From Christopher Ward:

We don’t hide our sources….…in fact were very proud of them….and work closely with them to develop not only beautiful watches, but also a business model that allows us to do what we want to do…..

…and whats that….?


Well, I’ll make a promise to you now …from a watchmaker and a businessman… I have to be both….if I’m not in business..I cant make watches…that promise is that we will do our utmost to open our company up to the likes of yourself and hide nothing…..we will involve you and our other supporters in any aspect of our business in which you want to be involved.

We will open up our costs on the website, give you access to how much profit we make or don’t make as the case may be… we will let you know how our cost is structured and how much margin we make to survive. We will involve you in discussion about future models and designs, our advertising and let you know the reasons why we do certain things that other companies keep as a mystery.

Over the short term we will let you on the inside ….where it counts…

Like a crystal back (maybe not sapphire) but definitely transparant.

Lets be honest… we wont survive if we try and take them all on at their own game……theres too many of them…….but I don’t know anybody who is doing it this way do you….If we fail we fail……but it will be fun trying…

Joe thanks for posting this! Chris you are an amazing fellow. I remember reading a post on TZ a few years back that suggested that one day TIME magazine or similar would publish an expose of how the Swiss watch industry really works, who does the manufacturing and what the costs really are.

But this is better. What you are doing is more creative and more valuable than merely poking holes in a bloated luxury goods market. I really enjoy the fact that you are open about how the watches are made, that you have left the Swiss heritage nonsense alone and that you are embracing great business partnerships in China.

More power to you. A good watch is a wonderful thing and I'm thoroughly enjoying this one!