Instead of spending 50-60,000 on marketing, I like to meet with collectors domestically and hopefully in the future, internationally too. I don't want it to be overtly big and sell 5,000-10,000 watches a year. I want Havid Nagan to be differentiated from everything else by way of designing a community, accessibility to each collector and keeping the company as exclusive as I can. It's not a Rolex Submariner derivative thing that everybody's doing – changing the dial color, bezel color and calling it something else. Secondly, as far as what you're getting from the value proposition, you know, it's not a derivative design. A lot of those big collectors that I met and built relationships with during my stint with Journe are my collectors now, they support me and they love what I'm doing. So in a way that’s one of the differentiating factors for us – it’s all who you are going to meet if you become a part of my family. I really want to garner a strong, passionate and genuine collectorship of my watches. Journe special before this meteoric rise of his watches a few years ago. Journe and that's where I come from and also because no one knew about what made F.P. Journe here because my context is limited to F.P. How do you see Havid Nagan stand out in a sea of micro-brands that have come up in the last couple of years? What’s your brand’s USP? The next one will be even better – it'll be thinner, more complicated and with on par quality movement, if not better.Īren Bazerkanian (far right) at the Schwarz-Etienne manufacture ©Havid Nagan You don't really find an $8,000 watch like a Havid Nagan. Journes – people that want the dynamic of horology, the community that comes with it, the atypical designs – and make it more accessible to a broader base of collectors. My mission is to be the bridge between the F.P. I genuinely wanted to commit my life to the watch industry without really being a watchmaker and help the industry expand in my own way. If I were to enter the market 5-10 years ago, no one would have given me the light of day. It took me a lot of convincing to say, I'm going to do this. It’s not usual to find an Armenian based in Los Angeles selling Swiss watches to millennials world over. In a nutshell that’s how I will differentiate us from the rest,” he says. I don't want to take shortcuts on how the watch is made, the movements that we use, the complications that will come. “It’s going to be a legacy brand and it will be a substantial player in the mid to high horology price range. There’s lots that’s planned for the brand in the coming years but Bazerkanian doesn’t intend to make it “overtly big”. Priced at USD 8,000, Havid Nagan’s debut watches are currently available on subscription.

“I always wanted to have these people around me, I just didn't know where to find them and when I finally found them, it was like the best thing ever,' he says. He spent some time in real estate before working with F.P.Journe in Los Angeles and that’s when his life changed.

Thanks to his interest in art and design, Bazerkanian was drawn to watches quite naturally. Powered by Schwarz-Etienne’s ASE200, featuring a tungsten micro-rotor, these sporty time-only watches are not just refreshing in design but also technically powerful. After two years of thorough research and planning, Bazerkanian has recently introduced the HN00 watches in bright-colored, guilloché-pattern dials and curved cushion-shaped cases. In a market brimming with micro-brands, this passionate watch enthusiast decided to venture out on his own to launch a brand that’s rooted in classical watchmaking but is absolutely contemporary in its style.

It’s hard to not get impressed by Aren Bazerkanian’s courage. Bazerkanian is in no rush to make it big - he wants to win hearts, one well-made watch at a time Inspired by the 90s neo-vintage design spirit, Havid Nagan’s debut watches are all about the community spirit.

Los angeles horology school