Why Perth has its own watches

N° 02 · Founder notes · By Dom Barbagallo, Founder

Most countries do not get their own watches. The market is too small, the maisons too cautious. The world does not generally bend its catalogue for a city of two million on the wrong side of an ocean.

Perth has two.

The Audemars Piguet +8

In 2020, Barbagallo Watch and Audemars Piguet released the AP +8. Yellow gold case. Integrated bracelet. A perpetual calendar complication. The reference is named for our time zone, +8 GMT, and the dial carries a marker at the 8 o’clock position to make the point literal. It remains, to date, the only Royal Oak ever built specifically for Australia.

The piece was conceived by Troy Barbagallo, founder of Barbagallo Watch. It does not appear on the AP global price list. It exists because a thirty year retail relationship made it exist.

The H. Moser & Cie +8

In 2024, Troy did it again. This time with H. Moser & Cie.

The Streamliner Tourbillon +8 is the only Moser piece ever dedicated to Australia. Yellow gold case. Yellow gold rotor. A flying tourbillon, the complication for which Moser is arguably more celebrated than any other independent in modern watchmaking. And at 8 o’clock on the dial, a single emerald, placed exactly on the GMT marker that names the piece.

Two collabs, one operating principle. When a maison agrees to build something with a single market in mind, it is because the dealer asking is one they trust to represent it properly. That trust is not built in twelve months. It is built in thirty years.

The complications speak

Read the spec sheets side by side and a thesis emerges. The AP +8 carries a perpetual calendar, the most demanding of all date complications. The Moser +8 carries a tourbillon, the most demanding of all timekeeping ones. Two maisons. Two flagship complications. One dealer. One time zone. The pattern is not accidental. It is what happens when a manufacture decides to spend its own scarcest commodity, its top of the catalogue movement work, on a partner they want to publicly endorse.

What it means for the rest of us

WATCH ON DEMAND is built on top of Barbagallo Watch. The same relationships that allow Troy to commission a Streamliner Tourbillon with an emerald are the relationships that allow WATCH ON DEMAND to authenticate, source, and represent pre-owned watches at a level no grey market operator structurally can.

If you have ever wondered what an authorised retail backbone actually does for a pre-owned watch business, the +8 collection is the clearest possible answer. Brands do not collaborate with websites. They collaborate with dealers.

Filed by Dom Barbagallo, founder of WATCH ON DEMAND. The Journal is where we put the opinions our spreadsheet would not let us hold.