← Scottish Watches
Scottish Watches
Scottish Watches Podcast #768 : Fears Launch 6 New Watches In The One Day And Nicholas Explains All
00:57:54
In this episode, we sit down with Nicholas Bowman-Scargill of Fears Watch Company to unpack a major milestone, ten years since the brand’s revival and one hundred and eighty years...
Loading summary
Transcript74 lines
- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the Scottish Watches podcast. We have got Nicholas Bowman Scargle of the Fears Watch company. He is returning. He's returning alone. He's not bringing a friend this time. We don't have Rich from studio Underdog. We don't have him transmitting across international waters via satellite, via underground cables, nothing like that. He is here on his lonesome from deepest darkest Bristol. How are you doing, sir?
- [00:23]
B
I'm good, but I'm not sure Bristol would like to be deepest darkest. It's sunny, it's beautiful down here today.
- [00:29]
A
Well, don't rub it in because Scotland hasn't quite caught up yet with the who changeover of the times and whatnot. But it is sunnier times, it is warmer claims because we have a lot to talk about and this is a big, massive year for you guys. You are celebrating a big number and you're celebrating it by releasing a large number of watches in the one go instead of drip feeding. And this is something you spoke about last year briefly when we did chat. You didn't want to just be doing a release every so often, throw a little bit chicken feed out to the world. You wanted to blow the doors off it. Italian Job still something like that. But you're here to tell us all about it. We're going to get straight into. After we tell you to check the show, not that's where all the links will be. You can check out the pictures, the tech spec, the details. You can click across and actually have a look at these things. Because an audio podcast is fantastic to listen to. Not very good if you're trying to visualize what is going on. And the thumbnail will probably give the game away, but you want to look at those high res images. Should we do that wrist check and just crack on with stuff?
- [01:22]
B
Absolutely, absolutely. Do you want me to go first or should you go first?
- [01:26]
A
Let me think. So it was 2019 was the first time you appeared in the podcast. You came all the way up to Scotland to do it live and not in studio because we didn't have a studio back then. We borrowed a lawyer's office. Can you believe it? Back in the day, very formal. But yeah, things have moved on a lot. But you remembered the wrist check and you are the guest. So you can go first. Tell us what's on the wrist today.
- [01:46]
B
So today I'm wearing my daily wearer, which is a custom solid 18 karat gold Brunswick 38 millimeter. And it's a watch that at the end of last year I decided the problem is people always expect me to be wearing the latest watch. But if we're launching multiple watches at the same time, then. Well, in the case of today, we're talking about six references. Which one do I pick? It's like picking a favorite child, right? Like, you end up skewing people's opinions if I'm picking one over the others. The other thing is, and this is something I've spoken a lot about before, I'm quite a sentimental guy. So a watch for me is about building the memories, the special occasions with it. And I realized I just needed a watch that I can wear every day. And even though it's a gold Brunswick, manually wound and obviously perfect for what I'm wearing right now, I find I wear it at the weekends when I go down the pub. I just love wearing a solid gold watch. And it's just. Yeah, it's a lovely piece. Very classic. White dial, gold hands, black numerals. As classic as it comes.
- [02:50]
A
I seem to remember spotting this on Hodinkee, maybe in the last couple of weeks.
- [02:55]
B
Yes. So it was interesting because I've. Most times when people will have seen me wearing it recently would have been in America, Dubai. And it was only at the British Watchmakers Day last month that a lot of people saw the watch for the first time and spotted it. And it is that thing, you know, just seeing a little bit of gold poking out of a shirt cuff is. It's. It's old school. And in less than a year, I turn 40. So I feel I'm sort of getting to the age where I can wear a yellow gold watch and it doesn't feel like I'm wearing my dad's watch. You know, I feel like I've earned the right to be wearing a gold watch. Now, admittedly, it's still owned by the company. I didn't actually pay for it, but it's a nice, you know, it's a nice piece to wear.
- [03:40]
A
I like the way that you've explained that and it makes perfect sense, because if you're releasing not even just the six, we're going to discuss today, and we're going to have to crack on to get through them all. But picking a favorite. This is the problem I had with you, Nicholas. This is the problem I have or had because it got fixed since 2019, first time you came to see us. And we'd been chatting from way before that, when the podcast first started, probably there or thereabouts. And I liked the story, I liked the history. I liked everything you'd done, everything that you believed in. And it was not a fledgling. But we are talking seven, eight years ago almost. And we're now celebrating 10 years of the rebirth. I just could never decide on a fears to pick for myself. And when we did a charity watch auction in association with Sarah Ferguson back when she was running, well, she created the watch department at Lyne and Turnbull here in Scotland, and then obviously moved on to Bonhams when we were doing that. And you created a one of one unique piece for charity. I wanted that piece. I wanted it so bad because it was beautiful. It was the right color scheme. Blue is my color. I've changed slightly. There are other colors that I play with in my palette, but it was just gorgeous. And then it went to high bidder. Made a lot of money for a very worthy cause. And it took such a long time to eventually come across a watch that I wanted for myself. And I finally pulled the trigger last year down in your boutique in your showroom, Pride, a place I get told it was maybe the first one or the second one in the country that had been sold. It wasn't a watch that was a available generally to the public, couldn't be ordered online, and was specific to the American market apart from your boutique. So do you want to tell us a little bit about the watch that I've got in the wrist today?
