In the cover story of this month’s Vogue Czechoslovakia, Milla Jovovich is pictured wearing a gold watch on a pale turquoise strap. To most, it’s just another watch. But those in the know will recognise it as something more: the $200,000 Orb, made by Vanguart, one of a new generation of ultra-luxe independent brands vying to become the next big thing in high-end watchmaking.
A decade ago, watch collecting was dominated by legacy names such as Rolex, Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet, with a supporting cast of breakthrough independents, among them MB&F, Urwerk and F. P. Journe. Today, attention is turning to a new elite: independent dial names that have sprung up in recent years like Vanguart, Biver, David Candaux and the rising Japanese star Hajime Asaoka, whose tourbillon watches now hammer at auction for upwards of $350,000.
“People are hungry for these types of brands,” says Yoni Ben-Yehuda, head of watches at the US-based rare luxury goods dealer Material Good, North America’s only stockist of Vanguart and Biver watches. “They are famished for the community and connection that the independent brands offer in a way some of the legacy brands don’t. People who love collecting and got lost at sea during Covid are finding themselves in brands like Vanguart.”
Vanguart makes an interesting case study of this shift. Despite being founded in 2017, until recently, few knew the name. It released its first watch in 2021, the $350,000 Black Hole Tourbillon, but it was only when the hand-engraved piece-unique Yas Edition of the watch sold to an unnamed collector for 750,000 Swiss francs ($852,000) early last year that the watch community really started to take notice.
“Our watches are for the sort of people that have everything in the world and want something very different,” says Mehmet Korutürk, president and co-founder of Vanguart. “Our clients are A-list royals and heads of state, and our first collector was one of the top three collectors in the world, from the Middle East. They were the first catalysts that grew the brand.”
In return for their investment, buyers get novel, esoteric, high-end watch complications, such as the Orb’s highly unusual facility to switch between manual and automatic winding, and experimental designs that fuse gold or titanium with rubber. On top of that, they receive the promise of exclusivity: Only 24 Black Hole Tourbillons are so far slated for production, eight each in titanium, rose gold and white gold. And of course, unlike at legacy brands, the creators are very much still alive and accessible, a boon to wealthy watch collectors.
Korutürk’s introduction to top-end luxury watches came when he was working in Formula 1 with Genii Capital, an international financial advisory and investment firm based in Luxembourg. Genii was the majority owner of the Lotus F1 Team, which was sponsored by Richard Mille, a Swiss company founded in 2001 that is often regarded as the first contemporary maker of uber-luxe, high-tech watches with dizzying price points.
Richard Mille shows just how far a successful watchmaking startup can grow. The 24-year-old brand has become one of the industry’s most powerful names, with watches that sell for six- and even seven-figure sums and that are currently being modelled by seven-time Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton as part of the brand’s sponsorship of his new team Ferrari. The company has quickly overtaken many heritage brands, including watchmakers’ with histories stretching back hundreds of years. According to Morgan Stanley estimates, Richard Mille’s annual revenues reached 1.55 billion Swiss francs last year, which would make it Switzerland’s sixth largest watchmaker by sales. Low volumes and high prices are a key part of the formula: Its average watch retail price is estimated at 270,000 Swiss francs.
Off the back of his experience with Lotus F1 and Richard Mille, Korutürk founded an agency that oversaw a collaboration between watchmaker HYT and Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose. Through that project, he met Axel Leuenberger and Jeremy Frelechoux, two expert watchmakers who worked for Renaud et Papi, the renowned Swiss high-end movement specialist majority owned by Audemars Piguet.
After two years of talks, the trio joined with Thierry Fischer, a prolific watch designer and CG artist who had previously created watches for Audemars Piguet, Jacob & Co. and Harry Winston, to create Vanguart. Fischer became Vanguart’s creative director.
Four years of development and Covid delays later, Vanguart released the Black Hole Tourbillon. Then, in 2024, it debuted the Orb, which retails from $165,000 and features that unusual winding switch function that, in Korutürk’s words, is intended to “arouse people’s curiosity.”
So far, he says, the company has sold around 50 watches. This year, Korutürk says Vanguart will increase production to around 100 watches following another round of investment. The brand’s investors now include “one of the wealthiest people in the world,” Korutürk says, without disclosing his backer’s identity.
To seed Vanguart watches in the market, Korutürk says he leans heavily on his network in fashion (“the Missonis are my personal friends”), a sector he believes is still largely untapped by the watch industry. “The marketing side of watchmaking is still a bit old-school,” he says. “I’m a social person with a lot of contacts in sport, movies and fashion. So everything happens organically. Slowly, people talk, and now it’s becoming bigger and bigger.”
Vanguart watches have been spotted on the wrists of Michael B. Jordan, Maye Musk, Bad Bunny and James Harden. And at the beginning of March, the brand sponsored Reignwood Icons of Football, a golf event in Thailand that pits two teams of retired football stars against one another, and that hosts the so-called “Richest Hole in Golf,” with a prize of $10 million for a hole-in-one.
Vanguart held events during Paris and Milan fashion weeks, the 2023 UEFA Champions League final in Istanbul (where Korutürk is based) and the Cannes Film Festival. Korutürk says Vanguart has also held events with English socialite Poppy Delevigne and American model Alton Mason, who emplify how Vanguart is breaking out of what Korutürk deemed the luxury watch industry’s “snobbery.”
“These are good ecosystems for events,” he says. ”You already have celebrities there, you have beautiful people there and you have clients there. And no one buys a watch at this price point without seeing it.”
According to Ben-Yehuda, access to brand founders and watch creators is as critical as the environment they’re presented in. “Many of my clients tell me they won’t buy a watch unless they can meet the founders and owners of the brand,” he says. “[Jean-Claude] Biver and Vanguart still give people the opportunity to have access to the founders, to the creators, to the watchmakers, to customisation, to building the community,” Ben-Yehuda continued, referencing the former TAG Heuer CEO who transformed Swiss luxury watchmaker Hublot into a global brand in the 2000s. “People are really excited about that.”
Ben-Yehuda says his allocation of Biver’s Automatique (a time-only watch introduced last year that retails for 75,000 to 121,000 Swiss francs), sold out in 48 hours, and that his 2025 Vanguart allocation is already accounted for, too. “People are famished for the community and connection that the independent brands offer that some of the legacy brands don’t,” he says.
Even so, collectors know they’re taking a punt with their money. “Collectors who buy this level of watches bet on a brand that has the potential to grow in the future,” says Korutürk.
Vanguart will soon be available through Seddiqi, the largest Middle East luxury watch retailer. “Every 10 years, a new brand comes up,” Korutürk says. “In the 2000s, it was Franck Muller. In the 2010s, it was Richard Mille. Now, there’s potential for a new brand to come up.”
