This week on The Business of Watches, a breaking news story, of sorts. Our friends at Worn & Wound have acquired Lorier Watches. It’s a story of success for the New York-based boutique brand that started way back in 2017 with a mission to make vintage-inspired watches, designed to be worn every day, at an approachable price. In a way, it’s a tale of too much success.
Lorier co-founders, the husband and wife team Lauren Ortega and Lorenzo Ortega, struggled with the rapid growth of the small company, and the inability to meet demand for their products took a toll on the two-person operation. They considered winding up the brand, as it were, but a talk with Blake Malin, the co-founder of the well-established content, retail, and watch event company Worn & Wound, also based in New York, set them on a different path.
Lorier founders Lorenzo Ortega (right) and Lauren Ortega (left).
Worn & Wound co-founder and CEO Blake Malin.
The acquisition of Lorier is the first time Worn & Wound has acquired a watch brand. Malin and Lorenzo Ortega join us to talk about how the deal came about and what’s next for both Lorier and Worn & Wound. Though Ortega spent his formative years in Geneva until he was about 18, it’s a decidedly American business story in the watch industry.
There’s plenty of watch business and strategy to discuss, and we hope you enjoy the conversation. Be sure to leave any thoughts or questions in the comments section, and we’ll do our best to respond. Want to subscribe so you never miss an episode? This show is being published to the original Hodinkee Podcasts feed, so you can subscribe wherever you find your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or TuneIn.
Show Notes
1:11 A New Chapter for Lorier
1:48 Handsome Mechanical Watches For Less Than $500? Look No Further Than Lorier (Gear Patrol)
3:00 Worn & Wound
3:39 Windup Watch Fair
6:10 Grand Central Watch collaboration
8:02 The Lorier Hydra SIII (Hodinkee)
11:05 Windup Watch Shop
23:30 Art Deco vs. Art Nouveau (Rise Art)