- [05:13]
B
Certainly. So the piece we're referring to is a very special watch created in collaboration with our retailer, Topper Jewelers in Burlingame, California. So just next to San Francisco. And It's a Redcliffe 39.5. But with this piece, rather than going for the understated, it's going for a real celebration. It has what's called the confetti dial. So the dial is hand drawn by the son of the Topper Jeweler's owner, Rob Kaplan, and he's hand drawn it with all these little pieces of confetti. So it's not a pattern that's repeated and it's meant to have this wonderful effect, as though confetti has been sort of sprayed over the dial. And the reason they wanted to create this watch with us is Rob's son, John, who is now in his early 20s. A few years ago, sadly, as a teenager, he was diagnosed with cancer. And through many years of treatment, he has now made a full recovery and is now very much getting on with his life. And as part of that, the family really wanted to celebrate it. And the thing is, I've got to know the Kaplan family for quite a few years now. I've been working with them for five years. I've known them longer than that, so I very much lived with them through this struggle. And I've known John since he was a young teenager. So for me, this was a perfect thing to do, is to bring in Rob's son to do the design, but for us to create this special watch. And I just love it because you can't look at the confetti, dial Redcliffe and not just smile. Now, it's not limited edition, but you can only purchase it from Topper in California. You can purchase it online from. From their website. But brief period in November, we were offering them in our boutique and you got the very first one. So it's a very, very special watch,
- [07:13]
A
I feel even more important, but it just made sense. You invited us down graciously to the Bristol Watch show, which you seem to have a part in, but you like to remain quite elegantly understated when it comes to what goes on there, so that everybody that comes along gets a proper bite of the cherry. It's not the Fear show. And again, that has to be commended, because you could be ruling the roost. You know, you do bring people. And myself and Simona came down. We really enjoyed it. And then we enjoyed spending time with you away from watches, away from work, away from podcasts and away from the fierce watch company, just to wander around, have a chat, enjoy the last of the sunlight. Before the winter period really took control and obviously the festivities kicked in. But the boutique is amazing. The staff that you have, or the team that you have, even wouldn't like to call them staff. They're so energetic, engaged, knowledgeable, coherent, confident. Everything they do is to drive. Drive things forward. There's nobody there for themselves and there's nobody there that just turns up to pick up a paycheck. They just go above and beyond. And even the watch show itself, it was small, it was condensed, it was saturated with great people, great brands. Some people we'd never seen before, some watches we didn't even know existed before. It was in Aladdin's cave. We left absolutely energized, looking forward to the next thing. And it was almost like a mini watchmaker's day.
- [08:30]
B
Well, I'm so glad you had a good time, because the thing with the Bristol Watch show is within an hour's drive of Bristol, we have probably 15, 20 different watch companies, some of which are very small, some of which are growing, some of which are like fiers, you know, have head offices and a full team of people. As people may know, I'M very, very bullish on the British watch industry. It's why I was delighted that Fiers and myself were one of the founding brands of the alliance of British Watch and Clockmakers. It's why we have such a prominent position at British Watchmakers Day. You know, I'm very much Team GB watchers. But the thing is, for our industry to grow and develop, we need to actually take a leaf out of the playbook that Switzerland has and Germany. So if you talk about, let's start with Germany, German watchmaking, most of the listeners will know Glashutter in Saxony, near Dresden. That's where the epicenter of the German industry is. Talk about Switzerland, Geneva, Valley de Joux. You know, you've got Le Chaux de Fond. You've got all these key places which are watchmaking central. That ecosystem is what allows their industries to grow and thrive. We come to the UK and it's a scattering all up and down the country. However, when the alliance did their first bellwether report in 2021, they did realize there was quite an interesting stat, that actually there was a larger clustering of watch companies in the west of England. And so it sparked an idea in my head. I was like, well, for our industry to really grow and thrive, we need to have an epicenter where in the future people who want to set up a case making company, dial making, watchmaking school, you know, eventually movement manufacturer, they need to locate themselves close proximity to all of their customers. So therefore I said, well, why don't we create a watch show that is completely regionally focused and not in the case? Oh well, it's hosted in Bristol. That goes without saying. But the only brands who exhibit have to be within an hour's drive of Bristol. And the first show we did back in 2024, we had 10 brands and I thought we might have five, but we had 10. Last year we had 15. This year we're moving the show into a much larger space and we potentially will have up to 20 brands. But the thing is with the show is Fears is officially the sponsor. In reality, my marketing department does the whole thing. You know, we pay for the whole show, we organize it, we make sure it all happens. But I don't want Fears to be seen as necessarily the dominant force in Bristol watchmaking. I want to use the very privileged position we're at 10 years in of the relaunch to be able to share that with the other brands. And what's great is last year when you attended, we had some brands who had never exhibited at A watch show before this was their first ever show. We also had brands who were coming back for the second year, having first exhibited in 24, and they were talking about the growth they've experienced. You know, the eyeballs, the getting to meet with yourself, for example. You know, these things really help them early on in their journey of creating their watches. And so for me, I just see this as a key thing to do. You know, I want in the next, in the coming decades for Bristol to be basically the byword for British watchmaking.
- [11:53]
A
That's a really good way of thinking about it. And people talk about British watchmaking as a very community driven industry. And it is. Everybody gets on. We've had many chats in the past about sometimes somebody requires a movement, they can't get it from a supplier. You've thrown your hat into the ring and said, I'll connect you, or we can go into the storeroom, we can give you some bits and pieces. And that is to be commended. It's a little bit like what we try and do with the podcast. We try and bring everybody on, we bring other creators on. We never get invited to anybody else's podcast, but we always bring on Andrew Morgan or Adrian Barker or Rob Nudge or whoever it is, because we feel as if we have our voice constantly being spoken. Then people get bored. There is no creativity. It's an echo chamber. And the same thing is with you guys. By bringing in these new brands, nurturing it, and all ships will rise on a tide. Because if these guys are suddenly advertising, people find there's watchmaking in Britain again, then they might buy our fears in the future. So it's not a negative thing to help people out. It's actually massively beneficial. And the community aspect, I mean, it works for you and it works for us.
