What Makes Them Tick

Samantha Lim makes time for a watchmaking workshop hosted by Swiss Watch Gallery and IWC Schaffhausen at The Ritz-Carlton Kuala Lumpur

- Samantha Lim

Shrouded in mystery and sainted by watch enthusiasts, Florentine Ariosto Jones was not ‘Swiss-made’ like the timepieces that bear his legacy, but a product of humble upbringings in the small town of Rumney in New Hampshire. Yellowed papers prove that Jones was drafted into the American Civil War under the occupation of ‘watchmaker,’ served as superintendent at prestigious watch and clock company E. Howard & Co, and filed for a passport to exit New England and to enter Europe in 1867. One can only form conjunctures about the in-betweens, but if left to Hollywood’s devices, Jones’ biography would likely be a bildungsroman ‘based on true events.’ The protagonist, a small-town boy with big dreams, aspired (in his own words) to “combine all the excellence of the American system of mechanism with the more skillful hand labour of the Swiss”. And in 1868, this goal materialised by way of IWC Schaffhausen.

PROBUS SCAFUSIA