British independent Mr Jones Watches is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year; a landmark made possible by the company’s creative spirit and strategy of putting art and design at the heart of its work.
Mr Jones was launched in 2007 and started collaborating with designers and artists it admired in 2010 and giving them free reign to create watches well outside the conservative norms of the Swiss.
Over the past 15 years, Mr Jones Watches has produced more than 150 watch designs.
It sells across the UK, US and Europe and has grown its team to 22 members of staff across two London-based workshops and its own store.
The brand has worked with nearly 30 different designers and artists from around the world, a mix of established names and artists right at the start of their professional careers.
Two watches stand out as milestones towards the destination of unique watchmaking, according to Mr Jones.
The first, The Last Laugh, was released in 2010 and displays the time on a skull’s teeth.
This was the first watch where Mr Jones integrated the time telling functions within an image.
The second was Vingt Mille, which was designed by artist and illustrator Fanny Shorter in 2013.
In this design, numbers were removed entirely and the time telling function is purely told from the image.
The hours and minutes are marked by two men who are locked in mortal combat with a giant squid.
Mr Jones founder Crispin Jones says he strives to tell a story with each of his company’s watch designs.
“Working with designers naturally made our designs more adventurous. When I first launched Mr Jones Watches, I was responsible for all of the watch designs. While this is something I thoroughly enjoy, ultimately I think I only had so many designs in me,” Mr Crispin Jones recalls.
Artists have been encouraged to let their imagines run wild, rather than be constrained by the normal aesthetics and architecture of traditional watches.
“Working with artists who had no previous knowledge of watchmaking and the production process really challenged us and helped us to develop our technical skills. As a brand, we really value collaboration and working with different artists is one of the real pleasures of my working life. These collaborations keep us excited about what we do — creating distinctive and interesting watches that spark conversations and delight the wearer,” Mr Jones explains.
Although Mr Jones is predominately a design house, the company has brought parts of its production to London.
Since 2017, all Mr Jones watches have been printed and assembled in London.
“This business model allows us to produce watches with total creative freedom. We never spend time agonising over if a design will sell, rather our entire focus is on making every watch as interesting and creative as we can make it,” Mr Jones describes.