- [12:58]
B
Well, it's very much, you know, shipshape. Bristol fashion, right? You know, when the tide goes up in the floating harbor, we. We want everyone rising with it. And actually the point, you talk about, you know, about the community and, you know, we're talking today at the point where fears is 10 years since I restarted it in 2016. And, you know, it's an important thing for me to acknowledge. I'm talking from our big, shiny new head office we moved into the end of January. And, you know, Fears is in a very strong position. We're very fortunate. But the reason we are is because, you know, it'd be very easy for me to be saying, well, fears is me. You know, it's my family's history. It's my legacy. And all this. Increasingly now, I'm taking more of a kind of. When I say a backseat role, I mean from the public eye, because the company is doing what it's doing thanks to the incredible work of my team. You know, my colleagues work across four different departments in the company. Having a new meeting room, which I'm speaking to you from today. The number of times I'll walk past the meeting room and see colleagues having a meeting, and I have no idea what that meeting's about, but it's just great because, you know, Mutiny.
- [14:04]
A
It's about Mutiny.
- [14:05]
B
Well, I am worried. 1. You know, my husband's always saying that, be careful. One day there will be a coup d'. Etat. You know, I'll turn up in Bristol and the tanks will be rolling into, you know, down the Bath Road from Temple Meads. But the fact is, you know, where the company is today is thriving because of the people who work here, their passion, their dedication. And, you know, I feel very, very proud of that, because if I had kept trying to make it about me, we wouldn't be here. And, you know, I have two things that make me absolutely brimming with joy. One of them is, you know, 10 years in, I still get to create incredible watches, right? You know, I come up with the ideas. I work with Lee Yuen Rapathy, our head designer, and we turn those into reality together. That's incredible. I have the best job in the world. But one of the other things I have, and this is something that often won't get spoken about on a Watch podcast, but it brings me just as much joy, is creating job opportunities here in Bristol. You know, the 12 people who work at Fierce, they didn't leave jobs because they were made redundant. So these are net jobs, good jobs that I've created for the Bristol economy. And that means something to me. You know, it's all about, you know, the rising tide. As Fears does well and continues to do well, it should also help the city that is our historic home and our legacy.
- [15:26]
A
Well, do you want to take it back a little bit? Because not everybody has been here since 2019. Tell us the potted history of Fears. Where it began, where it ended up, where it stopped, and when it was reborn, certainly.
- [15:39]
B
So, I mean, we go back probably. Actually, let's go right back. So it's a cliche to say this as a watch brand owner. You know, I've always loved watches, but it is true. You know, I was a kid who cared about that first time X, and then my Casio at 10 years old. And you know, and that was very important to me. But the thing is, when I was looking at what I wanted to do with my life as a teenager, I realized very quickly in the noughties, basically, if I became an investment banker, I would be a master of the universe. I would get big bonuses and I could buy watches with those bonuses. And so I'd studied pure economics, did an internship with Deutsche bank, and I was set to graduate and work in this amazing industry. Except for I graduated in 2008 and the entire financial world blew up in my face. I wasn't bright enough to keep my job prospects, so I scrambled around. I managed fortunately to find a job working in public relations, marketing. So I start there. I enjoy the work. It's creative, it's fun. However, after a few years being severely dyslexic, I realized actually I didn't really want to be sat in front of a computer moving pixels around. My writing ability is not that strong.
- [16:49]
A
You didn't want to sell your soul to Santa?
- [16:51]
B
Pretty much. Pretty much. And as a side note, this week actually we had a thing corrected. So we've taken out a year long campaign on the M32 motorway on a big billboard. So as you come into the city center in Bristol, you go past this huge billboard for fears. And so we very excitingly were putting up the first one a few weeks ago. It goes up, we get sent the photographs from the ad company and I'd done the final artwork to help my marketing department out. They were busy getting ready for this big launch today, so I helped them out. We get the photo through and my colleague Dan, who's my deputy, he looks at it and goes, yeah, it's very nice, but you know, official has two eyes in it. And our tagline, bristol's official timekeeper since 1846, I had misspelled official. And this is now on a 4 meter high billboard being seen by tens of thousands of people every day. So it was a nice reminder that as a dyslexic, I probably shouldn't be in charge of copywriting.
- [17:55]
A
So what did it say? Was it all faecal?
- [17:57]
B
It had the first eye but not the second one. And don't get me wrong, we had people emailing in correcting it. It's amazing. On the M32 motorway there are just as many grammar police as there are speed police. It's amazing, like the number of people seeing it and going, you know you've got a typo. I was like, yes, I'm very aware of my 4 meter high embarrassment.
- [18:19]
A
Listen, Nicholas, Nicholas, Nicholas, you can't pull the wool over my eyes. I know. Fine. Well, this was just a marketing drive to build up your mailing list subscription.
- [18:27]
B
Oh, I wish.
- [18:28]
A
Anyway, back to the history lesson.
- [18:30]
B
Yeah. So I'm working in pr. I want to change and do something different. I want to do something really passionate about something with my hands. And I sat down with my husband and basically kind of throwing around some ideas. And it came down to my two big passions in life, one of them being watches. So maybe I became a watchmaker. And then the second one being trains. I love the railways. So I looked at becoming a train driver. In the end, watchmaking won out and so I started applying to all the big brands who had a presence in the uk. After seven months of interviews and practical assessments, Rolex eventually gave in and took me on as an apprentice. And an absolute dream job. Like, I mean your first job in the industry in 2011, working at Rolex at their head office in the workshop, learning to become a watchmaker. I mean, to this day I do sometimes wonder where I get this luck from. I'm working there, loving the job. Until two and a half years in, I had a meeting with the Rolex pension advisor. Now the Rolex pension, very good, very strong. That's great. However, at the end of the meeting, he looks at my paperwork, looks at me and makes a joke that I'm sure he made to absolutely everyone. He looks at my paperwork, looks at me and goes, well, only 39 more years to go. Ha ha ha. So we have a giggle about that. And as I'm going downstairs back into the workshop, it suddenly dawns on me. Oh heck, I'm literally going to be sat at this workbench servicing the same submariners datejusts for the rest of my life. And don't get me wrong, this is a good job. But I feel that I want to do more, I want to achieve more. And the next few weeks my mind is all over the place and I go home for the weekend and I'm chatting to my parents and eventually over Sunday lunch, I pluck up the courage to say, look, I know I was going to be a banker, then went into public relations, then watchmaking. I'm in my 20s, I think I want to do something different. I think I may even want to set up my own company, but I don't know what industry it would be in. And as my mum's serving up the roast potatoes, she jokingly says to me, well darling, why don't you restart the family watch company? And I'm like, what family watch company? And in true to form, like mothers do, the fact that I've loved watches since a kid, the fact that I'm working at the world's best known watch company, training to be a watchmaker. She had only ever mentioned, oh, well, your great grandfather and his father were watchmakers in Bristol. But I assumed from what she said, they were just, you know, independence. They were just in a dusty workshop, you know, fixing the old. The odd clock or pocket watch. And then she, over this lunch, it turns out, no, they basically, for three generations, ran the largest watch company in the west of England, selling hundreds of thousands of watches and at its Peak, employing 100 watchmakers here in Bristol and shipping watches out to 95 countries around the world.
