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- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
- [00:07]
B
Welcome to another edition of the Real Time show with me, your friendly neighborhood watchmaker, Rob Nudds. Alain Ben Joseph, our friendly neighborhood jeweler and the man behind the eponymously named Mr. Jones watches. Crispin Jones. Welcome to the virtual studio.
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C
Thanks very much for having me.
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B
So it's a sunny Friday afternoon where I am, I hope it's sunny where both you gentlemen are yourselves. We're having a nice, relaxed, open collared chat about the origins of Mr. Jones watches, one of the brands that I think is probably most visible for many, many collectors in the industry. Certainly in the British watchmaking scene. You are hard to miss, Crispin. So let's go right back to the beginning to start seems like a good place to start. How did you get into watchmaking? What's your background, where do you come from and why do you love this industry?
- [00:50]
C
Like I always feel I have a bit imposter syndrome, speaking amongst watchmakers and things, because my background is actually not in watchmaking. I was not the kid who took apart alarm clocks and was fascinated with mechanical things. I was fascinated with fine art and my background is in sculpture. I have a BA in fine art. And then later I did a master's at the Royal College of Art in a course called at that time Computer Related Design. It was the late 90s wasn't a very good title for the course. They later renamed it Interaction Design, but in essence it was about creative uses of technology. So like late 90s, creative use of the technology was really kind of websites and a little bit of mobile phone, but not mobile phone technology you think of today. And my interest in watches, my route to watches was really after I graduated, I spent a number of years making one off pieces for exhibitions that were neither fine art nor interaction design. But were some odds of sting in between those two. Amongst the things that I made, actually I'll give you a bit of context. So one of the things that I made was a set of five mobile phones that in different ways altered the user's behavior to make it less annoying for the people around them. So for example, one mobile phone had metal plates on the side. If the person you were speaking to start speaking really loudly, you would get an electric shock through these metal plates on the side of your phone. And similarly if you shouted down the phone, the person at the other end would get an electric shock. And it was sort of conceived of in this parallel universe of as a device for retraining people to generally speak more quietly on their mobile phones. Like the context of making that was the early 2000s, when mobile phone use really mushroomed and they became these quite disruptive objects in public transport or restaurants or things, just because people hadn't sort of evolved that etiquette of how to use them in public spaces. So the sort of things I were making were like provocative objects for thinking about our relationship to technology.
- [03:00]
B
So that was basically the anti Dom Jolly device.
- [03:03]
C
Well, kind of like. But Dom Jolly was in a way expressing the similar thing of just how ridiculous it was. These people walking around shouting into their phones in art galleries or libraries or, you know, he, he was really sort of highlighting that, that kind of absurdity because it was. It seemed really strange that when people first got mobile phones they decided being really annoying and speaking really loudly. I feel like now it's got less currency because people have evolved. Like, it's rare that you hear someone having a really shouty conversation on their phone in a quiet space because people are much more sort of self aware.
- [03:40]
B
It still gets me how some people, quite a lot of people where I live actually, they use the video phone function as standard. So they hold the phone in front of their face, but then they hold it so close to their face they might as well not have the camera on. I mean, the other person must be able to see their nose. Like, I still think there's a. There's maybe there's another device there, there's another installation, another artwork there that you could create that would, you know, punch people in the nose when they hold the phone in front of their face.
- [04:04]
C
Maybe, maybe, yeah, like, yeah, we take you further away. I mean, some of them were a bit less crude than the electric shock one. So one mobile phone was shaped a kind of cross between a phone and a sort of trumpet. And in order to dial a number, you had to play a sort of tune of that number. And the way that that worked was it was making you very aware of your surroundings on the basis that you probably wouldn't pull out a recorder if you're in a library and start playing on it because you'd be quite mindful of how ridiculous that would be. So like, that's sort of the world of interaction design of how we humans and technology sort of come together. And it's a really interesting space because digital technology allows you to be really playful with that. So actually all of the mobile phones in that series were built as working phones, you know, just because digital technology does allow that kind of thing. But amongst the things I made, I made a set of watches and I was kind of interested in watches because early 2000s, there are a lot of companies trying to work up wearable technology. And it was all horribly crude. It was things like sort of keyboards that you strapped to your forearm or like headphones that were integrated in a jacket and just kind of crude ways of considering what like a wearable technology would be. But I was interested in wristwatches originally as a piece of wearable technology that had really persisted. Like most wearable technology in the early 2000s, it was six months old, it looked ridiculous. You know, if it was 10 years old, it looked so primitive, it was inconceivable that anyone ever actually used it. But. And I kind of feel like you still see that now even with things like Google Glasses or that Apple VR headset thing. Like wearable technology is a really difficult. Like actually getting humans to strap technology onto themselves is quite challenging. And the wristwatch is really successful at that. So that was sort of intriguing to me. Like, why was the wristwatch this people wearable technology that we were happy to live with? And you know, it comes down to things like it's a form of personal expression, particularly for men who have less opportunity to accessorize with jewelry or sort of body adornment. Maybe the, the women have. I recognize I'm making huge generalizations. Men wear jewelry and makeup. I'm saying, like broadly, most men feel most comfortable accessorizing with just the watch. And that's really interesting because then it becomes a really loaded sort of