Whether you believe that Brexit was the best thing that ever happened to the UK, releasing the shackles of European betrothment, or you are adamant that it left the UK the poorer party in the Euro divorce, there can be no arguing that the British watchmaking industry is in anything but rude health. Over the past years, more and more independently run watch brands have blossomed to cater to the incredible surge in demand for watches both in Blighty and across the entire globe. We talk to the leaders of four very different UK-based brands about the companies that they run and take a look at a selection of the watches that they offer, both past and present.

Fears

“We recently celebrated the 175th anniversary of Fears, first being established in 1846 by my great-great-great-grandfather Edwin Fear.”

– Nicholas Bowman-Scargill, Managing Director of Fears

The Fears story began in 1846, in the city of Bristol, when a talented young watchmaker named Edwin Fear established a workshop and showroom. For over 130 years, three generations of the Fear family grew the business into one of England’s largest watch companies. Fears continued to produce high quality timepieces in the UK until the mid- 1970s. In 2016, Edwin Fear’s great-great-great-grandson reestablished the family company, and Fears is once again manufacturing watches in the UK.

Can you remember your first watch?

My parents purchased a Timex for me when I was around five or six, and I remember that it came with a book on how to tell the time. Interestingly, one of the things I was acutely aware of, even as a five year old, was that there were two versions of this watch. My watch, which came on a pale blue plastic strap, and another with a red strap. The difference was that the red strap version had a mechanical movement, whereas the blue strap one was quartz. This was the early ’90s, and it was explained to me that the blue strap one was far superior because the quartz was a much better movement! The mechanical one was inferior because it was old technology, and it was the cheaper one out of the two. That stuck with me for many years until I became somewhat more enlightened. To this day, however, I still can’t tell the time on a digital readout, and I have to quickly do a mental image of where the hands are pointing on a round clock face.

Fears is in your blood, but when did you realize that you had to re- establish the brand?

Setting up Fears really was one of these eureka moments, which came about almost by accident. Since I was young, I was aware that my relatives had been watchmakers, but I didn’t really know much about them or what they did in particular. It was only after university that I decided that I wanted to become a watchmaker, and I started to research jobs in the UK. I mentioned this to my parents, and my mother reminded me that my great-grandfather and his father were both watchmakers, so it’s clearly in the blood. I then got a job at Rolex where I worked as an apprentice watchmaker, but around two and a half years into my five- year apprenticeship, I started getting restless at the thought of just sitting at the workbench for the next 40 years. I mentioned to my parents and my mother jokingly said, “Well, why don’t you restart the family watch company?”

It was a bombshell moment; this was the first I’d heard of it. She produced an old family album and found an old advert for Fears watches, and suddenly I realized that my relatives, that I had assumed had simply been watch repairers, were actually the managing directors of the west of England’s largest watchmakers. On the train journey home with my husband, I decided that I had to reestablish the brand. I don’t know how I would do it, but I knew it was my destiny to bring my family’s company back to life!

I imagine the early days were a huge challenge then?

Well, we recently celebrated the fifth anniversary of Fears restarting, which coincided nicely with the 175th anniversary of Fears first being established in 1846 by my great-great-great-grandfather Edwin Fear. This has made me spend a lot of time thinking back to those early days which weren’t easy. We would have several months where we wouldn’t sell anything, and it was just me working in the company. I didn’t have an office and was working on a five-year-old laptop on my landing as I didn’t even have a spare room in my house. Looking back, I’m very proud of how I managed to restart this company on my £30,000 savings and bring it to where it is today. However, those first years were not easy and the first full year of operation in 2017, I didn’t take a single day off except for Christmas Day, and that was exhausting. I’m proud I did it, though, and the brand is really in its stride now.

What was your biggest challenge when re-establishing Fears?

It was the lack of information. Not necessarily information about the company, but more about setting up a watch company. Now, if you want to set up a watch company today, there are lots of interviews with people on podcasts and YouTube videos — all kinds of information that just was not available five years ago. A lot of the companies that Fears now works with are specialist B2B businesses that don’t really have a website and, if they do, it doesn’t explain what they make. So, finding people to supply us was the biggest challenge, and it’s the reason why today when people approach me asking for advice or help, I’m very happy and very open about recommending who they should speak to.