- [21:20]
A
How did that make you feel? Did you initially have the push, the drive to. Yes, this is my calling.
- [21:26]
B
I think it's interesting. I. Since I was a kid, I'm someone. I don't like having butterflies in my stomach. No one does. But I am someone who. I need them. I need that excitement. I need to feel scared. I need to feel, and I feel, as I did then, I was just being pulled towards it. Not pushed, but pulled towards it. It was like a big magnet and it's pulling me towards it and there's not a lot I can do to stop it now. Obviously, that's how the brain plays it out. Obviously, I'm the one pushing myself forward, but, you know, I was scared. I had no idea what I was going to be doing, but I just knew I had to do it. You know, I stayed at Rolex another two and a half years because I needed to do research. I needed to find out more about. More about how to set up a business, but also how to set up, you know, a watch company. Find suppliers and bear in mind, we're talking about 20, 14, 15, 16. Today. You want to find out, you know, you want to set up a watch company, as a lot of people in the early 2000s did during the pandemic, you know, the number of British watch companies skyrocketed between 2020 and 22. But they had so much access to information. You know, literally the podcasts on Scottish watches where I've spoken about this, they could find me on LinkedIn or Instagram and message me, you know, there was so much more information out there. Back in 14, 15, 16, people didn't set up watch companies. There was nothing. There was the odd tidbit on a forum, but it was very much go out and figure it out yourself. And I'm very fortunate. You mentioned about brands helping out. I'm very fortunate to people like David Brailsford at Garrick, Piers Berry at Pinion, Giles at Schofield. You know, these British Watch brand owners were very generous with their time, their help, their assistance. And yes, in 2016, I left Rolex and a nice little Easter egg. If you ever look at a press photo of affairs with a date, the date is always set to 29, the 29th of the month. And there's two reasons. One after Rolex, one better than Rolex. I think you mean Ricky, you know, sorry, apologies, apologies. No, it's because I was 29 years old just when I restarted Fears. But also the first day I worked full time on Fears after I left Rolex was the leap year in 2016, Monday 29th February, and that was the scariest, most bizarre day. I literally, that day, I opened my laptop, sat at home. I was working from a secondhand desk on a borrowed MacBook on the landing of my house share in London. And I didn't even have, you know, I had a bedroom, but I didn't have a spare room. You know, every room in the house was filled with housemates. And I remember opening that laptop with a cup of tea in my hand thinking, oh, my goodness, like, what do I do today? And so the very first thing I did was I picked up the phone and I called the organizers of the SalonQP watch show, which used to be the big premier watch show in the uk, and it was taking place in November, as it was every year. And I called them up and I said, I would like to book a stand. And they said, okay, great. What's your brand Fears? Oh, I haven't heard of it. I said, oh, we're in the process of relaunching. And of course I said we, even though I could have said I, because I was the only person in the. I was the company, but I said, no, we will be relaunching. And they said, oh, do you have a watch? I said, we will have a watch by the 3rd of November. And so I booked it, I paid the deposit and realized, right, I have six months now. Obviously, I'd done a lot of preparation. I designed watches in my lunch breaks at Rolex, you know, obviously all covertly, you know, making sure no one knew I had put together a business plan. And, you know, I. So I was able, I knew what I was doing, but still, it's that setting a date and Then saying publicly, I will be launching there. And I find that's the best thing, you know, moving into this new head office. Basically, I said to the whole company, I said to everyone, we will be moving in, you know, the last week, weekend of January, and my colleague who was managing project managing with the builders, the electricians, because we had to do a lot of building work here, and they were like, but what if it overruns? I said, no, book the removal lorry. Book everything. Every, all the furniture's been delivered that day. Like everything is taking place. We have to do it. And it's amazing how it does focus the mind. But as a, a little side point I mentioned, I'm talking to you from our, our meeting room, our sort of boardroom, as it were, from the head office. Obviously, when you have meeting rooms in a office, you have to decide what you're going to call them, because meeting room A, meeting room B, pretty boring, pretty dumb. So I've decided that going forward, our meeting rooms in the Fears head office will be named after.
- [26:28]
A
Oh, can I guess? Can I guess? Go on, can I guess? Have you named them after the trains and Thomas the Tank Engine?
- [26:34]
B
No, but I will be changing the name of it straight away after this podcast.
- [26:38]
A
So I thought this was the Edward Room.
- [26:40]
B
It should be, right? No. So this is the Filigree meeting room. And Filigree is named after Filigree Court, which was the street in London where I worked from that landing on that secondhand desk and that borrowed MacBook from 2016 to 2018. And then we have a second meeting room, which is called Lombard, named after Lombard House, where we had our first ever actual office. And our first office, I remember that it was a rent of £400amonth, which was the biggest amount of money I'd ever spent as a business on a recurring basis. And in fact, that first head office where we actually squeezed in a little bit showroom so people could come and visit and try on watches that's smaller than this meeting room I'm sat in today.
- [27:26]
A
Wow.
