When we say extreme we are talking about extreme capabilities (shock absorption, water resistance, luminosity, etc.), rather than extreme design. Luminox has been making waves with its extreme watches, selling to the rough and tumble world of armed forces and law enforcement officers, for quite some time.
The watches for these markets have to be tough enough to handle anything they encounter - altitude, water, cold, heat, pressure, shock and more. In addition, they have to have special features - like high luminosity so the time can be seen on a stakeout or mission (without the push of a button) and an anti-reflective finish (so the watch can't reflect light, revealing the position of the wearer).
Luminox specializes in watches for the military and law enforcement, having complete lines named after military terminology and fighter planes, like the Navy SEAL watches, the F-117 Nighthawk, the Black Ops, the SR-71 Blackbird and the F-16 Fighting Falcon.
“We work with military personnel, police groups and all forms of law enforcement, fire safety and security personnel, supplying them watches,” says Barry Cohen, President, Luminox. “We hear from them routinely that Luminox is their watch of choice because they regard it a tough brand of watches that can be beat up and it still functions for them and of course they do love the night time illumination which can be of particular help for people in these working environments.”
Luminox's market has expanded beyond these special markets and the customers for these watches like the military and extreme collections, regardless of the fact that they will never come close to using these capabilities.




EVO SEAL


“Our customer thus far has been mostly men, from late twenties up to senior age groups,” Cohen explains. “It is a person that either participates in active endeavours such as sporting activities, or those associated with security and serving the public, i.e. law enforcement, fire safety, or military personnel.”

New for Luminox
New for Luminox this year is the Color Mark series, a collection that introduces great looking colours for the markings of the dial, but keeps the sleek, black, military look of the watches.
“For years, we offered series in different coloured dials and this year, while we are doing some of that, we decided to run our basic series in all black for the military flavour, and the different colours are on the markings (the hands, the dial markings and the bezel markings),” Cohen says. “The reaction has been the best we've had.”
In addition, several of Luminox's core series have been redesigned, including the EVO Ultimate Seal - larger cases, dial openings, new markers and numbers and more.
Luminox's partnership with Mondaine is really making life easier for everyone involved. “We are taking a much more customer friendly approach to things,” Cohen explains. “Every-thing is centralized in California. Before we had things running off of both coasts. Now, with everything under one roof, that streamlines and facilitates a number of things happening more quickly. With the help of my new partners, we have implemented systems that improve the flow.”
“We have a new approach, a new office and even more,” he continues. “We now have a system in place to ship orders on the day we receive them. It always starts with the product, and we spent a year getting ready to put an entire array of extensions for our best selling lines. The Mondaine people have been very important in the implementation of systems in all facets of the business.”




EVO SEAL COLORMARK


The Mondaine factory is sourcing and producing the components and the watches, but they have given the American side free reign to design the watches following how Cohen sees the needs of the market. According to Cohen, Mondaine has the operational procedures and Luminox has the product knowledge.
In addition, Mondaine is selling Luminox watches outside the United States and Luminox is selling Mondaine watches in North America.
“We are taking advantage of Mondaine's distribution network,” Cohen explains. “They are interfacing with many of the countries around the world to find distributors in countries where we didn't have proper distribution. We are also working with the distributors already in place as well. The United States is still the number one market, by far, followed by Japan.”




BLACK OPS, ULTIMATE SEAL CHRONOS 8151, NIGHT VIEW 0115


Luminox, due to the partnership with Mondaine, is a Swiss company now. All the watches in the Luminox collection are Swiss made.
“I am feeling really good about where the company is going,” Cohen concludes. “The entire partnership has been liberating. The relationship is strong and what we bring to each other helps bolster the brand for growth.”
Why should retailers consider Luminox for their stores? “Our brand is what I refer to as a 'bridge brand' in that we are higher priced than fashion brands but not as high priced as many of the Swiss brands carried in jewellery stores,” he says. “As a result we are able to offer the retailer a fairly easy sale when the consumer may not have the money or want to spend the money for a more costly Swiss watch at that particular time.”


Source: Europa Star October-November 2007 Magazine Issue