Flair Magazine Capitalizing on growing interest in local products, Karim El Beik and Khalid Moll joined forces and launched their namesake watch brand Beik & Moll. Despite their recent introduction to the market having just launched last January, the watches became an instant hit. So far many of the watch models continue to quickly sell out. It seems that everyone, including us, is falling in love with their elegant, Cairo culture-inspired designs. We sat with the “partners in time” to find out more about their brand, production, and long-term goals for their budding brand.
How did the idea to start your business come about?
We noticed how the younger generation was starting to care less about brand names and focus more on the style and design of a product. There is also a big movement going on in Egypt right now where successful local products are emerging and we wanted to jump on that train. One of the many things that we have in common is a love for wristwatches and we decided to study this market. We came across watches such as Daniel Wellington, Corniche, and Max Rene and we thought to follow their same business model while adding our own unique twist to it. This is when we decided to produce watches that are influenced by the art and history of Cairo. The goal was to make watches very special for Cairenes but also beautiful for those who have no connection to Cairo at a very affordable price and absolutely no sacrifice to quality.
Why call it Beik and Moll?
We have spent nights trying to come up with a clever name that relates to the idea of our product. We came up with hundreds of names and sketches but none of them clicked. There was just something missing that we couldn’t figure out. We showed it to our close friends to get a feel for how people would react. One day we overheard one of our friends say to someone, “Did you check out the Beik and Moll watch that they made?” (All our friends call us by our last names) and it hit us both right there. We realized it’s not the name of the product that should matter because it’s all about design and idea.
What are the main inspirations behind your designs?
Our inspiration is the rich culture, history, and art of Cairo. The city holds a countless amount of historical and gorgeous art and architecture and we are planning to capture each one with each collection we produce. Our watches are designed by the brilliant Salma Elashaar. She has the exact vision we wanted for our brand and a deep knowledge of art and design. She is currently our art director and designer and we are blessed to have her on board.
Where are your watches manufactured and why?
Our watches are currently being designed in Cairo but they are made in China. This is the only option we have so far. We have already contacted many watch manufacturers in Egypt but either they aren’t able to produce the quality we needed or they are unwilling to work with us because they consider us small-scale. When we mention that our products are made in China, people would automatically think “cheap and low quality”. They should know that the majority of watches are actually produced in China, including much of the mainstream watch brands. We are keen on making as much as we can in Egypt, including our genuine, organic leather straps, which are made by the talented Mohamed Tolba who owns Garage Leather. Even with our boxes, we have them made in the heart of Dar Al Salam in Cairo. We can easily have these items also produced in China and save a huge amount of money but it would defeat our mission. Our “near long-term” plan is to finally open our own watch manufacturer where we can proudly say our watches are 100% Cairene but unfortunately we just don’t have the capital right now.
Why did you decide to use “Arabic” numerals in your watches? How does that affect your demand?
Here’s a quick and simple history of Arabic numerals. It reached Western Europe back in what some sources claim to be 1200 AD and has replaced the Roman numerals since it was much easier to use because its based off of the annotation of tens. However, these “Arabic” numerals actually originated in India. Therefore, we cannot claim to be the first watch brand to use the “Arabic” numeral because this has existed a long time ago. There are also other brands out there that are currently only using these same numerals. But what we can proudly say is that we are the first Egyptian watch brand. And as for demand, the numbers speak for themselves. We have launched our watches last January 22nd and have nearly sold out in less than three months. This is obviously a big hit and has definitely motivated us to work harder.
How does it feel to have most of your watches quickly selling out?
Absolutely thrilling, but a little scary too! We are so honored by the fact that our customers love our watches and have received so many wonderful comments. The scary part is that we wanted to meet everyone’s demand but we didn’t expect such a fast sell so we are trying our best to produce more watches and have them come in time. We are learning so much in this process even though we are learning the hard way.
What are the greatest challenges that you face in the business?
We’ve been facing challenges from the start – from designing and naming to producing. It was so hard at first to find a proper manufacturer with a small budget. Then again, working with the producer is such a pain because of the long distant relationship. We had to send back many of the watches since they didn’t meet our quality standard. Then, there was the marketing. We didn’t want to have the typical ad where you see a sexy lady or attractive man posing while wearing the watch. We wanted our customers to focus on the watch itself and decided to leave out the human element as you’ll notice on our Instagram page. It has proven to be a huge challenge to be creative everyday. The human element comes from our amazing customers and influencers who post and tag Beik&Moll. We didn’t even have the budget for marketing and had to use our resources of friends to help us out, such as Karim Sherif of Cocaina Studios who photographed and edited the watches, Moustafa El Beik who also edited the photographs, Hisham Moll of Mollapse who created our short videos for advertising, and all the influencers who were in love with the watch who helped us to get the product out there.
What future plans do you have for the brand?
We have so much on our agenda right now. First, we are setting up a website in order to help sell overseas as we have received so many requests from abroad. Our biggest goal is to build be our own manufacturers as mentioned before where we can produce our own watches along with anyone else who is interested in making a brand name, since it’s also our goal to promote local products. In respect to designs, we have plans to expand outside of Cairo to find the inspiration for our coming collection. We are always searching to find local talents to help build our watch in creative and unique ways. After we feel stabilized with our watch product, we may be thinking about venturing into other fashion accessories by which we feel that we can bring out the art and history of Cairo.
By Sarah Guirguis
1 comment
Thank you