- [27:27]
B
And so these are the things that, to me personally, 10 years of growth isn't just the 12 individuals sat outside busy working. It isn't just the. The watches going out to retailers and owners around the world. It isn't the fact that we're about to talk about six watches launching in one moment. It's all these things that I, I stop and have to pinch myself and go, how on God's green earth did we end up here? Like, it's really is, you know, been an incredible 10 years.
- [27:56]
A
Well, I remember you visiting after five years and I'm pretty sure there was a book that had been produced. Remember that?
- [28:03]
B
I do, yes, yes. Elegantly understated, in fact, I always have a copy by my side. So we're actually in the process of getting a new print run done of it. It's published by Bristol Books and it's a brilliant history about the first 175 years of fears. I can also say that later this year, probably around November time, there is a book being published about the first 10 years of fears since the relaunch. And I think it's going to be quite an interesting read for people because it's a very kind of open and honest take. You know, I talk about the fact that over the last 10 years there's been at least two occasions where the company came within in one case hours and one case weeks of going completely bankrupt, it all going over. And so I talk very openly about the struggles, you know, I talk about the pandemic, I talk about, you know, all the things that have gone wrong as well as the things that have gone well. Because it's. To get to this point at 10 years is not. It's not just an easy growth, right. It's not just, you know, plain sailing. You launch a watch company, it's hard work. And so the book will be, I hope, of interest to people who want to understand a bit more about the business of watches, but also is being positioned very much as a business book. So it's sort of like a business biography for the first ten years of Fears. And yeah, that will be published and coming out towards the end of this year.
- [29:34]
A
Well, why don't we put a pin in that? Because we can always bring you back on. It's going to be a big year for you. I have got a little bit of an insight as to what might be happening later on, but that's the kind of book I would enjoy reading because I know about the history of the brand. We've talked a lot. Oh God, we've talked so many times over the years. You've helped so many other people. You've introduced so many people. Topper Jewellers, you introduced them. Rob Nirapesh at Bangalore Watch Company. You brought him to us. You've been connecting things behind the scenes and I do like a nice book about business. I've read the original Alan Sugar book, Richard Branson, the Dyson book, etc, etc, just to get a bit of a feel for how difficult it is. Day one you know, you working on the laptop on a landing, having to borrow the laptop to actually start the business.
- [30:16]
B
One thing I will just say, we don't yet have a title for the book. So if anyone listening has a great idea for a business book about a company called Fears, you know, please email in to Fears with a, with a suggestion, because right now we don't have a title. And I'm sure there's going to be a good pun out there or a great title. So, yeah, I'm open to suggestions.
- [30:41]
A
Nicholas runs a train on the watch industry.
- [30:43]
B
I will add that into the maybe pile.
- [30:45]
A
Put that in the maybe pile. Right. Quickly moving on to better subjects. We have six releases. Six. I can't believe it's six. Wow. Right, here we go. In the next half hour, we're going to try and cram through as much information as possible. Where the hell do we start?
- [30:59]
B
Well, I think let's briefly start with the fact, why are we launching six watches in one go? Because you mentioned last year in the summer, we launched three new references at Geneva Watch Days. I think it's about where we are today as a company because, you know, we do a lot of business with retailers and at 10 years old, we're no longer a young watch company. You know, we're certainly of a slightly older generation. So I think it's a thing of realizing we certainly at our price point, you know, our core price point is in three to five thousand pounds. We don't want to just be relaunching a new watch every month because if you're someone who's saving up to buy a fierce watch, you want to feel confident that today is the best day to buy a watch and you don't want to feel like, oh, well, I bought one this month, but next month there may be something better. You want to have that confidence. And also we now, as a company tend we exhibit at fewer events, but what I'd call bigger, more established events. So things like Time to Watches in Geneva, Watch Time in New York, Geneva Watch Days, British Watchmaker Day, we have these big events. And so basically all of our launches try to be grouped in April for Time to Watches, which is when watches and wonders take place. And then some launches will take place in September. Geneva Watch Days. So it's very much grouping to two key points in the year, which works much better for my team because rather than every month having to gear up for a another launch, there can be a just a huge, like, focus on these periods. Trust me, in May, I don't Think there's anyone in the company who hasn't booked holiday? You know, everyone will need a big time off. So where do we start? Six new references. So it's probably best to think of them as grouped into three sort of sub collections. So if we start with probably what I'd call the kind of key launch, it's two versions of our Brunswick 40 millimeter. So the Brunswick, for people who don't know, it's named after Brunswick Square in Bristol where Fiers had its export division in the 1920s and 30s. It's 40 millimeter cushion case. Though a watch that may at first look quite dressy. It's incredibly over engineered, 150 meter water resistance. It's actually built to 300 meters. It's, you know, it's got a slim profile, automatic le joux pare movement. So you know, a proper three day, 68 hour power reserve. Now in the past we've done Brunswick 40s with you know, pink dials, galvanic plated in precious metal. The Aurora, our two piece mother of pearl. They've been much dressier, much more classic. What we have here is the Brunswick 40 filton. And the reason it's called the Filton is Filton is the area of Bristol where the Bristol Aircraft company used to be located. It's where the British components for Concorde were manufactured. Bristol as a city has incredible aeronautical heritage. And so we have named the watch after this incredible part of Bristol and the legacy of that. So we have two pieces at Brunswick 40, both of them very much a classic pilot's watch. One of them with a black dial. So that black white, high contrast. But the dial still has little details. It's got a lovely sunburst finish. And then you've got these heavy applied indices filled with super Luminova. And then for the black dial, a feature I love is the hands have a ghost feature. So the center of the hour and minute and seconds hand are painted black which makes them appear to float over the dial. It's something that I've always liked on slightly tullier watches. And for those who know the fears well, they'll know we always have a very distinctive shape of Aaron minute hand called the fears pipette hand. It's a straight hand with an elegant tip for this watch. And this is a new word for everyone. Check the dictionary. It will go into the dictionary. But we have sortified our classic straight hand to have a hybrid with the classic sword hands found on, on pilots watches. And then accompanying the Raven black dial with that sunburst finish. We have a second one which has a slightly more Thule field watch vibe with a squadron green gradient dial. And this isn't a gradient dial how a lot of people do today, where it comes out from the center. This is a gradient from top to bottom which may sound slightly strange at first, but have a look at the videos and photographs. It's a beautiful shade of matte green and very much inspired by the colors seen on RAF planes. So you've got a signal yellow, seconds hand, you've got matte gray, applied indices, matte gray, Aaron minute hand. You know, this watch has a real sort of military vibe to it, but still with all those little details that fears are known by. So you know, when we launched our Redcliffe Endurance specification last summer, that was very much our first core sportier watch. That was very much a tool watch, but in that Sportier fear. At 10 years old, fears is well known for doing classic watches, dressier watches. But we have in our archive, we have in our history this incredible array of sports and tool watches. And I feel the company is now at a place where we're mature enough and sure enough of our DNA, you know, what makes a Fears Fears to be able to now start doing it into different areas. And so what I would say when you look at the six watches we're launching today, starting with the Filton, is you're seeing fears breaking out from what people may always associate us with, but always bringing the fear's take on it to the new pieces.
