hear you’re an entrepreneur doing good things and it must be very difficult for you right now, so let me know if you ever want to have a coffee’. And that’s Jean-Claude, he’s famous for helping young people. So, we met a week later and just connected. He loved our vibe and personality, but said we needed to bring the product to where that vision was.”
Norqain Freedom 60 Chrono 40mm Enjoy Life Special Edition
So, down to the nitty gritty, what exactly was this new vision for Norqain? The Independence and other collections were solid adventure watches in a pared-back, accessible way. But that wasn’t enough for Ben, one of the most relentlessly active watch CEOs you’ll ever come across. Seriously, his office is elegantly littered with tennis rackets, marathon medals, and photos of Ben summiting mountains. Sure, those initial watches were good enough for a gentle Alpine hike, but what about more extreme sports?
If you’ve seen Norqain’s modern line-up at all, you know where I’m going with this: the Wild One. Sure, the name’s a little twee, but it’s definitely descriptive. The watch is indeed wild. Skeletonised dials, chunky rubber shock resistors either side, lashings of colour and carbon fibre – it screams performance from the top of a mountain. It’s out-there in a way few watchmakers would attempt and fewer could nail.
Norqain Wild One
“It was a big step. We’re mid-pandemic and suddenly we’re talking about investing into Wild ONE products with 13 toolings and it would pay off after five years. It was the moment I realised the real strength of being independent. For me, it means absolute freedom.”
The latest version – as you can see from our cover – doubles down on the Wild One’s colourful strengths with a gorgeous purple. Limited to 400 pieces, it puts the best possible case forward for the Wild One’s expressive case construction and weighs in at just 78 grams, despite its not insubstantial 42mm sizing.
With a new watch like the Wild One, however, comes new requirements and for the last two years Norqain has been working to bring everything in-house. When they started, their average price point was CHF 2,400 (approx. £2,240); now it’s double that and with that come certain expectations of quality, of technology, of the kind of things you can only do under your own roof. And so, they moved production to their HQ in Nidau (close to Biel) under Kinessi’s (and previously Breitling’s) Jean-Paul Girardin. The rest is admittedly very recent independent watchmaking history.
Of course, it’s not all about the Wild ONE, even if that is rightly Norqain’s flagship. After all, even with the bespoke Wild ONE of 1 concept, there’s only so much room for self-expression in a single watch. Which is why it was fantastic to see Norqain release possibly my favourite summer watch, the Freedom 60 Chrono “Enjoy Life” Special Edition, AKA the Ice Cream Watch.
Norqain Wild One Stan The Man Limited Edition
“We didn’t even need to market it! Everyone was so happy to see something this fun and for a lot of people the messaging behind it, the idea of enjoying life, resonated. The number of emails and messages I received from customers was amazing.”
It’s the kind of watch that makes you smile, a triple scoop of pastel colours that I’m dying to see more of across the watch world. But I’m well aware we won’t. It’s a combination of fun and capability, underpinned by their fierce independence that lets Norqain do things like this and few brands are in that enviable position. But does Ben ever think that independent will change? You probably know the answer.
“No, never. I’m already working on my eight-year-old son at the moment to make sure that he answers this as clearly as I do when it’s his turn.”
More details at Norqain.
