Born Into the Business

New York Times

31-03-2025

David Meylan didn't grow up aspiring to be a watchmaker, but even as a child he knew there was horological history in his DNA.
His relatives, starting with a paternal great-grandmother, include many members of the Audemars and Piguet families, the names behind the venerable watch brand. There are LeCoultres in his family tree, too. And Alfred Meylan, his paternal grandfather, was a watchmaker who worked at LeCoultre and later Smiths, a respected British company.
Five years ago, David Meylan, 40, added his own watch company, Olivier Meylan, to that legacy. As he put it, 'By launching this brand, it keeps the heritage alive and brings it all back to life.'
Mr. Meylan was speaking recently by phone from his office in Exeter, England, about 180 miles southwest of London. Although he spent part of his childhood in Switzerland, where his father owned and ran hotels, Mr. Meylan was born in Watford, a short drive from the center of the English capital, long after his Swiss watchmaker grandfather moved to England in the early 1930s.
Olivier Meylan watches range from a sleek 40-millimeter quartz-powered timepiece priced at 269 British pounds, or $347, to a 42-millimeter automatic moonphase chronograph movement for £2,295, or $2,958, both with Swiss movements. The brand's watches are stainless steel; many are covered in black, blanketed with a coating known as P.V.D., or covered in materials like yellow or rose gold.
The designs are quite classic (the black versions of one style, the Players Edition, look noticeably Royal Oak-esque with a similar screw design around the dial). The overall pricing is strategic, intended to fill what Mr. Meylan called 'a gap in the market for a brand with genuine heritage that is accessible.'
The combination has been noticed by the British watch community.
'They hit that sweet spot that everyone wants in a microbrand of accessibility and value at the same time, so not just a low price tag but getting some decent stuff for that, like the Swiss movements,' Sam Kessler, the editor of the print edition of the British horological publication Oracle Time, said by phone.
In March, Olivier Meylan introduced a special edition of its Players Edition watch for British Watchmakers' Day, a gathering in London of British-owned horological brands. Available in a limited edition of five pieces, the £1,349 watch features a Union Jack image on its dial.
In February, the brand introduced a watch that was designed with an Exeter-based artist, Emma Gibbons. It's the latest of several collaborations with people with local connections: On earlier timepieces, the brand partnered with the local artists Laura Wall and LP Edits and Jack Nowell, a rugby player who once carried the ball for the Exeter Chiefs, the city's team.
The company's connection with its hometown is an inherent part of its identity. As Mr. Meylan put it, 'We've got a Swiss name and heritage, but we are very much based in Exeter and launched in Exeter and designed down in Exeter.'
'It's a bit like me really,' he said. 'I'm half Swiss, half English. I have dual nationality, and the brand is in my eyes the same.'
Olivier Meylan is sold mostly online but it has vitrines in two hotels that reflect that identity: Lympstone Manor, a short drive from the brand's headquarters, and the Gstaad Palace, near Mr. Meylan's Swiss childhood home. Although Mr. Meylan won't share the brand's revenue, he said sales had risen nearly 30 percent in 2024 compared with 2023.
Before introducing his watch brand, Mr. Meylan worked in marketing and nightclub promotion, including projects for an Exeter-based club called, appropriately enough, Timepiece. In 2014, through FridayFlava, the events company he founded, he began working with entertainers to help book appearances and endorsements. (He's still involved with that company.) But he began to think about starting a watch brand, and within a year he was sketching timepieces and researching production.
The first Olivier Meylan watch, produced with a personal investment of £20,000, was introduced in 2020. The model, which is still available in various iterations, is called the Richemont — named not for the company that owns labels like Jaeger-LeCoultre, Mr. Meylan said, but for a Swiss hotel his father once owned.
The name of the brand itself is a nod to Mr. Meylan's elder of two sons Oliver. Other models recognize family, too, like the GM19 and G0811 — in honor of Mr. Meylan's younger son George, who was born Nov. 8, 2019 — and the A-07, a style that's planned to be released later this year, in honor of Alfred Meylan, who was born in 1907.
Although Mr. Meylan is clearly proud of his family, his watches are marketed more for their merits than their inherited provenance. 'The heritage is a huge factor, and I want to bring more of it into the brand as we grow,' he said, 'but I didn't want to hang the whole brand on that.'
Such positioning has impressed watch industry insiders.
'Watch first, story second is absolutely the right focus for him,' said Alistair Audsley, chief executive of the Alliance of British Watch and Clock Makers, which runs British Watchmakers' Day. (Mr. Meylan has been a member of the organization since January 2024.)
'It's a wise approach,' Mr. Audsley said, 'because ultimately you're judged by the quality of your watches.'