I’m never quite sure how it is that we Brits have let the Swiss become a byword for watchmaking when English inventors were responsible for a whole host of those intricate devices that are essential for keeping the luxury watch doing all the things its high net worth buyers expect of it. But there it is, time has come to seem an especially Swiss commodity.
Last week, however, two British brothers with a wonderfully compelling story to tell launched a new watch brand that aims to take the Swiss on at one of the things it does best – making high-quality, immensely desirable timepieces.
The brothers are called Nick and Giles English (yes, really) and they grew up surrounded by the romance of aviation. Their father, Euan English, was not only an engineer of considerable talent but also an RAF aerobatic champion and display pilot, who died in 1995 while practising aeronautical tactics. In the plane with his father was the elder son, Nick, who was badly injured but has survived.
Part of the impetus for creating this new watch came about because the brothers wanted to pay tribute to their father and his engineering talents, and – given their background – aviation and its demanding technology seemed a good place to start. The idea came to them five years ago after their 60-year-old plane made an emergency landing in a pea field in the Champagne area (pilots will be pilots). The field happened to belong to a former Second World War pilot who took them in, showed them his fantastic collection of clocks and watches and triggered the link between aviation and horology.
From then on the brothers set out to make a British watch that would not only last a lifetime but would be tested beyond the normal limits and could match the best Swiss watches for quality. Bear Grylls, adventurer extraordinaire, has tested the Bremont watches in the Born Survivor series and up Everest, and Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman are wearing them (having bought them with their own money) for their John O’Groats to Cape Town jaunt. There are 15 different models: all have hardened stainless-steel cases and there are both chronograph and three-hander models. While the general aesthetic is robust, they’re nothing like as chunky as, say, Cartier’s Panerai. “We were aiming,” says Nick English, “at a rather more classic look.” Nor are they planning to make hundreds of them – these are quality watches, with prices ranging from £1,900 to £2,950. Pilots would seem to be an obvious market, since the dials are easy to read at speed. Formula One drivers would be a good target market, too, while those of us engaged in less precarious ways of earning a living can admire them for a sturdiness that is quintessentially English. The inspiration is derived from aeronautical derring-do but the watches are appealing to quite a lot of women who mostly prefer the BCS1, which has a slightly smaller face (39mm) and sells for £1,950.
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It would be nice to be able to say that Bremont watches were an all-British affair but that wouldn’t be true. Though its story and its heart is English the brothers had to go to Switzerland for some of the expertise. They bought an atelier in Biel-Bienne, where there was a cache of skilled watchmakers and access to some of the Swiss-made parts, but the design and the finishing are done in England, the finishing by a company that makes aviation parts and components for Formula One cars.
Others interested in where British watchmaking is at might like to know that a school of watchmaking has been started in Manchester, the better to encourage indigenous talents, while the legendary British watchmaker Dr George Daniels, who makes his watches by hand and is now in his eighties, is rumoured to be making his very last watch (don’t all rush – it will cost many hundreds of thousands of pounds).
As to why the English brothers’ watches are called Bremont, it was M. Antoine Bremont who found them in the field in Champagne and introduced them to the intricacies of horology.
They’re on sale only at the Watch Gallery, 129 Fulham Road, London SW3 (020-7581 3239), but from next month will also be available at Harrods.