object because it carries all this, communicates sort of all this message about affluence and taste and, you know, aspiration. So yeah, I made a set of watches that looked very crude because they were kind of intended not. They were intended really to be sort of propped in videos. But for example, one alternated the time with the statement, remember you will die. A watch that we later took into production. But there were others. Like there was a watch that had a built in lie detector. So if you were lying, it would flash and the people around you would know you were lying. And just sort of probing what, what would it mean if we lived in a world where you could wear a watch that told other people around you if you were lying? Like that's really interesting, you know, then would you actually wear it? Or would you wear it as a symbol of how honest you were? And I was kind of tapping into this idea that most watches, or the reason most people wear the watches that they do is to convey something very positive about themselves, about their affluence or their taste or their, you know, what have you? And I was kind of probing, what if, what if the values were slightly tweaked and it was about expressing your honesty. So if you wore a watch that flashed every time you lied, you would lie less, you know, or the context where you would lie, you would understand that people would be able to see that. So, yeah, that was my long securities route into watches. And I graduated in 2000. By about 2005, I was looking for ways to make my creative practice a bit more sustainable. And I thought, I've made these watches for an exhibition, maybe it'd be nice to actually produce some. And I thought kind of in tandem with that. Any town you go to where there's a market on like an outdoor market, there's always a stand selling watches and they're always really inexpensive, but they're pretending to be really expensive watches, which I thought was just a bit bizarre. And so my thinking was originally, what if I combined some more creative, provocative design with that sort of inexpensive manufacture, rather than trying to imitate a high end luxury watch in an inexpensive way. So that was really my route into making the first set of watches that were released in 2007. And I had no background or links to the industry, so I just googled watch factories and emailed as many as I could find saying, I'm a designer in London, I want to make a small run of watches. Basically, what's the minimum order? I also had a question like, can I do transparent disc hands? Because I knew right from the start that that was something I wanted to do because actually at that time I wanted to print words on the hands. And I knew that if you had a metal hand, you'd have to have a sort of link between the letter, so it would just look much cleaner if it was a transparent disk. And so I emailed all the factories I could find. Only a few of them got back to me. And then there was a second round of emails. And then quite quickly there was only one factory who were mailing me back. They were in Hong Kong and they said the basic minimum order is 500 pieces. And that's basically 500 cases. Within those 500 pieces, you can make as many different watches as you want, as long as you pay the setup charge for each different design. So I thought with my background in fine art, what I do is five designs, a numbered 100 piece edition of each. Because they also said they could engrave serial numbers. So an edition number is obviously basically the same thing. So, yeah, in 2007, I released this set of five watches, one of which had the word remember for the hour hand and you will die for the minute hand. So a very direct sort of thematic link to those earlier, more conceptual watches I'd done. But they're all kind of different sort of ideas that I was exploring with those. And I thought actually at that time that I'll make these 500 watches. I'll sell them, maybe take a couple of years, but these will be all the watches I'll ever make because I'll do another project next year. You know, it was a way to sort of fund my practice, to make a sort of creative practice that wasn't reliant on this one off art piece that I sell to the museum for £100,000. It was more like, okay, can I make interesting products that sell for a reasonable price point but in some modest quantities. Yeah. What actually happened was the remember you will die watch and a couple of the others. The 100 piece edition sold out reasonably quickly, I think within two or three months. And I felt great, maybe people will start ordering some of the other watches because there were quite a lot of them. But I kept getting emails for people saying, when you're making more remember you will die watches. I thought, well, I didn't like it was supposed to be a limited edition, but then there's nothing to stop me reissuing it. So I thought what I'd do is I'd reissue three of the designs into what I'd call the permanent collection and just make more of them. They wouldn't be numbered. And yeah, I kind of even thought at that stage, probably it's only these designs and I'll just have these few watches available on the website. But then the following year I thought, well, I might as well do another edition. So I did another five designs, 100 pieces of each of those. Two of them got reissued into the permanent collection. And kind of, in essence, that's still our business model. Now that any new design we release starts life as a numbered edition. If it's popular enough from the sales and the customer feedback, then down the line it gets reissued into the permanent collection. If it's not, then it only exists as the limited edition. And in that way we're able to test by experimental ideas without over committing our sort of resources. So we can make, you know, a small run of things. If they're popular, amazing. We make more. If not, well, cool. It was a nice project and stuff and we move on to the next one.
- [13:07]
B
So the watch became your perennial canvas, as it were, something that you were able to experiment with and explore these different ideas through. It's interesting. You, you started, you generalized, of course, as we all would naturally, the. Okay. Men have fewer options for expression in terms of wearable items and wearable technology. Although how do you think that that's changing nowadays? Because it touches on two things. It touches on one societal transformation where in this era more men than ever before. Well, actually more men since the 80s perhaps are wearing makeup and jewelry and expressing themselves in different ways. And it touches on another technological area, One of Alon's favorite subjects. Alon always talks about the future and when technology will shrink and become, and become part of our bodies and go like internal, so we won't be wearing anything anymore. Do you see in the near future the wristwatch coming under threat or do you think that it exists outside of trends and it's its own thing and you have no doubt that it will persist?
