In late February, during a brief trip to Los Angeles, Marc Michel-Amadry, managing director of the Swiss watchmaker Girard-Perregaux (GP), had a serendipitous encounter that reminded him of something he already knew: “The more I travel, the more I understand the power of being close to collectors,” he tells Robb Report. The reminder came during a visit to longtime retail partner Feldmar Watch Co. in West Los Angeles. “We were having a conversation with our partner, and then suddenly, Jay Leno is passing by,” Michel-Amadry recalls. (A passionate watch collector, Leno is a longtime Feldmar client.) “I said, ‘Jay, how are you? I need to introduce myself,’” Michel-Amadry says. “And believe it or not, he had three pocket watches in his bag, just because: Two pocket watches that he was bringing to our partner for a service, and a third one, which was a Girard-Perregaux pocket watch from 1880. And to discover this, it was like, ‘How..