- [36:54]
A
Well, I've had a look at these ones. I've actually had a look at these ones in real life, I believe maybe having breakfast with you a couple of weeks back. And to describe the dial on the military inspired watch that we've just spoken about there with the yellow hand, it's almost an ombre effect if you think of the graduation and the transition between the two colors. And it's so subtle that unless you really paid attention, you probably wouldn't catch it in first viewing. But it works so well. And the yellow hand looks great on the black one with the sunburst effect, the rays emanating from the center pinion all the way to the edges. The fact you've got the bulbous index markers and the triangle at the top position, you've got the dashes at the nine and the three and the six. It just works fantastically well. I don't know which one to pick of these two is my favorite. I, I'm, I'm kind of stumped here.
- [37:47]
B
Something that People may not notice at first. At 6 o' clock there is a date. And this is the first time we've put a date on a Brunswick watch. The date normally is reserved for the Redcliffe. And I've had a couple of people say to me, you know what, why have you added a date to it? You know, that's, that's unusual. And I said, well, two things. One, these are sporty watches. It's very practical to have a date. But interestingly we first design without a date. And because of the way a pilot's watch has horizontal indices at 3, 6 and 9, it meant the bottom half of the dial felt completely off. The balance of the watch visually just did not work. So even though some people would think, oh well, it's a cleaner, it's more symmetrical, it needed a six o' clock date to help really balance the dial. And the moment our designer Lee suggested putting a date, I was like, really? Why are we putting a date? And he said, trust me, he puts it on, the watch feels complete. And I think that's the interesting thing when it comes up to this whole date non date debate which will be going on for many, many years. It's sometimes a date actually really helps improve a design rather than it being seen as cutting into the design. So yeah, if you remove it there's suddenly just too much space. The balance just doesn't, doesn't work right.
- [39:05]
A
I'm looking at the images here because I don't have the watch in hand. Did see in real life but now that I'm putting a ruler across the top of the index markers, they line up perfectly with the date window and the numbers there.
- [39:16]
B
That's not our first rodeo.
- [39:19]
A
It is not. Now you've been doing this for a while, funnily enough and I love the fact that, you know, you've gone for keeping it simplistic. You've got the Fears logo, you've got England underneath at the bottom position there. And it is such a clean design
- [39:32]
B
and we're always, you know, we've now for, I think it's coming on eight years proudly hand built all our watches in England. You know, it's something where there is no official England designator like Swiss made. But I thought actually you know what we're going to the effort, it results in, you know, better quality control and who I mentioned earlier, employment opportunities in the United Kingdom. So I'm very proud of that. So it's, yeah, it feels right to put, gonna put England at 6 o'. Clock. Hopefully it doesn't put off too many Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish listeners. But you know, we're based in Bristol, so we're proud of that.
- [40:06]
A
Indeed. Well, where are we going to go next?
- [40:08]
B
Well, I think now we're gonna go probably to the opposite end of the spectrum. So if we've got these, you know, the Filtons being very classic, pilot inspired tool heritage, we're now gonna look at the Redcliffes. So Redcliffe Collection is named after Redcliffe street, which is where my great, great great grandfather Edwin Fear started the business 180 years ago this year.
- [40:32]
A
Is that the building that was featured in the book as a drawing?
- [40:36]
B
Exactly, exactly. We actually have in the archive the original business cards and printing plate of those business cards from 1846. So you know, we named this collection. In fact our original launch collection in 2016 was called Redcliffe. So very important. It's a very elegant round watch, 39.5 millimeters, sub 10 millimeters thin, so very wearable. Again, a Le Joux Paris automatic. So 68 hour power reserve, built to 150 meters, water resistant, but actually it's built higher than that. That's the understated thing with affairs is, you know, we say 150 meters, water resistant, it'll be built to 200 plus. Right. You know, screw down crown, screw down case back, screw down bezel or you know, we go for a very solid architecture in our watches. But when you look at these new red cliffs, that's not the thing you're going to notice necessarily. These we've called the Pastor Collection, so named after the art medium. And we have three very, very elegant, I would say very, not sporty, but certainly very contemporary takes on our classic fears DNA simple dials. We've removed the date on these ones and by doing that it also allows this to be our entry point to the Fiers collection. So we have three dials. We have the one that you're currently showing, the pale lilac. So a beautiful, beautiful shade of lilac. And the thing with lilac as a color is it's not purple, it's not pink, it's in this, it's pale purple. It's a beautiful color. And certainly as a man I love wearing it, you know, in shirts, in ties. I think it's a very understated color color. I think it's very underused. But we have a slightly darker chapter ring and then a matching lilac alcantara strap. But again it's the details here, so applied indices. However, the hands you may notice have lume in them, it's not the indices that are loomed here, but the five minute markers in the chapter ring. So the actual numbers themselves are loomed. So again, just done in a very simple way, but a very practical way. It means this watch works perfectly in low light conditions. Conditions. So we have the pale lilac on the strap. And also on a bracelet, we then have two other colors joining it. So we've now got the, what we're calling sherbet yellow. So this is very much that, that sort of lemon sherbet taste you can when you look at this color, it's pale yellow, but it really is the sparkling color of, of sherbet. A matte dial.