- [14:07]
C
On one level, you're right, absolutely. More men feel comfortable with different forms of body adornment than they did perhaps 50 years ago. On the other hand, in a sort of broad context, the majority of men, I would say, still do not feel comfortable with that kind of body adornment and certainly not in the sort of the ratio of women who would feel comfortable wearing jewelry, wearing body adornment. So I, I just think the risk watch occupies this really niche space for kind of male personal expression. And I think it's interesting to see, you know, it's interesting for me, we have the retail shop to see how many young people come in and buy from us. Like I'm 50 years old now, like young people, I mean, sort of teenagers, early 20s, who really haven't grown up in a world where a wristwatch, you know, was ever like a necessary thing, like a phone has a time telling function. But. And I know Apple have really, you know, gone hard into that market and a lot of people have taken up the Apple watches, but I don't think it's, I don't see the imminent decline of the wristwatch. It seems so sad. But then I guess pocket watch makers in the early part of the 20th century probably thought, yeah, of course everyone will always continue carrying a pocket watch. You might wear a wristwatch for convenience, but of course you'll keep your pocket watch for accuracy. And you know, now if you saw someone carrying a pocket watch, even in the watch world, you saw someone carrying a pocket watch, that would be fairly eccentric and fairly notable. So, you know, what seems so fixed to us now can easily turn around in a, in A generation. I kind of feel though, like Apple doing their watch and introducing a whole cadre of people to wearing something on their wrist who might not have done so before, probably gave the wristwatch industry a sort of shot in the arm and probably a further spout of longevity. I have to say I'm not convinced about internalized technology. I think that's the engineer model of where technology will lead. I don't think that's the human. I think if that was true, there would be much more cases of people already finding ways to integrate technology into their body. I think that will always be a sort of a marginal activity. I don't see like mainstream adoption of, I don't know, like retinal screens or things like that. Fascinating to hear your thoughts, Alon.
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A
Thank you, Crispin. I am enjoying every second listening to you. You are not only an artist, but a philosopher.
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C
With.
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A
While listening to you, I was browsing the Mr. Jones website. For our dear listeners, it's Mr. Jones watches.com. highly recommend to look at it. It's built up as a art gallery because there's an archive of 18 years of designs. And I'm ashamed to say I did not know you were that long in existence. I did visit the Covent Garden boutique, which I love. And what stood out to me as well on the website is that see what you. You get what you see and you've written. Since everybody checks their phones for time, we can have some fun with an item on the wrist. Now creating this segue by using this sentence and what Rob just said. A little bit of a curveball I'm throwing you. Would you want to write and direct an episode of Black Mirror?
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C
Probably not. I mean, probably the whole company. Is my episode of Black Mirror? No, I mean, I think I find things like that really rich for inspiration, but I don't aspire to create content like that.
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A
Sorry, very brief answer. I expected answer here. Okay, fair enough.
- [18:16]
C
I mean, but that world, that was kind of the world that I was in which, and broadly like, it's quite niche even in the design world. But it will be called critical design, which is about using the language of design to explore social relationships and social values. So critical design is a sort of a niche area. So conceptual area of design, which I was fascinated with when I was studying and for a few years afterwards. But I kind of. I'm not really in that world anymore. And it doesn't. It doesn't fascinate me in quite the same way. I'm more interested, like it's quite. I Guess it's quite removed from the world. Like critical design is about observation and kind of separating yourself and then inserting these kind of provocative things to make people think about their relationship to technology or whatever. I'm much more interested in being like an active participant in that world rather than being this sort of standoff. So in a way, the sort of Pre series of Mr. Jones watches, which was the ones for the exhibition in the gallery, were more like the standing back and the observational part. And in a funny way, the name of the company, Mr. Jones watches, was a kind of expression of that, that it was about standing back and observing other people's relationship. But I feel like that's. That's a kind of academic position to adopt and I'm not an academic and I don't aspire to be. So I'm much more interested in being kind of active participant. And. Yeah, so we make the real watches that people really wear rather than the sort of provocative object of thinking about what it means to wear a watch. Does that make sense? It does.
- [20:04]
A
I have a bit of a cognitive dissonance that, to my big surprise, I found vintage watches for sale on your website. Maybe walk us through the timeline. So 18 years ago you started, you told us why you started, how you started, the philosophy you did, you. You started at home. Was the boutique first? Was the website first? Why vintage watches? Walk us through that timeline, please.
- [20:31]
C
Of course. So I. So before I started doing the watches, I was working as a freelance designer. I was also doing some teaching. I was also making like exhibits for museums. So I was doing like a whole range of stuff. But I was working from home, like in my living room, you know, that's where I was working. So when I started the watches, I was working from home. And the only difference with the other projects that I'd done was that when I started doing the watches, more or less every day I had to go to the post office to send out the orders that came in, you know, overnight. But yeah, basically my. It was all online. Originally the boutique came and our original store was in the OXO Tower. And really the reason that I got the first stop, it wasn't so much as a shop, as a workspace where I could employ someone else who could go to the post office and send the watches because I found that enormously tedious, especially around Christmas, where if you had like two or three orders and then you went and you had to queue up at the post office because everyone is sending their Christmas cards and Christmas gifts, like you lose half A day standing at a queue. So I wanted to employ someone who would do more of those kind of routine administrative things. And I thought it's weird if they come to my house to, you know, to work. So I, I looked for an external space and the Ox Hotel was really nice space. It was, it had this sort of mission to support independent designer makers. So, okay. Once I had employed someone to free up a bit of my time and mental capacity, I actually started to get more interested in the wristwatch as an object with like a longer history. So the original designs that I did and everything was just done digitally, then emailed to the factory in Hong Kong, who then turned on to the eastern China. And I guess over time I became sort of more interested