A chat with WatchBox chairman and co-founder Tay Liam Wee gave Tatler an insight into the life and times of a die-hard watch lover and collector who has brought some of the most discerning independent watchmakers from Europe to Asia
Sixteen years ago, Tay Liam Wee sold his family-owned, multi-brand luxury watch retail chain Sincere Watch, which was originally founded by Tay Boo Jiang in 1954, to Hong Kong-based watchmaker and retailer Peace Mark. With haute horlogerie in his veins, Wee went on to co-found another platform in the luxury watch landscape: enter WatchBox. “Danny Govberg, Justin Reis—who is now our CEO—and I started out as co-founders of WatchBox,” says Wee. While Reis came from a private equity background, Govberg and Wee had over three decades of luxury watch experience each, and had earned the title of industry veterans.
The new platform aimed at digitising the watch collecting experience. However, the curation of collectible luxury timepieces can also be viewed in person at the brand’s collector’s lounges. “Sometimes it’s your grandfather’s watch or it’s a gift from your father, so we realised that each watch is special. So, in 2016, we launched an e-commerce platform for watch lovers where they could buy, sell or even buy back their favourite timepieces,” he says.
On the day Wee spoke with Tatler, WatchBox had hosted a 100- piece exhibition in its Hong Kong lounge on Duddell Street honouring two independent watchmakers, or “living contemporaries”, as Wee refers to them: FP Journe by François-Paul Journe and De Bethune by Denis Flageollet. The watches went on tour, appearing in WatchBox’s collector’s lounges in Singapore, Shanghai and Dubai.
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Why did you pick François-Paul Journe and Denis Flageollet’s watches for your exhibition?
Back in the day, we had to sell what the factories were producing. Now, it’s a free market. We began engaging our collector base in the 1990s to learn what they were looking for to upgrade their watches. Of course, everyone desired and knew about the Pateks and Rolexes, but then we noticed a growing interest in the independents, primarily because their productions were so limited that these watches were rarely seen on the market.
We discovered that two brands stood out: FP Journe and De Bethune. I know François-Paul very well because I brought him to Asia in the early 2000s. In addition, even though the watches appear to be so dissimilar—FP Journe’s designs are more classic, whereas De Bethune’s are more futuristic—we discovered that the two watchmakers have very similar backgrounds. They were master watchmakers who collaborated in a watchmaking studio that created, designed and developed high-complication timepieces for luxury brands; [for example,] if you see high complications in brands like Cartier, it’s because they subcontract [building complications] to these studios with talented watchmakers on their roster. It’s been 20 years since Denis and François-Paul decided to put their names on their dials, so it was time to celebrate them. As well as these brands, I have also brought Daniel Roth and Frank Muller to Asia.