- [43:16]
A
Dial.
- [43:17]
B
And then with a slightly darker yellow chapter ring with a matching strap. Again, you take these watches off the straps and put them on a bracelet and very quickly it transforms how they can be worn. When we had the first samples come into the office, my colleagues were putting them on a bracelet and wearing them with their suit and tie.
- [43:36]
A
And we're talking about the bracelet that I'm wearing myself just now.
- [43:39]
B
Exactly. Our free link bracelet with the micro adjuster on, on, on the, on the fly. So it changes the look. But if you want something that is, you know, fun, colorful for the summer, put this on a strap, put it on a rubber strap and you have the perfect beach watch that you can then wear to the beach club, you know, when the sun goes down. And last but not least, the third color we have is soft peach. So with these colors, we spent a long time experimenting with different shades to get the shades just right. So yes, it's peach, it's orange, but it' very much that peachy shade of orange rather than the redder shade of orange. And just this gorgeous, gorgeous. The contrast of that gorgeous pale soft peach with the slightly darker chapter ring. And then also an alcantara strap that matches. It's a sort of terracotta colored strap that matches with the darker shade. So again, a very fun, very contemporary take on the Fierce design language. But the moment you put this on a bracelet, it suddenly becomes a slightly more formal watch that anyone can wear. You know, the photographs we have at launch show a lady wearing the watches, but they work just as well on a man's wrist. And that's the thing with the Fierce collection. We've never distinguished between men's and women's watches. We've always gone for saying, if the watch suits you, then it's right for you.
- [45:09]
A
Makes sense. And a quick question, because I'm not familiar with other Models within the designated range. On my watch, it's got a polished bezel, but I noticed on this one it's a satin effect.
- [45:20]
B
So it is actually still a polished bezel. But because you haven't got polished hands, polished indices, it very much mattifies how it comes through on photography and actually when you're wearing it. This is the thing I love about creating watches is the interplay between col and textures. So if you have a dial that has polished elements, it will pick up the polished elements on the case. And if you have a dial with more matte, it will pick up the matte elements on the case. It really the interplay between it. So it's how you think about what elements you want to highlight or link together. Right.
- [45:59]
A
Okay, makes sense. Have we kept the best till last?
- [46:03]
B
Well, I think, you know, as I say, I can't pick my favorite child. I do have a favorite kid. So if anyone, anyone's in Geneva, you know, come and see me. Buy me a beer or I'll buy you a beer. And after a few beers I may reveal my favorite. But no, what we have for our sixth piece is a new version of our jump hour. So last summer we launched a jump hour with a barleycorn pattern with a very, very smart plum colored center. This one one has what we're calling china blue. So the same shade of matte blue that you find in the classic Jasper ware from Stoke on Trent pottery. So you know, very iconic, very elegant, very stylish, a color that is very traditional and people will recognize this and go, oh yes, I know that kind of pottery. But then the outer section of the dial has this wonderful barleycorn pattern. And, and this pattern is created bespoke for the watch because we have a plate at 6:00 clock with the FYRS logo. And I mentioned this is our jump hour. So it means we have just one hand, the minute hand running over that china blue central section. And then at 12 o' clock we have a large 5 millimeter hour window. This is one of the largest jump hour windows in the industry. And you can see the beautiful crisp black printing of our bespoke numeral set on, on there. So when the hand gets up to 60 minutes, it snaps over instantaneously to the next hour. So a, a mechanical hybrid of digital and analog timekeeping. And the movement, we've been very lucky since 2023 to have a constant supply of these jump hour movements from fellow British brand Christopher Ward. So we are one of the only companies that Christopher Ward will sell their movements to. And so I'm very grateful to Mike France and the incredible team in Maidenhead and Switzerland who allow us to use their movements. But an interesting point to note, this is the last core jump hour that we're launching. So the jump hour towards the end of this year will be discontinued and that will be our jump hour journey completed. So it's a point to make to people because people have seen quite a few different ones come out over the years. Years. This is very much the final, the epitome of the fierce jump hour with the China Blue dial.
- [48:35]
A
So this originally began as a collaborative process with the guys at Christopher Ward in association with the alliance. With all the proceeds going to the alliance, correct?
- [48:44]
B
Yes. So the Alliance 01 was launched in January 2023 and it was Fears Christopher Ward together. And originally it was going to be just 50 piece limited edition only sold to club members of the Alliance. Now we brought out our, our core version a few years later in, in towards the end of 2024. So actually only a year later. It's amazing how time flies. But the key thing with the Alliance 01 was Chris Ford and, and fears donated 100% of the profit to the alliance to help help fund them. Most recently Chris Ford have done the Alliance 02 with Studio Underdog, the beautiful pocket watch they created together. So I'm very pleased that the Jump Hour, which a watch that has over the years become quite a sort of iconic fierce watch, had this wonderful way again helping the industry because as nice as it is, Fears doing well after all this time, it means nothing if the rest of the industry isn't thriving as well.
