This is a guest post by one of our friends, Sean Wai who recently visited Mr Jones Watches in London. Here are his impressions of the visit.
This guest post by is by Sean Wai, who is an architect turned watchmaker. Sean designs and makes his own watches from scratch (yes the movement as well) in his atelier. He runs his own brand Movas (and here is Part 2 and Part 3 of his atelier) as well as work on projects as designer. He is currently based in London, and files this report.

We have featured Mr. Jones Watches The Golden Hour here.
Curious about Mr. Jones Watches? We visited them in London to find out more.
It is hard to keep track of the microbrand watch world. After awhile each iteration of a dive watch which invariably turns out to be another take of a Rolex submariner or the re-telling of the same old story of years refining a design, or the challengers from overseas suppliers and disrupting the industry just melds together into one big mess of what I refer to as ‘I don’t really care anymore’.
It would be easy to excuse the casual observer who thinks that Mr. Jones Watches (MJW) was also another microbrand selling outsourced quartz watches. Homages/ replicas of their watches can be found on shopping platforms for a fraction of the price which can lead to the assumption that the watches are likely contracted out to Asia and their suppliers released them ‘back door’ which happens to countless other brands. The truth in this case is probably harder to believe considering how little is written about their process and setup.

My first encounter with MJW was with two of their earlier designs, one featuring the use of a skull with the time indicated on the teeth and another with the phrase, “Remember” and “You Will Die” used as hands.

18 years in and selling/ producing in upwards of 10,000 watches a year, each dial and rotating disc (which are employed in a lot of their designs) are pad printed by hand and carefully assembled by in-house trained technicians. MJW now employ around 40 people throughout 4 different locations in London. However, what is most interesting about the brand is not just that their employees are predominantly female, but also have art backgrounds or experiences as artists much like the founder.

Like Print Team Manager Nell Rudd who holds a degree in Fine Art and worked as a Customer Service and Workshop Assistant to the Lead Gilding Technician Giulia Cacciuttolo who was a Social Media Manager prior to developing and overseeing the gilding of some of their newer watches, a technique rarely seen even in more expensive watches due to the complexity of the process.





It is great to see a brand that values the time of its employees, to include them in the creative process and to engage local artists, some only recent graduates from neighbouring art colleges in the design of their watches. All employees working on the watches are more like collaborators who come from very diverse artistic backgrounds then factory workers. 40, Female, Artist, In-house dial/ hand manufacturing and assembly. Let’s take some time to let that sink in.

It is hard to pigeonhole the brand as it isn’t exactly a ‘micro’ brand due to the number of watches sold and most of the manufacturing done in-house. In a world of contract and outsourced manufacturing, MJW has quietly built itself up from a one-man operation making pictorial watch dials/ hands to possibly the largest watch manufacturer in London. Bucking the trend seems to have worked amazingly well and does not begin to cover all the other important milestones of the brand which are again rarely talked about because of how the brand has just gone about their business creating watches that they and their customers enjoy. This is reflected in the use of colourful images of swimming pools, monsters and skulls to tell time with wonderment and whimsy, not taking themselves too seriously unlike many other traditional time telling watches.

The very British trait of the aversion to self-promotion is a perfect fit for this most quintessential London based brand. A ‘serious’ horological juggernaut reinventing and innovating new ways of recording time it may not be, but perhaps what MJW has shown the rest of the watch world is that we don’t need to all be about tourbillons, chronographs, minute repeaters, in-house movements or another Kickstarter campaign with a dream but there is space for an honest, inclusive and collaborative financially healthy watch brand just having a little fun.