in how were the watches made. Like, what does it actually mean to put these together. I didn't really know how they were printed and stuff. And then in, I think So I think 2007, the first watches came out. 2010, I flew out to Hong Kong and made a visit to the office there. And then they took me across the border into Shenzhen to all the different fabrications of the case making, the dial printing and making like the assembly. And I found that really fascinating because the printing is done with pad printing, which is like a dedicated special machine for laying down a single color at a time. It's very high resolution form of printing, but it works a bit like screen printing, which I was familiar with from, you know, when I studied fine art. And I was kind of intrigued by that. And also the scale of the pad printing machine was kind of engaging. Like it's quite a small desktop mounted thing that makes these beautiful little prints. And I came back from that visit in, it was either late 2010 or early 2011, and I thought we could start doing sampling in London. One of my frustrations, like, I always loved working with the Chinese factories. I always felt the quality was really amazing. My frustration was always with the timescale. So I'd do a design, I'd send it over to them, I'd then wait eight to 10 weeks and then I'd get a sample in the mail and then I could look at that for 10, 15 minutes, make a bunch of changes and then either go into production or resample. Either way, I was looking at then eight to 10 weeks before the next round of watches would turn up. So my thought originally was if we could do the sampling in London, then we could eliminate one round of that eight to ten week cycle because we could get the sample exactly right and then send the files. What I found quite quickly was that with the pad printing, you don't just print enough components for one thing. Like if you're laying multiple colors down, there's always a danger that the third color will be out of registration. And if you've not printed a whole bunch of them, then you have to start again from square one. So what we actually started doing was printing small additions. And in order to do that I needed to know how to assemble them. So I'd enrolled in a evening class in a place called Epping Forest, where there's an horology center. It's an evening class in mechanical watch repair. Because I thought that's. I thought actually at that time that's what I need to know in order to be able to assemble watches. I now know that being able to serve as a mechanical watch gives you like way more knowledge than you need just to assemble a watch from like a bass movement. But actually I found the process of disassembly, cleaning, servicing mechanical watches just really engaging and I really enjoyed doing it. And I really enjoyed broadening my knowledge of the history of wristwatches and I guess watches and timepieces in general. So as part of that course we had to. And I studied at Epping for three years in the watch class and then I did another two years as part of the clock making thing, which was more about fabricating components. And these were like evening classes. So it was 6 until 9 on a Tuesday night for the watch class. And then the clock making was like two till four in an afternoon. But it was what you need to do when you're learning mechanical watch repair. And probably both of you know this is to practice. And so what I was doing was I was buying quite a lot of vintage watches and servicing them and then they were sitting in a drawer. And then I started to think maybe I should just start selling these. It seemed a bit incoherent at first, but it's evolved into something a bit more meaningful. So in those early days I was a bit scattered on with what I was buying because I was just buying inexpensive mechanical watches. Like not super cheap ones, but a sort of amiga straightforward time only watch from the 50s, 60s or whatever to service. Over time it's become a bit more considered and now we really specialize in like Smith's watches, the last sort of English mass manufacturer of mechanical watches who did all of the fabrication in the uk and I guess military watches, like British military watches, like watches that are really kind of the, I guess like the mirror image of what we do at Mr. Jones watches. So the watches that we tend to sell on the vintage side tend to be super functional, super legible precision mechanical watches. Whereas the Mr. Jones fortune side is much more about artistic expression, much less about that sort of history of grand chronometer level precision that was. Was such a sort of central focus of the, the mid to late 20th century in certainly Swiss mechanical watchmaking. So it, in a way, it seems a bit incoherent, but like they're all watches that have a story, that have a narrative, which is kind of the thread that I would say links them to the watches we do now. Like all of the watches that end up on the vintage section, the website I've bought because I'm interested in the history of them and the story around them.
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B
So you've bought and serviced these watches that you're selling in the vintage section?
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C
Yeah, correct.
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B
Well, that's quite incredible. I mean that. Is that made clear anywhere on the website that you're the person behind the service of these watches?
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C
Probably not. I mean, like, but it certainly. When we started doing it, I mean, well, I guess now I've been doing it for like, best part, 15 years, so I'm pretty experienced. Whereas I feel like when I was starting out, you know, if I said, well, I've been serving with watches for like two or three years, you'd be like, yeah, maybe I take my money somewhere else to someone who really knows what they're doing.
- [28:46]
B
Yeah, okay. Well, I do appreciate that perspective, but since you have been doing it for so long now, I mean, any incoherence you might worry about, some, I mean, alon came across this and obviously didn't draw the line between you and the new watches and these vintage watches. I mean, that incoherence could be banished in a second when we realize that you're the person behind their service and refurbishment. Because, I mean, I'm a watchmaker and I'm looking at the work that you've done on these movements here and it's, it's exemplary. I mean, some of these pieces, but.
- [29:18]
C
If you get two watchmakers together, the first thing they do is slag off the other's workmanship. Like, bless you for like being polite.
- [29:26]
B
Well, I'm not just being polite. I mean, maybe it speaks volumes of how good a watchmaker I am. So not very obviously, but I would say game recognizes game. That's my way of looking at it. And for example, this jlc, the very beautiful work.
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C
Yeah, yeah, stunning.
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B
I mean, the condition is superb and obviously You've, you've worked very carefully with it to maintain all of that original finish there on the movement. I think it's absolutely superb. I mean, for me, knowing that you're behind this service is, is a huge reason to buy the vintage watch. It's a huge reason for me to buy a Mr. Jones watch because to me, as someone that comes at it from a mechanical perspective, it adds a lot of credibility to a brand that otherwise, although I am interested in the artistic side of things as well, of course, but could have whizzed by me because I'm like, oh, it's a design brand. I'm not so into the design brands.