- [49:46]
A
It is nice to see that within the collaborative industry in the UK you have got, I would say the trendsetters and the leaders. We're talking Christopher Ward that have been going for over two decades, although it doesn't feel like it because they're fresh, invigorating, bringing out new designs. In the past two to three years, I seem to think they've done more in the last three years than they've done in the last 20 years. Then you've got the upstarts, you've got Studio Underdog, the underdog that is no longer running ahead of the game with crazy designs, collaborations, this, that and the other. Nothing gets in the way of running. If somebody tries to rip his Design off on AliExpress, he just takes that and makes it even better, turns it into his own variation. And then obviously 10 years of fears, the revitalization after so many decades of non existence Bringing it back to the fore, pushing things forward, elevating British watchmaking in a time, let's be honest, in a time where it isn't as good as it has been the last couple of years, things are slower. There isn't as much ferocity of watch buying in the public. We actually did notice at British Watchmakers Day that things have turned to a steady pace instead of the cataclysm it has been over the past few years of free money everywhere. Let's buy everything. Queues out the door. It's come back to the norm a little bit more. It's reverted back, but you're moving ahead, you're pushing forward, you're doing six watches instead of three. It's just, it's fantastic to see these. Is there any clue as to what new stuff is going to be happening later in the year? I heard that you might be employing more people, things like that, maybe.
- [51:16]
B
Yes. So we are, if not today, already in the next couple of days, starting to recruit for three new roles in our head office in Bristol. So we're looking for a new marketing assistant. We're also looking to hire a junior designer to work in our design department. And then also excitingly, because we're building this new workshop on site within the head office, recruiting a new watchmaker. So if any anyone is, is thinks they might have the right skill set for those roles and wants to, to work for one of the the oldest and youngest British watch companies, please do email in your cv. Because we found over the last few years when people are passionate about watches, they find the work so rewarding. And that is really good. That's really keen. You know, I love over, you know, at the lunch break, coming into the, the, the kitchen with the team and hearing people talking about a podcast they've listened to, sharing a new watch release. You know, this is a place where people live and breathe and love watches. So it's great to be able to offer a variety of different jobs. So, yeah, you know, designer, marketing and watchmaking that'll be taking place here in terms of other new things, something I'm quite proud of. You know, we're talking a lot about Fear's 180th anniversary. I'll be promoting. We're gifting out our fierce water. Fierce 180 still bottles of water. But the thing is, you know, we wouldn't be a true British company celebrating a big anniversary if we didn't have our commemorative teaspoon.
- [52:53]
A
Okay, listeners, I'm taking you back to 2019. Nicholas realized the week of the podcast launching, it was the 13th of January 2019. We were about to head to SIH, myself and a band of merry men from Scotland. I think Gordy was there, Declan was there. We're talking old school Scottish watches team. We went across, we walked into Bucherer in Geneva and I was gifted a Bucherer spoon and you said, oh, I happen to have Rolex spoons as well. So when you came up to see me in 2019, it's amazing how my memory works up until about 2021, then it just stops. You actually gifted me a spoon. So I'm after one of these for my collection as well as well.
- [53:32]
B
Absolutely, absolutely. So we've put, we've. Since we moved back to Bristol in 2022, being a British company filled with, you know, a lot of Brits, we drink a huge amount of tea. So we take our tea seriously. Right. So we found that in Bristol there is actually a tea blender. So we have our own tea blended for the company and for our boutique and also for the fierce retailers around the world.
- [53:58]
A
World.
- [53:58]
B
It's called Bristol Breakfast Fierce blend and it's made exclusively for us. So we've put together these packs that in Geneva we're going to be giving out to people, people who visit the boutique. You can write in and we'll happily send you one. And it's called a Fierce cuppa and it's a dark, fierce blue envelope which has two fierce tea bags and one of our commemorative 180th anniversary spoons. So, yeah, we're doing this properly. You know, some people may think this is a bit strange and a bit old fashioned, but. But I think the important thing, and this is very much the essence of fears, I'm running a company that we are constantly looking forward. We are a British luxury watch company with heritage. But it is important to acknowledge sometimes the old ways are best. You know, we now have printed brochures, you know, we do a beautiful printed brochure printed round the corner from here in Bristol. We're working with a huge number of Bristolian companies. All of our photography, the models used in our photography, that's all shot two minutes from our head office in the same business park. You know, we're working a lot, a lot here, but I'm very keen not to throw the baby out with a bath water. As a company, we do a lot of modern things. Always looking forward but also being very respectful of the past.
- [55:14]
A
Well, that is a fantastic way to end the show. And it's come in Bang on the earmark. Well done. You're a professional, you've done this before. Looking forward, forward to seeing these watches appearing not just on the Internet and Instagram, but on the wrists of people across the globe. It's not just an English company, a British company, a European company, it's a worldwide, global phenomenon. And with you at the helm, I see many more decades of fun. You'll not be worrying about the whole, oh, my God, I've got 39, 29, 19 years left in the company, because even it's your own baby, you get up every day with such gusto, such wind under your sails, ready to take on the world. And it's always been the same since we first met many, many years ago. So I wish you all the best with these new releases, you will not need it. They will be flying out the door and they'll be making themselves known across the globe. If people want to check out the website, the Instagram, the TikTok channel, where can people go?
- [56:07]
B
We keep it very simple. Just look for fears watchers. So fears watchers.com and then on social media, earswatchers, and all the information is there. If you're near Bristol, please do pop into our boutique. No, no appointment necessary. You can just go to the beautiful Victorian Clifton Arcade.
- [56:27]
A
You can bring your dog as well.
- [56:28]
B
You can, yes, we have water and treats for dogs. So, yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, yeah, have a look online and yeah, there's a. There's a lot to discover.
- [56:38]
A
There is. And there'll be lots more to discuss and discover throughout the year, I have no doubt about it. Thank you so much for carving out a small segment of your daily business life to come on and chat about things. I know how busy you are ahead of watches and wonders because you will be across in Geneva. We will catch up in real life and there'll be many other events across the year where people can come meet and greet and check out these wrist pieces. So that is us at the end of our show. We're at Mondays and Thursdays. You can catch us online@scottishwatches. Scottishwatches.co.uk is a website and you can email us. Never DM US infoocottishwatches.co.uk so thank you very much for joining us and we'll catch you again soon.
- [57:13]
B
Thank you very much for having me.