独家：获奖制表师兼摄影师谈新品发布及旗下奢华腕表"低得可怜"的利润率

Ming Thein was a photographer long before he started a watch brand. Because of that, there's one specific assumption about MING that's extremely easy to reach: that the watches are built to be photographed. However. he says it does not work that way.

"A watch is mostly a passive participant in a photoshoot," Thein told Notebookcheck. More texture, reflection and hard edges opens up possibilities, he says, but it also makes a defining image harder to land, because the watch looks like something different under every light. The company joke in the early days, in his words, was that they got into watches to have something to shoot. Instead, Ming reveals that the product gets imagined first and he photographs it afterwards.

Most of what he says comes back to what the brand cannot do. MING is an independent brand run out of La Chaux-de-Fonds and Kuala Lumpur. It holds two prizes at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève under its belt. Plus, a reputation largely built on engineering oddities, among them the LW.01, a production mechanical watch weighing a mere 8.8 grams. Its newest release is the 57.09 Secret Honey (read our detailed launch coverage here). It is a 125-piece collaboration with Massena LAB priced at CHF 7,250 (~$8789) before tax. Orders opened on Thursday.

如果你好奇一个品牌将产量限定在125枚能得到什么，预想中的答案——稀缺性——并不是正解。Thein的回答是利润率。

“利润率低得可怜！”他说。“根本没有规模经济可言，因为很多零部件的采购量都只是刚好达到MOQ。”最低起订量（MOQ）是供应商愿意接受的最小订货批量。小批量生产的品牌，支付的单价是它所能拿到的最高价。他补充说，如果销量提高几个数量级，就不可能维持目前的客户服务水平，以及与收藏家的直接互动。一切都有两面性，这也不例外。

同样的局限也体现在材料上。MING已经放弃了两种材料。贵金属表壳未能保留下来，因为通胀和价格波动使其在商业上缺乏吸引力，毕竟同样的钱花在别处能买到更值得的东西（需求不足也是原因之一）。镁则是在LW.01项目期间被放弃的。他们尝试过的镁合金耐腐蚀性不够。他说，还有一些材料已经试用过，但尚未推出，不过他没有透露具体名称。

Thein 特别指出，Secret Honey 上值得关注的并不是表盘，尽管它通过叠置于漆面底座上的三层蓝宝石圆盘旋转，令人印象深刻。他选的是表耳。三层阶梯式表壳的每一层都采用不同的表面处理。外层呈现钛金属本色，中层采用 TiN，营造黄金般的外观，内层则采用 TiSiN，呈现玫瑰金色调。之所以能做到这一点，是因为每个表耳都由独立零件组装而成，而非由一整块材料加工而成。根据 MING 自己的规格说明，每个表耳的零件数量为九个。最初做出这一决定，是为了获得锐利的边缘，并在相邻表面上交替采用不同的表面处理。将表盘的暖色调与表壳相呼应的整体构想，是后来才有的。

与 William Massena 合作也带来了类似的可能性。Thein 说，联名意味着可以选择更具实验性的设计语言，一些你在推出自家常规作品时或许不会采用的设计。在这里，这主要体现为配色，以及阿拉伯数字时标的回归——MING 在一段时间前就已不再使用这种时标。

我们最后问他，买过什么不是自家出品的腕表。他的回答是，前阵子买了一块 Apple Watch Ultra 3（目前在 Amazon 上优惠价为 699 美元）。他依然觉得它的健康和健身功能很实用。