Six Great British Watch Brands Doing Things Their Own Way
Fresh faces making watches fun again
It’s not hard to understand the appeal of Swiss watchmaking.
The romance of a bygone era. The years of cutting-edge R&D pumping into new product development. The huge brand equity. The prime real estate locations.
But lately the boom in independent watchmaking has turned some of those benefits on their head.
Crowdfunding, social media and the advent of e-commerce platforms like Shopify — tools enabling low-volume, low-cost production and direct-to-consumer sales — has seen ‘microbrands’ redraw the watchmaking landscape. If behemoths like Omega and Rolex have built their businesses on making incremental tweaks to a tight portfolio of design classics — a Rolex Submariner bought in 2023 looks virtually identical to the Rolex Submariner launched in 1953, that is the point — then the independent space offers more flexibility and fun.
It’s here that you will find a watchmakers who are free to follow their design callings – without having to kowtow stakeholders, or serve a corporate overlord asking them if they can "make it look a bit more like a Submariner".
The British company Christopher Ward, founded by three friends as an online-only business in 2004, is often cited as a pioneer in this area.
And in the last few years, more and more Brits have been getting in on the act – to the point that some of the most exciting brands in watchmaking now come from these shores.
Here's six of the best.
Paulin
Design nous runs in the Paulin family. George Henry Paulin was a Fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors, his 20th Century war memorials can be found the length and breadth of the UK. His great-granddaughters, Eleanor, Charlotte and Elizabeth Paulin, founded Paulin Watches in 2013. The Glasgow-based brand mixes affordability with an eye for sharp, modernist design: mid-century fonts, playful Memphis colours and curiously-shaped skeleton hands. This year they were acquired by local enamel-dial specialists anOrdain (presumably the takeover was amicable, anOrdain was founded by Charlotte’s husband, Lewis Heath) and released the excellent Modul series, inspired by the concept of modular design. “This is really about being playful,” Heath says. “Paulin’s immediate and it’s fun.”
Studio Underd0g
Studio Underd0g’s line of colourful food-themed chronographs, including the Mint Ch0c Chip (£500), Watermel0n (£500) and Strawberries & Cream (£575), created by a product-design engineering graduate, might have been dismissed as novelties when they launched during lockdown. When they rapidly sold out, with orders from America, the Middle East and Asia, and it was clear that founder Richard Benc was onto something. Studio Underd0g watches now command big-ticket prices on eBay, with this winter’s Field watch – notably the Pink Lem0nade version with its pink-to-yellow luminous gradient dial – leading the charge. Benc found himself as a finalist in this year’s GPHG Awards (‘the Oscars of the watch world’), in a category alongside Nomos, Raymond Weil and Seiko. Not bad for a three-year-old brand.
Aera
Established by a likeminded group of watch and design enthusiasts, Aera launched with a clear vision. To take the classic tool watch archetypes (the dive watch; the pilot watch) and rebuild them for the 21st Century. Out went any obsolete details or dated affectations, in came a fresh design language and a new sense of purpose. Starting out with two models – the D-1 Diver and the P-1 Pilot – the brand has been compared to Leica for good reasons. These are handsome, well-priced and extremely well-made watches, built from high-grade materials – the same steel used by Rolex, for example. Add in considered details like dished single-piece dials and high-domed crystals, plus an extensive selection of top quality straps to choose from, and Aera begins to look like one of the most compelling young brands around. A raft of new releases is planned for 2024.
Marloe
Gordon Fraser and Oliver Goffe founded Marloe Watch Company with a passion for “doing things properly”. They launched their first watch, the Cherwell, in 2016 – named for the River Cherwell that runs through Oxford. British storytelling has informed subsequent releases. The Coniston collection was produced in partnership with the Campbell family, of Bluebird speed-record fame. The GMT was inspired by the pale blue wintery sky of Kinross, where Marloe used to be based. In 2023 it established a new HQ in Henley-on-Thames – up the road from fellow Brits Bremont – where it will offer services, repairs and customisation. As well as a destination for customers to come and see their watch being assembled. Strong aesthetics, clever details and compelling narratives run through Marloe’s automatic and manual-wind line-up, with prices you can’t argue with.
Fears
Nicholas Bowman-Scargill is the 're-founder' of Fears, the brand established by his ancestor, Edwin Fear, in Bristol in 1846. Bowman-Scargill, formerly an apprentice watchmaker at Rolex, restarted the company in 2016 with an intriguing idea. Imagine if his great-great-great grandfather’s business hadn’t closed. What sort of watches might Fears be making today? The answer was clearly elegant ones, with cushion-shaped cases and colourful dials – retailing for a little less than £5,000. (A ‘premium collection’, including a technically dazzling collab with another English watch company, Garrick, retails for more.) The much-liked young owner relocated from London to establish Fears in its original home – and employs local Bristolian watchmakers, too.
Christopher Ward
The company responsible for boosting British independent watchmaking like no other. The Berkshire-brand cannot be described as new – it celebrates two decades in watchmaking next year. Yet the last 18 months have seen it soaring to new heights – launching models with complications usually associated with 300-year old hauty Swiss brands, including the chiming C1 Bel Canto with its ‘sonnerie au passage’, and the C1 Moonglow with its moonphase. This month there was a true David and Goliath moment when it won big at the GPHG Awards. Christopher Ward’s online-only direct-to-consumer model was deemed bonkers in 2004. It has since proved essential to every microbrand that’s followed – cutting out retail costs has democratised higher-quality watchmaking. And three cheers to that.
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