- [30:18]
C
That was part of it because I became a bit mindful kind of early on that I guess I was mindful that the factory would talk in technical terms that I didn't really understand. And I felt like I don't want to be in that position where you are saying things I'm not really understanding the. Or even like when you have to select a movement. Like what movement are we going to use for? I don't know, like when we started doing the everyday special, which had a Swiss mechanical movement. Okay, if we buy from this brand, like they're all ETA 28, 24 clones. I know now, but before you know that you're like, but there's like 20 brands who seem to make more or less the identical thing. I don't know is this brand better than this brand? And so it was quite a conscious thing to avoid being talked down to or to, I guess not talked down to because I don't feel like anyone really talks down to you. They. It's more like your ignorance is a weakness. So you don't know what you don't know until you are sort of in that world. But I think also before I started doing the watches I mentioned, I made one off pieces for exhibition. I made these mobile phone stuff. What I was doing a lot of was small scale electronics and I was doing a lot of electronic circuit design, soldering, debugging and stuff. And actually I stopped doing that for a number of years when I first started doing the watches and when I came to mechanical watch servicing. It's actually all the same sort of skills and concentration, particularly like debugging. So debugging an electronic circuit, you kind of work it through to try and understand why it's not working, see where the fault lies. You do exactly the same on a mechanical watch. It's just a bit more visual on the mechanical one, like on the circuit board. You tend to have to write software to figure out why something is not working as you expect. Bongam, the mechanical watch, you have to. It's visual. You have to look very closely to understand why the movement isn't behaving as you thought. But it's interesting like hearing your, your feedback because the vintage watches has always been quite peripheral part of what we do. And it's really contingent on me having a bunch of time to pull together a bit of servicing or to decide that I can part with some of the watches that are in the safe that I bought, that I really like, but that I really wear. Like, I rarely wear any of the vintage watches that I buy and service because it, it like it seems weird if I meet someone out and about. What do you do? I'm going to come and make a watch. You that. Is that one of yours? No, this is like some old watch dumps. Like it just seems a bit mad. So I rarely get to wear any of the vintage watches and we do have quite a lot in the safe over the 17 or however many years, 14 years probably that I've been buying.
- [33:08]
B
Well, let's talk about that. That's interesting that you have these watches that you've bought because you love them and you know, obviously at one point you'll service them when you have the available time. But you generally would wear a Mr. Jones watch out and about.
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C
Yes. I mean when I was like, I feel like there was a sort of peak five years when I was really servicing mechanical watches quite heavily and I was doing that, you know, more or less weekly. Like now it's more or less every month if I'm lucky, I get time to service one. But at that point I would wear them because also for like testing to sort of validate the service and make sure it was performing correctly, I would tend to wear them. But I felt like as the company got bigger, we're now 35, 36 people in the company. It sets a really odd example if I'm not wearing the watches that we're making. So I felt like no one ever expressed it to me, but I felt like I should lead by example. Cause also if someone comes into the workshop, say they're working in the watch assembly side and they're wearing a watch that isn't a Mr. Jones watch. I take that as not quite a personal insult, but I'm a bit puzzled by. I think that's odd because like the vast majority of people who work here are really invested in what we do and, and they also have A thing where after they complete six months service they get to pick any watch from the collection and indeed then annually on that anniversary of the, the six month completion they get to pick another watch to, to have and wear. So the vast majority of people here wear the Miss James watches and as that became more of a thing like me not wearing one became really odd. So yeah, I rarely get to wear them now but I've got like I was became really fascinated in pre second World War English made wristwatches which is like super niche area of wristwatch collection. But it's the sort of, it's this interesting moment where the firms that mostly were set for making pocket watches are having a sort of last hurrah to try and compete with the Swiss and produce wristwatches. But they're really, I think they're really fascinating objects and it's I guess a kind of sad sort of, you know, it's that sort of moment of decline of the once mighty English watch trade is sort of petering out in these firms, Rotherhams and Williamson and Benson and Nikon Nielsen and stuff. These great firms who are, who just trying to keep the, keep the flame alive at the end. But the Swiss were so good at making wristwatches and they made them so well and so inexpensively that the writing was on the wall. It was only a matter of time. And by the mid-1930s all of those firms had just stopped making that at best like Rotherham's, they collaborated with Swiss factories to actually do the fabrication of the movements.
- [36:11]
A
And you take the words out of my mouth because I saw a trend going on, a bit of pre war, a lot of Smiths watches and a lot of Dirty Dozen. So I think that's your deep passion.
- [36:26]
C
Like I say, I feel like the things that are not what we do so like that sort of precision that you get from military watch where it's all about legibility and reliability and robustness and all those things that I mean important like we can't make watches that are not waterproof but no one's buying our watches because they're going to go and you know, navigate through a jungle. Like, you know that's, that's not our market, that's not our audience. So I appreciate the other brands for the difference that they have to us. And yeah, like even today the idea of military mechanical wristwatch, it's kind of weird and sort of charming. You know it takes you right back to that pre digital world which I think is just really evocative and really nice to sort of Reflect on. But yeah, my focus is really on the British military watches or Smiths who were British or those pre war British manufacturers and always like wristwatches. I have very few pocket watches, but like I say, they're so unwearable. They're beautiful objects, but what do you do with them?
- [37:36]
A
They just live in a draw, pivoting back to modernity.
- [37:40]
C
Okay.
- [37:41]
A
Rob and I are definitely not watch snobs and we're fan of Quartz. How did you come about to produce almost every model in both a Quartz and an mechanical slash automatic version?
