Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo is thrilled to welcome you to The Hong Kong Sessions, Fall 2023, online auction, running from 6:00 PM HKT, Thursday, September 21, to 6:00 PM HKT, Thursday, September 28. Featuring more than 130 different high-end luxury wristwatches, the sale covers everything from A. Lange & Söhne and F.P. Journe to Audemars Piguet and Patek Philippe. It even includes a black-dial example of the Ikepod Horizon Collection by KAWS watch featured in this story.
– Logan Baker
Even if you don’t know their names, you'll likely still recognize their work.
It’s almost impossible to escape the grip that KAWS’ creations have on contemporary pop culture. The New York-based artist and designer’s cartoon sketches and figurines are ubiquitous, appearing everywhere from international art galleries to the cover of a Kanye West album.
His appetite for collaborations has connected him with countless other artists and brands, from Nike and Uniqlo to Jun Takahashi and Supreme. In May 2019, Phillips auctioned one of the most expensive KAWS artworks ever when The Walk Home – featuring Spongebob Squarepants – sold for almost $6 million USD.
Marc Newson, meanwhile, is one of the most sought-after industrial designers of his generation. The 59-year-old Australian currently holds the title of creating the most expensive design object ever sold at auction by a living maker, when a 1990 example of his iconic Lockheed Lounge chair achieved £2,434,500 at a Phillips London design auction, in April 2015.
He’s also well-known for his time working at Apple as the company’s senior vice president of design, under Jony Ive, where he helped develop – yup – the Apple Watch.
One of the most enduring themes in Newson’s career has been his work designing various timepieces. He created three different Atmos clocks for Jaeger-LeCoultre, and even developed and brought to market his own take on the traditional hourglass. But the most memorable result of Newson’s experiments in mechanical watchmaking is a brand he created in 1994 called Ikepod.
The avant-garde Ikepod was born at an interesting moment in the watch world. Collectible wristwatches were just beginning to gain traction again under a nascent enthusiast community that emerged on the internet in the post-Quartz Revolution age.
Watch lovers of this period were focused on neo-classical dress watches and complicated watchmaking from the likes of Patek Philippe, Blancpain, IWC Schaffhausen, and the reborn A. Lange & Söhne. There was no established market for experimental wristwatch designs – Urwerk, for instance, was born a few years after, in 1997. De Bethune, MB&F, and Greubel Forsey wouldn’t come onto the scene until the early 2000s.
However, Newson’s offbeat creations at Ikepod didn’t go away. The scrappy young brand fought for a place in the industry, eventually gaining a cult following thanks to watches like the Seaslug and the Hemipode. At the same time, Newson worked to leverage his connections in the art and design world by bringing in outside perspectives on special-edition Ikepod projects. Jeff Koons is one noteworthy name that ended up working on an Ikepod watch – and so is KAWS.
The Ikepod Horizon Collection by KAWS was introduced to the world in 2012. It would be one of the last projects that Newson would work on at the brand, before departing Ikepod for good later that year. The collection consisted of four different watches, in Ikepod’s recognizable pebble-shaped case (in titanium), while the dial utilizes KAWS' signature "Chomper" teeth for the hour markers and his signature "X" for the handset.
The original retail price of each watch in 2012 was $14,000, but a lot has changed over the past decade. A single example with a red dial previously sold for HKD $300,000 at a Phillips Hong Kong auction, in May 2020. And in late 2021, Highsnobiety, the online streetwear and cultural outlet and retailer, listed a complete box set of all four of the Horizon watches in new-old-stock condition – for a jaw-dropping total of USD $174,800.
A new iteration of the Ikepod brand was launched a few years ago without any involvement from Newson. The company is still in business but has yet to make the same sort of splash that it did with Newson at the helm.
The Horizon Collection is truly the last vestige of the Ikepod brand when it was led by its legendary founding designer – and it came with a little help from his friend KAWS.
You can learn more, place a bid, and view the entire Hong Kong Sessions, Fall 2023, catalog here.
About Phillips In Association With Bacs & Russo
The team of specialists at PHILLIPS Watches is dedicated to an uncompromised approach to quality, transparency, and client service. Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo holds the world record for the most successful watch auction, with its Geneva Watch Auction: XIV having realized $74.5 million in 2021. Over the course of 2021 and 2022, the company sold 100% of the watches offered, a first in the industry, resulting in the highest annual total in history across all the auction houses at $227 million.
About Logan Baker
Logan has spent the past decade reporting on every aspect of the watch business. He joined Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo at the start of 2023 as the department's Senior Editorial Manager. He splits his time between New York and Geneva.
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