Tuesday night saw host to a gathering of watch aficionados at NEL Restaurant in Sydney with none other than Giles English, Co-Founder of Bremont Watches. Thanks to Hardy Brothers, Watch Advice was privileged to attend, check out the British Made timepieces and chat to the man himself.
Bremont watches may not be the first watch brand that comes to mind when thinking of aviation watches, more probably you’ll say IWC, or Breitling. I know I did. However, you should, and I now will. Since getting the invite to attend an intimate event with one of the Co-Founders of Bremont Watches, I’ve done quite a bit of research on the brand, and now after meeting Giles himself, spending some time with him and listening to his, and his brother, Nick’s story (the other Co-Founder), I’ve now have a new appreciation and respect for the brand, what they do, and how and why they do it.
Whilst Bremont is only 20 years old (or young in watch brand terms), it may have more heritage and provenance than many other brands that have aviation and military associations. Not only do they have an exclusive contract with the UK Ministry of Defense, their Martin-Baker collection is the only watch line in the world that is actually ejection seat certified. Done in collaboration with Martin-Baker – a British aviation company responsible for supplying 70% of the world’s Air Forces with fighter ejection seat technology, Bremont’s MBII collection has had to withstand the same rigorous testing programme as the ejection seats themselves including Live Ejection Testing, MFOS Crashworthy Testing, Extreme Temperature Endurance, Vibration Testing, Altitude Testing and Aircraft Carrier Deck Testing. Plus they are Chronometer Certified so are beyond tough and accurate.
And this is something that Giles English is very proud of, given both he and his brother, who are experienced aviators themselves, and have both experienced crashes in their planes. And and when you listen to the story of how their father died in an accident training for an aerobatics display, and where Nick himself suffered massive injuries, including 30 broken bones, you can understand where the inspiration and motivation behind Bremont comes from.
As Giles explains; “Our life changed, we hit the tipping point and it was never going to be the same again. Coming out of that we had this mad dream of following this passion of ours.”
And you can tell he has passion for it – a lot of passion. This passion stems from his childhood growing up with a father who was a brilliant engineer, who himself was passionate about watches and clocks, and as kids, he and brother Nick would tinker trying to fix these clocks.
Although by his own admission, “I could never fix them, but I was totally in awe by this whole nature of watchmaking and clock making.” A very honest comment said with a sense of humour, and perhaps some comical irony given where Giles and Nick are today.
“We had grown up around British Watchmaking… You go back 150 years or so and half the worlds watches and clocks were being made in England.”
This statement does give you pause for thought. At one point, England produced around 60% of the world’s watches and clocks, and some of the most famous innovations in watchmaking come from British watchmakers. Such components and movements such as the balance spring, lever escapement and even the Chronograph were all British innovations. Even up to 50 or so years ago, George Daniels famously developed the Co-axial escapement that Omega now uses today across their entire range. Now with Swiss Made being the standard that is widely recognised around the world, Giles and Nick thought it was time to re-invigorate the British watchmaking tradition. He goes on to explain:
“This amazing history of British watchmaking, Nick and I were so aware of it, no British watch companies apart from George Daniels making a handful in his lifetime… The whole idea was to re-build British watchmaking. “
“But also we felt we could build something for that price point that if a journalist would pick up our watch, we knew that they wouldn’t know us, the name Bremont, but they’d pick up this watch and go, “well actually the case hardening is 7 times the hardening of a normal steel case, its a lovely 3-piece, the finishing on the movement, the hardening on the crystal, the weight and feel, actually, its a bloody good watch for the price point!” If we just got that tick in the box, the rest would follow. And it did!”
Giles is a very humble, down to earth and personable man. You could tell instantly as he makes you feel like you’ve known him for a long time, and the way he interacts with everyone in the room, making them feel at ease. You don’t feel like you’re talking to the owner of a luxury watch brand, it’s refreshing.
Having a small scale, intimate event for watch enthusiasts and collectors at a restaurant like NEL also speaks to the Bremont brand and Giles. Executive Chef and owner of NEL, Nelly Robinson, is a fellow Brit himself and prides himself on the food he and his team creates. Always altering his menus, and giving them a unique theme that only lasts for a month, he has set himself apart as one of the best in town. So its no surprise that for an event for Bremont, Nelly created a British themed canape menu that was amazing, really helping to accentuate the British heritage of the brand.