- [37:58]
C
What you're seeing if you're looking on the website, is the permanent collection. So the reissued watches, the most popular watches that we do of those, if they are popular enough within the permanent collection, then we'll do like a second version as mechanical. But our customers on the whole are not interested in the movement. Like, you tell them it's quartz moving or mechanical movement, they don't really know what you're talking about because they're not from that background. Like, a lot of the people who we sell to in the shop come in having not worn a watch or having worn a watch, but not for many years. So for them it's just not a concern. Like, they're like, oh, that one's £200 and that one's £600. Of course, I'll buy the £201 because much cheaper. I guess for us as a company, though, we like, we want to, I guess, we really focus on offering the best value that we can. And I feel like part of that is a sort of quality proposition, and part of that is matching the quality of the printing that we do to the movement. So it's nice that we're able to offer the watches for £200, and that is really our sort of core price point. But then it's nice also that we can offer with the nicer, you know, sellita, automatic movement that's beautifully finished, and pair that with our sort of level of craft and printing. If. Yeah, I guess we. We want to have both worlds.
- [39:34]
A
I want to play a game. Rob goes first, then crisp, and then me.
- [39:38]
B
You sound like the guy from Saw. It's terrifying. I want to play a game. What's happening here? This never happens. It's really dark.
- [39:47]
A
Pick one that is your favorite. But I'm quite sure Rob can't pick one. Neither can I. Pick What?
- [39:55]
C
One.
- [39:56]
B
New Mr. Jones watch?
- [39:57]
C
Yes.
- [39:58]
B
Pah. Okay, I'll try.
- [40:02]
C
Good luck.
- [40:03]
B
So those are the rules. I just gotta pick my favorite?
- [40:06]
A
Well, I wanted to Finish my sentence by saying, knowing you like me, it's impossible to choose one that we can reverse engineer and say which one you don't like because all the others you do like. So do whatever you want, you know, funnily enough.
- [40:22]
B
Okay, I've got soft spots for a few some that I would regard as classics. I think A Perfectly Useless Afternoon is like the classic one that we all think of. I remember when I was at Fratello, we used to talk about that watch all the time and a few of the guys had one. I think that the ricochet is just like super cool with the display, but. But my favorite has always been A Perfectly Useless Morning. I just love the colorway. I love like the scene. Just feel at peace when I look at it. It just. I just feel like I'd love to be lying in that meadow, like looking up at what I'm looking down upon through that sapphire. So yeah, that's Perfectly Useless Morning is my favorite. And it's actually, it is an easy answer for me. I love that one.
- [41:05]
C
Is it my go? I mean like for me it's all like, I can't come to the watches cold because I know all of the story of development and all of the people behind them. So like that in a way that changes it a bit. I don't know which one would I say? It also becomes kind of political because like probably some of the artists who we've worked with are listening to this and they'd be like, ah, why didn't they pick mine? Maybe I don't like them anymore. I guess I'm going to pick M1 because it's like an unusual choice. But the story of working on that is really interesting. So M1 was designed by Margaret Culver. Margaret Culvert in British graphic design is a really iconic figure. He worked with a guy called Jock kinnear in the 1950s on a project to modernize all of the road signs in Britain. And she's still working now. She's. I don't know how of a certain age, but you know, really inspirational. She works entirely non digitally as well. So she has a drawing board with coloring pencils where she still takes graphic design commissions and stuff. And particularly she's. She's known for her typography for the various fonts that she's created particularly for British Railways and clients like that. And she also did typography designs. So fonts for British Railways and also the font that you see on like motorway signs, like road signs generally. But so M1 because it's it's a really nice sort of reusing of one of her iconic things, which is like a motorway sign indicating a turn off, but repurposed as a watch face. And she was just, it was joy to work with her. She was so nice and engaged with the project and. Yeah, so I guess I'm saying M1.
- [43:00]
B
That is A. That is a brilliant choice because prior to realizing what that watch was and as soon as you picked it, I looked at it twice and I realized what we were talking about. But I didn't realize it was actually going to be designed with Margaret Calvert. I. For some reason this, I mean, the font on the signs on motorways is, I would say, iconic. Isn't it all caps or something because it's easier to read or something like that.
- [43:25]
C
Other way around. Like pre Margaret Court job. Kenneth it used to be all capital letters, but actually they did legibility tests at 70 miles an hour and it's much harder for your brain to process all capitals versus upper and lowercase, so. No, it's not. It's the Oculus.
- [43:39]
B
So. Okay, that's very interesting. So there was, there's, there's a lot of research been done into it. Of course, this watch doesn't feature any of the font, but beautifully proportioned hands that look like turn offs, I guess.
- [43:52]
C
I guess also there was quite a tricksy thing with the minute hand where because we wanted a totally clean top surface, we had to get. I think we got three different factories to sample it because they kept riveting it. And you could always see, no matter how they painted it or filled the top, you could see this witness circle in the center. But in the end, the factory we worked with milled the hands out of a solid piece of brass. So it's not like a two piece riveted to get a construction, which you'd normally get for a minute hand. It's like a single piece that's milled on the back with the pipe for fitting onto the movement.
- [44:32]
A
I love it. Pure design should be in the MoMA. And I see the reincarnation of the Dirty Dozen vibe of functionality. Me, myself, I literally can't choose one. If you put a gun to my head intuitively, I think I would immediately buy the color Ven because I'm a sucker for Bauhaus, the style and all of that. And it's a 80s neon pop art reincarnation of that for my taste. But I love everything. I think I should choose one that I don't like and even that's difficult. For me. So I duff my hat to you. Compliments. Really love what you do. So what's next for Mr. Jones and you? Where are you steering the ship?
