“We are a small and independent business based out of Philadelphia. We care about craftsmanship and beauty in simplicity. We aspire to transform and re-imagine unique and beautiful materials. We are inspired most by nature — leaves, trees, rocks, trickling water falls, crickets at night — we love it all.”
Such is the motto of the locally based Analog Watch Company. We spoke to creator and University of the Arts grad Lorenzo Buffa about what makes him, and his company, tick.
PGN: Are you from these parts? LB: I’ve lived in Philadelphia for about 10 years but I’m originally from Palmerton, a small industrial town of about 5,000 people. It was designed with working-class housing so everyone could work at the local zinc factory. Later it was designated as a Superfund site because of the hazardous waste. When I was a kid I could see the Appalachian Trail from my bedroom window but it was barren because of all the zinc. It’s grassy again since they’re trying to restore it, but unfortunately all the closed factories are too hazardous and too expensive to try to clean up.
PGN: What did the parents do? [Smiles] Were they zinc farmers? LB: No. My dad moved to Northeast Philly from Italy when he was about 24 and met my mom in the pizza shop where he was working. They got married after four months and moved upstate and bought a pizza shop. So for the majority of my life, we lived above my parents’ pizza parlor.
PGN: If you smell fresh dough, does it bring back nostalgic memories or make you ill? LB: I actually still love pizza, but I have very high standards because my dad was very obsessive about quality. The smell of my dad coming upstairs after standing in yeast for 12 hours will still make me recoil, though.
PGN: Any siblings? LB: Two brothers, one older and one younger.
PGN: Who was your best friend as a kid? LB: I went to Catholic school until eighth grade and my best friend was a kid named Philip. The benefit of that relationship was that he lived in a more rural part of town, whereas we lived on the main street. I used to hang out in the woods with him and catch crayfish and do typical boy stuff. His dad built an amazing tree house that we loved to play in. In high school, my best friend was a former Mormon. She had four siblings and her mom left their dad to get away from the church. They then became super-liberal, left of left. The day after I came out to my mom, I would normally have gotten a ride to school from her but I went to my friend’s house instead. Her mom drove me to school and she had mustache bleach above her lip because she’d been getting ready for work. I have a very vivid memory of being consoled while staring at her mustache bleach.
PGN: What kind of activities did you participate in at school? Sports? LB: No. I knew I was gay when I was 9. This was back when AOL had chat rooms. I’d go to gay chat rooms and tell people I was only 9 or so and people would accuse me of being some kind of pedophile. Nine-11 was very hard for me; I went to a Catholic school, had an immigrant father and a very religious family. It was a dark time, which is a shame because that’s when you should be enjoying your youth. But once I turned 12 or 13 I got over my self-hatred and knew that I would end up in the city someday, which gave me hope. I mean, I was out in eighth grade and where I’m from, that’s not exactly common.
PGN: Did you find that because of your personality — and the fact that you had free pizza — people were more understanding or was it rough? LB: Rough. I identify a lot with people who came out in the ’70s and ’80s just because of how backwards the area where I grew up was. I had a knife pulled on me, I’d been beaten up quite a few times; it was pretty terrible. Fortunately, because I was very outspoken and wouldn’t back down, some people just got bored with hassling me. I think I represented myself very proudly and securely as an out youth in high school. But it was difficult the entire four years I was in high school. Not a single other person ever came out. I got into trouble, started doing drugs and got kicked out of high school, stuff that was all residual of being an emotional queer youth in a very repressive environment. But I’m thankful for it because I feel like I got all that stuff out of the way before I moved to the big city. I’d done all my self-discovery, flamboyant behavior and drugs. Anything I needed to do to gestate and create a well-adjusted gay adult, I feel like I did before I got here.
PGN: What was the family reaction to you coming out? LB: I didn’t tell my dad until I was in my 20s. He knew, because people would call the pizza shop and shout, “Your son’s a fag!” But when I told my mother, at age 11, that I was bisexual, it was very awkward. Her reaction was, “OK, but don’t tell your father, I don’t know what he’ll do.” She sort of pushed me back in the closet until I was 14. When I finally told him, I was 23 and it was during Thanksgiving dinner. He initially reacted harshly but then my mother and brothers, who had had time to adjust to it, kind of forced him to accept it or be the odd man out.
