SECOND ACTS

Once a hotbed of horological activity, British watchmaking completely collapsed in the 20th century. As demand for mechanical timepieces surges past the capacity of Swiss brands, weird watch people have already turned to the British isles for alternatives

- JOSH SIMS

Nicholas Bowman-Scargill wants to draw your attention to the Alliance 01 jumping hour watch. It is a model launched earlier this year and made in partnership between Fears, the watch brand he founded, and fellow British watch company Christopher Ward, for the Alliance of British Watch and Clockmakers. This young organisation, launched three years ago, has so far brought together some 73 brands with the aim of promoting the nation’s watch and clockmaking around the world. It champions British provenance and job– creation for the sector in the UK. Funds from sales of the watch (unfortunately, the image of the watch did not make it before press time - Ed) will go to this end.

“And just look at that watch,” enthuses Scargill-Bowman. “It’s just weird, in a good way. There’s all that negative space, the cyclops hour window, and yet it is the watch that everybody picks up. Its design is playful but stops short of being outrageous. And I think that’s a quality specific to British design. There’s an understatement to it, with very classic proportions, but also with an irreverence.”

Scargill-Bowman concedes that to ascribe a specific design ethos to a nation is to stereotype – “but I’m ready to own that,” he laughs. It puts the aesthetic of British-designed watches – sometimes also part-made and, much less often, more or less entirely made in the UK – into the realm of the Mini Cooper or the Jaguar E-Type, the Spitfire or Concorde, the Burberry trenchcoat, Dr. Marten’s boot or the Anglepoise lamp. It is a disparate bunch of icons but maybe there is something in the idea that a certain sensibility lies behind them all, as might be behind the more sensuous, more pop classics of, say, Italian design.