- [45:30]
C
I don't know how much I should say. I can say a bit. One of the things that we're interested in and have been for a long time, is being able to modify the time display in, like, interesting ways. So we made a watch called the Indefatigable Sphinx, where we bought a jump hour module off Christopher Ward, which has a large concentric jump hour. And that's really nice mechanism because it's sort of cam driven. Like it just works really nicely. And that sort of started us thinking that we would really like. Because I don't know if you know, but the. The story of the jumper module for Christopher Ward, it was done by Johannes Jahnker when he used to work for them. And it was later the sort of jumping off point for the belcanto chiming mechanism. It's essentially a sort of evolution of that original Jumpower module. But that started thinking that it would be really nice if we had the capacity to create that ourselves. So last year we hired from France, a graduate from one of the watchmaking schools there who's very. Number one, he's fascinated with Mr. Jones watches, and he came and did an internship with us the year before. But number two, he's very fascinated with this challenge of creating a sort of module or like various modules to alter the functionality of the time display. So that's one of the things that we're working on that's really new. I don't have like a. A deadline for when we might have something out. Yeah. As I'm sure you can imagine, it's quite a lengthy process. The other main thing that we're working on is consolidating our working setup. So we have workshops in two separate locations in South London and then we also have a separate location where we do the order, packing and dispatch from. So we've been working well, we were looking for the longest time for a site where we could buy a property and renovate it and bring everything under one roof. So we have that property, which we bought at the start of last year. It takes forever. This like A, working with architects, B, working with planning authorities, C, raising the money for it. So we're in this very long process of ultimately making a sort of unified workspace where we will have everything under one roof. The printing, all the printing, all, the assembly, all of the customer service, order dispatch. So that's the two things we're working.
- [48:02]
B
On no tourbillons, then?
- [48:05]
C
Sadly, no. I did once visit Seagull, you know, see all the huge Chinese movement manufacturer who were desperately trying to sell me a tourbillon movement. I was saying it's not really our thing, but they were adamant that this would enhance our range. They were like, we looked at your watches, we think, what? It needs a tourbillon. I was like, I don't think you really get it, but bless them.
- [48:26]
B
Yeah, bless them. God loves a trier. I mean, it would be a bizarre. An absolutely bizarre thing to drop. Yeah. I'm not sure if it's. I think you're right to stand your ground there. I can't stop looking at the M1 now. You've absolutely blown my mind. I just. I've fallen in love with it. And 195 pounds, in case anybody's wondering how much this design icon is going to set you back. That's pretty compelling, that, isn't it, Crispin?
- [48:49]
C
I mean, I like to think so. I mean, like. But value for money is really central to what we do. And. And I guess there was a conscious decision right from the start that I didn't want to make watches that only sold to people who were really wealthy. I always wanted to make watches that would sell to my peers. And I didn't have peers who would spend several thousand pounds on a watch. I. Peers who would spend maybe £200 on a watch if they really liked it. So, yeah, and I feel like it's important for us as a company generally. Like, it's something, you know, like I said, the staff get a watch after they complete six months, and then every year, on their anniversary of that moment, they get another watch. Because we're making watches for our peers rather than for a sort of rarefied clientele. And, you know, although we make them, we could never afford them ourselves. I just find that really kind of bizarre, which I know exists in a lot of firms.
- [49:49]
B
It certainly does. When I was working for Omega, I had exactly the same problem. I couldn't afford a single one of the watches I was servicing every day. And it used to drive me mad. And I always thought there was something quite wrong there. It is wrong because it doesn't build that company loyalty that you've obviously established very keenly within your team. It is interesting to me, though, that. And you did sort of walk back from saying you would take it as a personal insult or anything like that, but if you saw someone wearing a watch that was. Wasn't Mr. Jones, or if you Found yourself desirous of wearing another watch. It wasn't Mr. Jones, would that be such a bad thing? Or does that show really that there is a wider world of watchmaking out there and that appreciation thereof is actually something that can feed into your grand loyalty in a way? Do you know where I'm coming from?
- [50:32]
C
Yeah, absolutely. And you're right. Like really what we're about is a kind of plurality of approaches. And I think what's. I guess there's a weird thing that I would say to people where it's actually quite easy to do what we do because the watch world is so conservative. Like if you were to contrast it with say I wanted to start a small footwear manufacturer in 2007 when I started the watch company that's so challenging because footwear is so diverse and experimental and so many different firms are really pushing the envelope or like going in a slightly different direction to make something interesting and distinctive. Whereas in the watch world, so many firms are happy to imitate a sort of mid 20th century Swiss archetype. So if you go outside that instantly you're in like a new space. And I feel like that's really important that like when I first started doing the watches, I had the sense that there are a lot of people who weren't being catered for by the established brands or by the established of archetypes. Like they didn't feel anything, it didn't mean anything to them, those watches. So that was kind of the impetus to sign it. So you're right. Like if I see someone wearing a non mischievous watch, I'm not offend or hurt. Like I'm interested in that sort of diversity and plurality of kind of expression that the watch allows.
- [51:57]
A
I'm unfortunately not creative enough to be worthy of an MJW collab. But I love your page on your website under the contact menu Collaborate with us. So our dear listeners, if you are more creative than I am, please do check it out because it's a very welcoming page with a Q and A. And I love the tone of voice and the accessibility on that topic of collapse. So not so much the brand. Mr. Jones Creating watches that are designed by other people, collaborations that are maybe with peers. The one that comes to mind is the C1 celestial moon phase with Christopher Ward that I utterly loved. Have you done more of these kind of collabs with other watchmakers?