At an event where you have a handful of collectors and enthusiasts, you feel like part of an extended horological family, where you can talk to anyone, and you know you have a common ground to start on. And I can’t help feel that this is what Giles and Hardy Brothers were going for when thinking about hosting the event. You have a family owned watch brand, teaming up with a family owned jeweller, hosting an event for their extended watch family.
Giles is very welcoming in that way. In his speech, and throughout numerous occasions when speaking to him, he invites you to come visit their headquarters in Henley-on-Thames, a town just outside of London in Oxfordshire. In a world where you sometimes have to be a somebody to even get invited to a factory visit, Giles is quite happy for you to come visit and see “The Wing”, Bremont’s state of the art 35,000 sq ft manufacturing facility where they are now making their ENG300 series movements fully in house.
In fact, three of their newer models: The Fury, Supernova (pictured below) and Audley are all fully made in house. This is another step towards both Giles’ and Nick’s goals of bringing British watchmaking back and also making sure that it is just as high a quality as Swiss Made watches.
In Giles’ words:
“No other watch company our size builds this stuff themselves, they all outsource it…To have Made In England, we had to do it and that’s the most unique identifier about Bremont to other brands our size”
Looking To The Future
Now that Bremont has opened up The Wing, Giles talks about Bremont not as a watch company, but as a “high tech engineering business that has to handcraft those components as well”. But in the watch business, you can’t just make great things, you have to be so much more than this these days.
Giles elaborates on this: “You have to be a marketing business if you’re a watch company, cause people want to learn about your watches etc, a retailer – we own 13 stores around the world. So it’s a really, really complex business.” And he’s right.
“No one would do this game unless you’re ridiculously passionate about what you’re doing, Nick and I have just put our life and soul into this, and I always quote my wife on this, she says, Giles, you make earning money look so damn difficult! And I think it’s true, there’s no quick gig here!” said with a chuckle.
When I caught up with Giles later in the night, I asked him about Bremont and the Australian market, and how does he think the Australian watch collector will receive Bremont, and what he thinks will set them apart?
“I think its our story and why we do what we do. The consumer resonates with a brand that has some history and a great story, and also produces great watches that do what they’re meant to, and for the purpose they’ve been designed for.”
This I couldn’t agree more with. And I think that this is where Bremont can set themselves apart. I mentioned to Giles people want authenticity these days, and with many brands, not just in the watch world, authenticity isn’t common in brands anymore. Thankfully he agreed!
But there are some limitations he concedes. “We’re niche, I say niche as a tier two player around the world we’re actually reasonably big, but we’ll only make around 10,000 watches a year, so they’re all made with lots of love and passion and what goes into it...
“We’re confined to the number of watches we can make and that’s probably one of our biggest problems is manufacturing, you can’t just turn on this pointer of getting new watchmakers on board…buying new machines in to make new components is a slow and a very very high investment process.”
And this to me, is a challenge of any business with a high level of skill and expertise required to make the products these days, and one that many of the larger players face as well – given supply chain issues, demand and skill shortages across the board. However, I feel that tapping into new markets, or elevating your presence in markets, like Australia will help to slowly grow. And Bremont watches to me are a great fit for the Australian lifestyle: casual luxury that works in any scenario, or as Giles describes why they love the aviation style of watch they’ve incorporated into many of their designs;
“Aviation for us wasn’t that you had to be an aviator, it was a style of watch…it was a watch you could wear in the boardroom or up Mt Everest, that was always part of our DNA”
And coincidentally, Bremont has been up to the top of the world, so again, and brand and a watch that is authentic and performing the ways it’s meant to – putting its money where its mouth is. This I feel will work well with the Australian public. Take away all the hype around certain brands, and there are still a lot of collectors and enthusiasts out there that want something different, a watch that looks good, performs well, and is a little understated. You could tell this from the collector crowd at NEL, they’ve an appreciation for horology, and many had already jumped in and were sporting Bremont watches proudly.
The night ends and everyone say their goodbyes, and I take one last opportunity to give my thanks to Stuart Bishop and the Hardy Brothers team, Nelly Robinson for the fantastic food, and Giles, for being such a great host and fellow watch lover – and maybe promising to come visit him at The Wing one day soon. And I do hope that I can, as I feel that now 20 years old, I’m looking forward to seeing how Bremont grows over the next 10-20 years, and whilst I’ve only met Giles once, I can say that I don’t think it will be the last.
