Feature: What Do You Think Of Bremont?
Muscling in on the luxury watch industry is tough enough when you’re a start-up Swiss brand, let alone a company based in the UK. So when Bremont was founded in 2002 it faced a task comparable to climbing Mont Blanc with a step-ladder.
Since selling its first ever watch in 2007, fraternal founders, Nick and Giles English, have worked tirelessly to build Bremont into a respected global brand. Last year they moved all production to their new, state-of-the-art factory in Oxfordshire which is geared up to make as many as 50,000 watches a year—that’s roughly the same as the hallowed Jaeger-LeCoultre
So you’re going to see and hear a lot more of Bremont in the years to come as they seek to build a lasting legacy, restoring, perhaps, a little of the glory that British watchmaking revelled in during its late 18th-century heyday when the likes of John Arnold and Robert Hooke made such huge technical strides.
But Bremont—which celebrates its twentieth anniversary this year—hasn’t earned its stripes without overcoming a few hurdles along the way. Here’s the lowdown on this plucky independent brand so that you can make up your own minds…
Naming A Brand The Hard Way
It would have been oh-so-easy for Giles and Nick English to delve into the history books, pluck out an illustrious name from the annals of British horology and ‘revive’ it–God knows lots of brands choose to go down this path!
Bremont's co-founders, Nick and Giles English
But the brothers decided to start from the ground up, using the name of a Frenchman on whose farm they were once forced to land their small plane after encountering some dodgy weather.
As well as giving Bremont an interesting ‘origin’ story, the name choice was a savvy marketing move. Bremont is a French name but easily pronounceable in any language, plus it could almost be an amalgamation of Breguet and Montblanc.
It’s short, it’s snappy, it looks good on a dial—you get the impression that Hans ‘Rolex’ Wilsdorf, a marketing genius himself, would have given an enthusiastic fist-bump of approval.
Unapologetically British
Does it bother you that Bremont isn’t a Swiss brand? It really shouldn’t. Obviously Switzerland is synonymous with luxury watch-making and seen as the spiritual home of horology—the epicentre of it all—but it hasn’t always been so.
British watch-making may have been in the doldrums for most of the 20th century—the odd outlier like George Daniels keeping the flag flying—but before that it was a place of innovation and global renown. It churned out watch inventions the way Brazil churns out world-class footballers. Roughly half the world’s timepieces—around 200,000—were made in Britain in 1800. And then the mass production facilities developed by the US and the Swiss saw British watchmaking go from a gushing river of innovation to a pitiful trickle.
The Wright Flyer model contains a piece of aviation history - literally!
Bremont, however, is at the forefront of a resurgence that has seen a number of new British brands spring up, from tiny, high-end independents like Struthers of Birmingham to larger brands that admittedly rely on Swiss movements, like Christopher Ward.
It has embraced its Britishness rather than play it down, making watches that draw on the country’s strong aviation and seafaring heritage.
These include models like the Martin Baker MBII—built in collaboration with the company responsible for supplying 70 per cent of the world’s Air Forces with fighter ejection seat technology—and the limited-edition Victory watch, containing actual parts of Lord Nelson’s famous warship.
It’s also partnered with the Ministry of Defence to supply the British armed forces and is the only luxury watch producer allowed to use the symbols of all three services: the Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy, and the British Army.
They Got Their Wrists Slapped Once
Some of you may remember Bremont being embroiled in what one might call a horology micro-scandal a few years ago when they weren’t very clear about the origin of their partly Swiss-made movements, engraving the word ‘London’ on the calibre of their Wright Flyer watch.
Accidental or not, they weren’t the first to do it, but they might well be the last, given some people’s slightly hysterical reaction.
Anyway, the industry had its say, Nick and Giles issued a red-faced mea culpa, and we’ve all swiftly moved on, lesson learned!
The Future
Last year was a huge year for Bremont with the release of its first in-house movement, the ENG300 automatic—the realisation of a long-held dream. They also took their whole manufacturing process under one substantial roof with their £20 million, 35,000 square-foot facility in Henley-On-Thames, an hour away from London.
At their swanky new production facility in Oxfordshire you can see a Bremont being made
‘The Wing’, architecturally resembling an aeroplane’s wing, is a natural light-flooded, environmentally friendly building in which Bremont can finally fulfil its long-term aim of bringing full-on, large-scale watch assembly back to Britain.
Best of all, it’s designed to accommodate a visitor experience, complete with a museum and boutique, whereby potential Bremont buyers can go and see exactly what goes into the production of a Bremont watch. There’s even a quintessentially British red telephone box in the grounds and you can play a game of table football.
It’s something several of the top Swiss, German and Japanese brands have been doing for years, albeit not with a decently-stocked bar where people can relax, whisky in hand, after trying on the latest model. Bremont definitely have the edge over their competitors on that score, and long may it continue.
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