PGN: So your brothers were OK with it? LB: Well, yeah. Unlike my partner’s family, who are super loving and accepting, I’m uncomfortable bringing partners home even now. But they are evolving: I think that the fact that I’ve been able to achieve some “success” has helped their respect for me as an individual. They were all here for the opening of the store.
PGN: Were you always very artsy? LB: Yes, I was always very creative as a kid. As I mentioned, I realized I was gay because of AOL. I really got into computers and graphic design and when I was 13 I opened a graphic-design business online. Ebay was just getting started and I created logo design packages for people. Now you can go on the Internet and get one created for $99 but back then no one else was doing it. So I made very good money for a 14-year-old, which started the entrepreneurial component of my life.
PGN: When did you move to Philly? LB: When I was 17 I moved here and subletted an apartment from a friend for one summer. I was pretty emancipated: I bought my own car and paid my own insurance. I went back to Palmerton to finish my senior year of high school and then moved to California for a year to be with a boyfriend. After that, I moved back to Philly and at 22 enrolled in the University of the Arts. I waited until that age because my relationship with my family was really rocky. At school, they want to look at your parents’ income, but since we were on non-speaking terms I petitioned to get my tuition based off of my income. I decided that if I was going to go back to school and take on any debts, I wanted to be really wise about it. I bought a house in a terrible neighborhood for $53,000 — I only needed to put down $3,000 — and I got two roommates, which covered the mortgage and then some, which allowed me to go to school without worrying about money. It’s important to understand the debts of an adult education in this country. It’s unfortunate that so many people go to school because that’s what culture tells them they have to do without any real idea of what it feels like to be saddled with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. You might get a degree but if you can’t find a job after you’re screwed. The reason Analog got started was because I wasn’t able to find a job in my field. So I took my senior project and made it into a career.
PGN: What made you choose watches? LB: I wanted to be pragmatic and do a project that would show that I was job-ready, something visual and tangible. My peers were doing theoretical presentations but I wanted something real. So I came up with Analog Watches and created a complete marketing presentation and made the prototypes in the school shop. When I couldn’t find a job after graduation, I applied for some grant money to launch the collection for real. I also started a Kickstarter campaign and was able to hit my goal in two days. It sounds miraculous but I really took time to do research on how to get the best response before launching the campaign. There was a lot of methodology involved.
PGN: What’s the most rewarding feeling of the business? LB: Knowing that people around the world are wearing my watch because they believed in my aesthetic.
PGN: I love your website and found it interesting that you put videos of other companies on the site. LB: One of my passions is making things. Currently in Philadelphia there really isn’t a directory of manufacturers in the region. There are people who are running Etsy shops out of their homes, but if they want to scale up there are no resources to let them know there’s a factory in the Northeast that makes leather goods or one where you can get textiles made. So we created a segment called “Hands On” that documents the people, the process and the machines in different factories in the region. It’s in-depth because as a designer when you know all the steps of the process, you understand where you can cut out the fat, because each step costs money. Just carrying a piece of wood from one machine to another can add to the costs. So when you understand that, you can design accordingly to minimize your costs and efforts. We were doing the research on our own and decided we might as well share it in the hopes of promoting and encouraging people to stay local. If you’re making soap and want to have custom boxes made, no need to go overseas — you can go on our site and find a place in Kensington that will do small runs for companies like mine or yours.
PGN: It’s important that you’re getting people to think more about the products they use. I look at a pencil and marvel at how many hands touched it along the way. LB: True. Ninety-five percent of everything you own has been physically touched by another human being, whether it be here in the United States or halfway across the world. With the series, we can illuminate that fact, even something as simple as printing our boxes: One person has to load up the machine with ink specific to our boxes, print onto the cardboard and then another person has to physically take the paper to the next spot where it’s cut and folded, etc. There isn’t just a giant machine spewing out a completed project, there are humans involved.
