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On July 15th 2022 we opened the doors of our first pop-up shop in our hometown: Zurich. We invited our local watch community to stop by, clean their watches with our ChronoPen or ChronoCloth at our cleaning stations, join us for a coffee or a glass of Rosé - freshly delivered from the Côte de Provence - and of course talk watches. We made some great new friends, finally got to meet some instagram buddies face to face for the first time, and of course spotted some very cool timepieces, with even cooler stories, in the process of it.
In the evening we hosted a little get-together for business partners early supporters, close friends and family. Finally we topped it all off by possibly the most challenging watch bingo the community has seen so far, personally designed by Said (the S in AIS). At least everyone who participated now knows what Richard Mille’s “NTPT” stands for - Thanks Said.
Surely you are wondering what prize we had prepared for the glorious winner of our watch quiz! It was the first collectable we ever created - AIS Collective Collectable ⅓ - a handcrafted 20cm long watch hand which also serves as a letter opener (yes, design and utility always go hand in hand for us at AIS Collective, in our watch cleaning kits and collectables).
The watch hand was designed together with one of our close friends and important part of the collective Maximilian Maertens from Studio Maertens. Max also designs watches for one of the most unique and innovative Swiss watch brands. His design was then manufactured just across the border in the German Black Forest by one of the oldest watch hand manufacturers in Europe.
Before and as we handed it over to the winner of our quiz, our friend Edouard, we took some pictures of it, which you are welcome to admire below. We’re not sure when, where and how we will distribute number ⅔ and 3/3 yet, but it will likely be at our next special event.
A special thanks to all of our friends, family, community and partners - the collective - for making our first ever pop-up such a success. Thanks to our friend and photographer Wei, the man behind @way2wei on Instragram, we now have all of these pictures to share with you. Wei, thanks again for coming, despite the cancelled flight and consequential 6 hour car ride to Zurich! This won't be forgotton by anyone.
To anyone who reads this and missed out, there’ll be another pop-up soon. Stay posted via our newsletter and/or instagram.