We sat down with Grand Seiko USA President Brice Le Troadec to talk about the brand?s strategy and why collectors can hardly resist the Japanese brand. Le Troadec joined the team of Grand Seiko USA chairman and CEO Aiko Naito in May 2017, shortly before the creation of the Grand Seiko of America company in fall 2018.

During your three years with Grand Seiko, what personal highlights stand out"
I think that the one achievement that stands out is the brand?s perception and its swift evolution. In 2017, the brand was not perceived properly by the U.S. trade and consumers, but we knew there was a huge underground cult following Grand Seiko. It was just amazing to see how quickly the perception changed thanks to the appreciation of our core collectors and their influence on the watch trade and the extended watch community. From the misconception on fine Japanese watchmaking, it quickly turned to be this ?hot? and different brand that came into the equation at the perfect time to enlarge the scope of interest of the watch connoisseur. I remember in May 2017 we were doing a presentation of Grand Seiko to a very important collector who wasn?t into buying Japanese watchmaking at all. After an hour explaining about the uniqueness of the brand, he became totally captivated by the Spring Drive technology and stated that it would be sold with an additional zero on the price tag if it were the property of any major Swiss group. Since this day on, we decided to focus on educat...