Doxa was once the maker of large, heavy, serious SCUBA tools. Now the brand also makes slender, colorful, diamond-paved watches with mother-of-pearl dials. These brand-new models come in various colors and cost $9,400.
Just yesterday we published a story about how Universal Genève might fare now that it is being revived. Such brand revivals are littered with pitfalls. Doxa watches were brought back during the 2000s under the stewardship of collector Rick Marai , who created the template for how to resuscitate a legendary watch brand without breaking its bones: Stay absolutely faithful to the original designs.
Get the facts straight. Tell great stories. Engage with the collector community firsthand.
Identify passionate fans like James Lamdin and Jason Heaton , and let them spread the gospel. In 2019, the Jenny family that had licensed Doxa’s IP to Marai cut ties with the man and began a series of moves that confused the small, passionate Doxa community. That year the company released a solid-gold version of the Doxa Chronograph diver that cost over $70,000.
No one seems to have bought one, or even seen one in the wild. Collector friends of mine have suspected that they were melted down, but who knows. Whatever happened to those solid-gold watches, the Doxa community broadly objected to this literal and metaphorical change in tone.
As one collector put it to me at the time, that gold watch showed that the brand had become “tone deaf.” That watch didn’t make sense beca.