It's easy to root for these watches, which are well-made, distinctive yet wholly un-try-hardy, elegant but absolutely functional. When Bowman-Scargill started thinking about what this company would be, and its design language, he thought the obvious thing to do would be to put Fears 1846 and then just recreate watches from the archive. But Bowman-Scargill seems like a man who would just be constitutionally incapable of making things that easy on himself. So this individual decided to look at it a different way, to think outside the realm of the mere copy. "What I wanted to do is imagine if the company hadn't closed and it had kept on going, what kind of watches would it make today? "
This meant going into the archive and looking intently at what Worries had been and how that would translate today. "So it didn't specialize in tool watches, it wasn't creating dive timepieces and chronographs. It was making the sort of watch that normal people would just buy and wear for their life, inch Bowman-Scargill says. "It was this old-fashioned category that was around for hundreds of years, which was just a watch. inches He would keep it simple, but , to borrow a phrase, also retain it classy.
Concerns Watches are built in England, which of course means, that they are not entirely made of English parts. This would be impossible. But Bowman-Scargill makes no attempt to B. S. about this, and the information about where every part on every view comes is right there on the website for all to see. "Transparency is very important to me, very well he states.
The watches are designed and conceptualized in Bristol, the movements come from Switzerland. They work with two casemakers in Germany. "They are incredibly skilled in what they do. So they do all the engineering and the machining, and then they do hand finishing as well. " Those cool pipette hands are made in Norfolk, England, and also the watches are put together in Bristol, at the Fears factory. Fears platinum watches, as well as the collaboration with Garrick, have more UK components than the wrist watches at lower price points.
Bowman-Scargill isn't particularly concerned that getting components from elsewhere makes him less of an English watchmaker. "Fears oversees and controls all aspects of the design plus the manufacture, and other English enjoy companies, even back in the day, did not get all their components through the UK, so we're continuing a grand tradition. " The important thing to your pet is to get the best components he can, even if it means using 20 vendors per watch. He also knows which Fears lives and dies by its attention to detail. That pink tone that I like so much, for example: "It had to be slightly dusty, it had to change in the light, as well as go from almost milky to vibrant, " Bowman-Scargill says. It takes time to get such things right. "I like to work with people that are quite nerdy about what they do. "
At present moment the actual Fears Watch family includes the cushion-shaped Brunswick (in various metals and sizes, including a 40 mm which is the company's only automatic) the particular rectangular Archival, and the collaboration with Garrick. Substantially above the usual Doubts price point, typically the Garrick is an entirely different beast than its more austere cousins, with skeletonized hands, a power reserve display at two o'clock a running seconds at 10 o'clock, with a diamond-cut bevel around the edge coated in rhodium, and an opening at six o'clock that displays often the rotation of the balance. "It's important to me that the core of the Anxieties range tend to be watches that offer exceptional quality and finishing for their price point, " Bowman-Scargill says, "but that we also are able to offer something that is a Fearfulness which pushes the boundaries in terms of style, functionality and also watchmaking skill. "
Bowman-Scargill lives in York, as his husband has a job in the University of York - coincidentally where they met and fell in love as simply teenagers -- but he or she stays down in Bristol during the week because it's crucial to the dog that the organization keep it is roots there. "It's kind of important to think if you've run a company that has this long history, you have to be respectful to it. And that's what I try and do with what we're creating today. "
Going forward, at least for now, Bowman-Scargill's plan is to build out each family of designer watches, meaning, to create different iterations of the Brunswick and the Archival. "I never want to have just this never-ending sea associated with watches, micron he claims. "I want to focus on building out the various families, the way say, Rolex does with the Oyster. The Brunswick is like our Oyster. "
They are also going to relaunch the Redcliff, which they stopped making within 2020, but this Redcliff will have an automatic caliber. Another collaboration is also in the works, also with an English watchmaker. Details will be released on January 20, along with the watch itself on Jan 27. I won't say anything more than it is beautiful and I want one.
Although it was scary to take that will leap away from Rolex, along with although the Covid months were a little touch and go, Bowman-Scargill's current problem : the same problem many see companies have - is not so much selling watches as keeping up manufacturing pace to meet demand. This individual absolutely feels he made the right decision exchanging a good, solid job having a storied brand for a less clear future with his own. The Iwc influence lives on in the way they runs Dreads, in that he has an appreciation for plowing his own way, and not obsessing about trends. "We don't make things just because they're popular, we make them because they're the best thing for us to make at the time. I think that's why even though we've grown slowly, we have the loyal following. "