What a huge learning curve!

Oh yes! One of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned is that every single day is different, and no day will ever go 100 percent your way. Every single day, some things go well and some things go badly, and you have to be a firefighter, and you have to be problem solver 24/7. However, when you tally it up before going to bed, and the good has outweighed the bad … it’s been a good day! The other important thing I’ve learned is to respect your customers. Always respect your customers, because the moment you don’t give them 100 percent respect, then it’s the beginning of the end.

What makes a Fears watch a Fears watch?

I think it can be summed up by our motto, which I actually had registered as a trademark back in 2018: Elegantly Understated Since 1846. It was created by one of our best customers, and the thing that I loved about it was, when you go back through the archive and you go through all the models that Fears used to make before it closed in 1976, they very much can be summed up by saying they are elegant and they are understated. I would say that both are very innate British traits historically, and so when we adopted that as our tagline in 2018, it helped focus what Fears was, what it is today and what it will always be. So, rather than saying that we only make watches in this case shape or we only make watches that can do this function, what we say is that we only make watches that can be described as elegant and understated.

Who inspires you?

There are two people who inspire me. One of them was a former employer, Ralph Lauren, who has this incredible ability to create wonderful worlds and give an object intrinsic value. That’s inspirational. If you try and dissect a Polo shirt, you can see that it’s made up of this fabric or this material, but you’re missing the point. It’s about buying into something. I believe it’s very important that when looking at the watch world, you understand that we make a product that nobody needs, but that the people want. However, you can’t just focus on the branding and the marketing and not have good product; you’ve got to have both of them in balance. From the watch world, I would go for Günter Blümlein, who helped Walter Lange restart A Lange & Söhne. The reason I would say he is inspiring, is the work he did at the brands before Lange. He was a maverick and very different from a traditional Swiss watch executive. It’s a shame he died relatively young, because his view on where the market was going and what people were going to want in the future was incredible.

What are your observations on the current watch market?

A few years ago, a lot of new brands arrived on the scene with a lot starting on Kickstarter. I know this, because I bought a good number of them to support them. To me, it’s very interesting to see which ones actually lasted and which didn’t. Some start-ups became a brand and outlived their product, for example, Studio Underd0g. Richard has become a good friend of mine and I’m in awe of the way that, yes, he started on Kickstarter, but that is a small endnote in his brand’s history; he’s managed to very quickly truly establish himself.

We’re now seeing so many brands fall by the wayside that never had a reason to exist beyond making a product and bringing it to market for the lowest price possible. That’s not a company, that’s a product. Also, I’d say that in the current watch market, there’s not a lot that is entirely new; everything feels somewhat derivative. That’s not to be a bad thing; you need to make watches that are designed to sell, not shock. I would like to see a little more personality though and witness more brands producing some models that have something a bit more unique to them.

Is British watchmaking important on the global stage?

I feel like I have to be careful how I answer this question, or I’ll be locked up in the Tower of London! Honestly, not really these days. However, I think it’s beginning to increase. Are we innovative? Are we creating new things? Are we pioneers? No, we’re not. We were in the past, absolutely, and we can go through all of the historically important things that watch companies did in Britain. We are on the global stage; not from a technical standpoint but for design and project management. Now one sounds very exciting and very creative, and one sounds somewhat dry, but actually when you combine the two together, it’s an incredible formula.

We have some of the world’s most renowned art schools, artists and designers, and I think there is something intrinsically linked into our psyche about appreciating beautiful objet. British design is unique in that it’s graceful yet has a purposeful function that is linked to the project management. Why is this important, and why does this set us apart when it comes to watchmaking? I believe the British are very good at bringing different people together, picking up the expertise and bringing them together. London has been a melting pot of different people and different cultures for centuries. When you look at it from the watch standpoint, British watch companies tend to get parts from multiple suppliers rather than relying on just one person. Fears works with over 20 suppliers, just to bring a watch and all its packaging into fruition. We’re good at spotting different people who are experts at making individual things, and so we’re not relying on just one supplier or one country for manufacturer.