PGN: Tell me about the things Analog does to be eco-friendly. LB: It’s something I struggle with because the world is already full of stuff and junk and ours is a luxury product. But we do our best to make it earth-friendly. Being made out of wood, our watches are about 80-percent biodegradable. The wood that’s used comes from a secondary industry so it’s byproduct, not fresh timber. We also work with a nonprofit called “Trees for the Future,” so for every item we sell, we plant a new tree and we use locally manufactured and recyclable packaging. PGN: You wrote on your site that the number-three reason to wear a watch was, “It’s time to grow up and stop being rude. It’s distracting to be constantly taking out your smart phone to check the time.” What are reasons one and two? LB: Number two: Watches are a great accessory piece, they make a statement, and now because they’re not necessary, they really straddle the area between form and function. Earrings are predominantly worn by women — the same for necklaces — but watches are one of the few accessories that are acceptable for both genders. You’ll have to check the site later for number one!
PGN: Your watches are being sold at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. How exciting is that? LB: It’s a total dream for a designer. As a businessperson, getting into Nordstrom is the dream — large volume, lots of outlets. But as a designer I can’t think of anything that has more stature or puts me where I want to be than MOMA. I don’t even know where to go next. It’s the pinnacle. When we were chosen, I got to go to a ceremony at the museum and it was inspiring.
PGN: I once said being gay helps you become a successful businessman. LB: Yes, I think my experiences and struggles growing up as a queer individual in a small town made me stronger. It gave me the confidence and strength to know that if I could make it through that, I could tackle whatever I wanted to. I remember being 14 and saying when I’m 18 I’m going to get out of this town, and having the patience to wait for it to happen. A lot of business involves delayed gratification. But I’ve always felt a little separated from the gay community because I don’t really identify as gay; I prefer using queer because it encompasses a larger umbrella. I find too many white gay men who have issues with race or are sexist or transphobic. I identify more with people who are queer or two-spirited or intersexed.
PGN: Do you have a partner? LB: Yes, Adam. He’s my rock. He’s a very talented artist and gallery curator.
PGN: Random questions: Any story behind your name? LB: Well, it was an afterthought. My parents were told they were having a girl so they picked out the name Rose, which was my grandmother’s name —Rosa — and everything they had was pink. The boy’s name they’d picked out was Fabrizio, which I’m so glad they didn’t go with. As a queer boy I’m sure I would’ve been called Fab the Fag or something. Fortunately, at the last minute they chose Lorenzo.
PGN: My chores growing up were … LB: We had a house rabbit my brother gave me for Easter. My mother didn’t want pets so close to the pizza shop but since it was a present, she let me keep it.
PGN: What act would you perform in a circus? LB: Something related to dance. A couple of years ago, I was in a guerrilla dance troupe here in Philadelphia. It was called Club Lyfestyle and we got written up in Philadelphia Weekly once because we had a dance battle at Key West. Remember that club? It was basically a bunch of wacky artists getting together to synchronize dance wearing crazy costumes. We actually got sponsored by Vitamin Water and did some weddings and two U.S. tours. We were non-professionally trained adults doing something in unison, which seems to be impressive to people. We would just show up at places and people would wonder, Why are all these adults here in neon spandex? And then we would all start dancing in unison.
PGN: If you were on “Survivor,” what would be the one item you would take with you? LB: My ukulele. I’ve been playing tenor ukulele for about five years and I love it. [Grabs his instrument and plays a few bars.]
PGN: A man of many talents! LB: I try. I never considered myself a musician, but this is really accessible: four strings and it’s really portable, so you can take it and practice anywhere.
PGN: Pet peeves? LB: Tardiness. I don’t have time for that. [Laughing] I could come up with puns all day.
PGN: First kiss? LB: I was about 15 and I met this kid on planetout.com. He drove to my town in his yellow Camaro and picked me up and we kissed in the car.
PGN: I am a … LB: Queerdo with a beardo.
For more information about Analog Watch Company, visit analogwatchco.com.
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