About 20 years ago, Alain Marhic was working at Quiksilver, the surfing-skewed lifestyle brand, overseeing timepieces, eyewear for the world and wet suits for Europe. Looking at the competitors in the watch market, he saw what felt like a noteworthy gap.
“There was a completely empty space between the small guys and big guys,” he said by phone from his home in Biarritz, the resort town in southwestern France.
There were refined classics from celebrated labels, of course, but those were pricey. At the other end of the market, he said, “the entry-priced proposals were big watches and shiny watches, not elegant at all.”
And so, Mr. Marhic and two partners, Jérôme Mage, a designer who also founded the eyewear brand Jacques Marie Mage, and Joseph Châtel, who works in finance, decided to create March LA.B, a brand that they felt could bridge the gap between the two options. The label was founded in 2009 with the goal, Mr. Marhic said, of creating “something sexy and affordable at the same time.”
The watches’ designs are inspired by pieces from the 1960s and ’70s, but never look dated. Frequently, there are boxy cases or colorful dials; often, dimensions are on the small side. Prices ranges from 645 euros, or about $740, for a 38-millimeter stainless steel AM 89 with a quartz movement, to €2,995 for a 35-millimeter gold-plated Mansart with a mechanical movement and alligator strap, with limited edition pieces starting at €3,200.
The brand offers several styles for women, including a necklace version of the Lady Volante, a chunky quartz-powered style that comes on a gold-plated chain that looks as if it were inspired by a flea market purchase. At the Watches and Wonders Geneva fair, where March LA.B is showing its wares for the first time this year, the brand planned to unveil two new styles meant to suggest they will appeal to female clients: an 18-millimeter version of the Mansart, a timepiece with an octagon-shaped case, and an extra-thin iteration of AM2, the brand’s most popular style, with a 32-millimeter case.
The brand’s female clientele is growing: Last year, women’s styles made up 38 percent of overall sales, up from 23 percent in 2024, Mr. Marhic said, adding that creating pieces for women was particularly rewarding.
“In women’s you can be so much more creative than in the men’s range, because for women you can do crazy stuff, crazy styles,” he said. “The colors can be much more creative.”
The name March LA.B, pronounced marsh el-ah-bay in French, refers to the month of Mr. Marhic’s birth, along with a nod to the company’s footprints in Los Angeles, where Mr. Mage is based, and Biarritz. The brand’s headquarters are in Paris, where Mr. Marhic spends Monday through Thursday, and Mr. Châtel is also based.
March LA.B has two boutiques in Paris, with a third planned for later this year. Its watches are sold throughout France at Printemps, the department store chain, as well as at Samaritaine Paris Pont-Neuf, Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche and a variety of French jewelry and watch boutiques. Overseas, the brand is available at both HMS WatchStores in Tokyo, for example.
France accounts for about 90 percent of sales, according to the brand. (Fans include the country’s president, Emmanuel Macron.) March LA.B is an independently owned company and does not share sales figures.
Although March LA.B uses Swiss movements in its products, it remains proudly French. The watches are assembled in France, in Besançon, a hub of French watchmaking for centuries. (Some parts, like the cases, are brought in from China.) For its automatic timepieces, each movement is assembled in France from more than 200 individual parts.
“We are French, and have a philosophy to make the inside of our watches as French as possible,” Mr. Marhic said.
The brand’s styles also have a distinctively French swagger that feels relevant, while nodding to something Serge Gainsbourg might have worn decades ago, driving through Paris in a boxy little car, a Gitane dangling from his lips.
As Dorian Blanchard, a watchmaking buyer at Printemps, said in a phone interview, “March LA.B finds the right balance between heritage and modern appeal.”
Joshua Clare-Flagg, a founder of the watch review website 12&60, which has featured several March LA.B models, agreed. “They have a very, very strong design language,” Mr. Clare-Flagg said.
“They never move away from it, which is brave and very, very good, because they know what they represent,” he added.
That, Mr. Marhic said, was no accident. “We never have changed our direction,” he said. “We always have been focused in the same direction for the design and I think it’s working.”
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