- [52:51]
C
And no, we have not. Like, and I guess I mean never say never, but Christopher Ward was kind of a different thing for us. So when I started in 2007 there were far fewer British watch brands but there was Christopher Ward and they've always been a kind of figurehead for the British watch industry as long as I've been involved with it. And I was lucky enough to meet. I've met Chris Ward and Mike France many occasions and had really interesting conversations with them. With Mike France, I was, was asked to be on the, the founding of the British Fortune Clock Makers association sort of committee and stuff. So it kind of came through knowing him and, and talk about them. But I guess we really like Christopher Ward for. I feel like they push the envelope of what they offer. Like they don't rest on their laurels. They're quite ambitious and quite experimental and you know, starting from things like that jump power module going through to like the Bel Canto, they've done the recent dual barrel mechanical wind watch with a long power reserve. Like just they're pushing the envelope and doing interesting things. And I think that that was something we really responded to and I was very flattered when. So Mike, the, the genesis of it is Mike reached out to me and said, do you ever think of collaborating with us? I thought it could be like an interesting thing. Obviously if you're not interested it's cool, but maybe we'll start that conversation. And we were kind of like, yeah, we never. Like it wasn't on our radar, it wasn't something that we were really pushing for but I guess we were kind of flattered. And also there was an element of it's a challenge for us to produce components for someone else and produce them up to their standards. And that's quite important for the sort of skills development of the, all of the people in the production side. So the, the printing technicians and the assembly technicians. So there was quite a conscious thing where we knew and it was indeed painful and we learned a lot from it because. And I feel like that that helps us and will help us in the years to come because I think being forced to work to someone else's quality control standards was a real eye opening thing for us. And yeah, it was a challenge. We had endless problems with the glasses on that watch because the glasses on our watches are all flat on the underside because we print on them. So of course we order them all flat because that's easy to print on. Christopher would never print on the underside of their crystals. So theirs had a really odd convex like dual radius thing going on that was horrible to print on because it just wasn't designed for that. And indeed in the end on Celestial Every single one of those glasses was hand painted around a specific area of the rim that we couldn't successfully print into. But, you know, that was good for the workshop team. Like they learned a lot about resilience and, you know, making it happen and came through it. We were also just really happy with how it went. Like obviously there was a big investment from our side in the sort of time and it was a very straightforward collaboration that we said we both put in our costs, wherever's left, we split down the middle. Super generous of them and great to be so transparent. But we were kind of concerned that the financial investment was much more on Christopher Ward's side for all of their components and cases and so forth. We were concerned that whether it would sell because it was always going to sell to Christopher Ward customers more than our customers because the price point was not our price point. And we were quite mindful that Christopher Ward customers are not our customers. And I don't know how they're going to respond to it. They might think this is ridiculous, a waste of time, why would anyone ever buy that? But we're really happy. They all sold out in I think just over 24 hours. We know that Chris Ford were pleased with that because they had planned in social media marketing for the whole week following, which was then obviously immediately scrapped. So that was really, you know, great for both sides to see that it was really successful. I feel like it was really successful artistically, but then nice that it was so successful with their customers and audience as well.
- [57:24]
B
That's the best reason to scrap a social media campaign, isn't it? When the watch is sold out, isn't it?
- [57:29]
C
Exactly. They were sold. There's a point.
- [57:31]
B
I mean it sounds like a huge effort, but I mean, what a great thing to have pursued and what a great thing to have achieved because the watch itself has certainly been the talk of the real time show network, actually our WhatsApp group, because a couple of people bought it and were very, very proud of it and sharing pictures of it. And I later, after the fact, after it sold out, I read about the hand painted elements on the crystal and thought, wow, why would you do that to yourself? But now it all makes sense. You had no choice.
- [57:57]
C
Exactly, exactly. It was because we always knew like it would be in their case and using their components and we did some te tests and like when you're testing you can kind of make it work. When you got to 300 and they've all got to be like perfect quality, that's when it's like, ah, this is not as easy as we thought, but it was really good. And it was like, it was pretty challenging as we got close to the deadline. Like, it was pretty stressful. But like I say, I feel like we learned a lot through going through that.
- [58:27]
B
I mean, those are always the best to undertake when you come out the other side having learned something, even if it's what not to do the next time. Look, we're going to wrap up the show there. Before we go, I have to give a shout out to my best friend back home in England, Greg Williamson. He is a huge fan of Mr. Jones. He'd kill me if I didn't say hello to you from him. He's an art teacher up in the North. He runs competitions with his students designing watches, getting them into the craft early on. And I'm sure he wouldn't design something that would require painting on the underside of a crystal. So if you want to collaborate, I'll give you his number. If anyone else in the Realtime Show Network has any questions for Crispin or crazy ideas for collaborations that he's gonna have to pretend he hasn't seen float across his desk, please do send those to us. You can do that via our emails, either Rob Alon or David herealtime Show. You can send us a message via the Instagram account @therealtime show or via the official website at www.therealtime.show via the contact form. Thanks, Crispin. This went in directions I wasn't expecting, but it was an extremely satisfying interview and I hope to have you back on again when you finally launch a tourbillon.
- [59:32]
C
Right. Don't hold your prayer.
- [59:36]
B
Well, I'm sure we'll have other reason to get you back on the airwaves. Until then, please stay safe and keep on ticking.
- [59:49]
C
It.