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Hello and welcome back to About Time,
A few weeks ago, I took the train to Bristol to visit Fears, the watch company founded eight years ago by Nicholas Bowman-Scargill.
Of course, that should read refounded, since Bowman-Scargill is the great-great-great-grandson of Edwin Fear, who started the business back in 1846. Edwin Fear Watches – later Fears – was a big deal. Frequently cited as “one of Britain’s oldest watch companies” – although no one seems to be able to name an older one – at its mid-20th Century peak it was producing more than 100,000 watches a year.
Having survived six Luftwaffe bombing raids that took out large chunks of the city in the 1940s, it was a combination of competition from the Swiss, a failure to industrialise, and changing consumer tastes that finally spelled the end for Fears, which closed its doors in 1976 – ignominiously selling its remaining stock off to the staff, and joining the rest of our homegrown watch business in the file marked “Once Great British Industries”.
The smart, and smartly dressed, Nicholas Bowman-Scargill bought it back to life in 2016. |
Sign marking the 175th anniversary of Fears, in 2021 |
Today its quietly-expanding catalogue of dress-adjacent watches is defined by products as elegant as they are unusual – the shimmering mother of pearl dial on the Brunswick 40 ‘Aurora’, or the charming display of the Brunswick 40.5 Jump Hour being good examples.
Value for money is in the eye of the beholder of course, and while you'd be silly to call Fears watches a bargain – it mainly operates in the £3k-£5k bracket – the quality of the finishing and the attention to detail certainly puts some better-known brands in the shade.
Anyway, businesses is doing nicely – with sales increasing year-on-year. More importantly, everyone seems to agree that Fears watches are extremely nice things indeed – a labour of love Bowman-Scargill has willed into life by sourcing world-class suppliers for each different release, for a catalogue that borrows from, and gently updates, Fears models from the past. (Today the watches are designed, assembled and quality controlled in Bristol, while the parts come from Switzerland, and elsewhere.)
The brand's strapline is “Elegantly Understated Since 1846”, and that sums things up nicely. |
The fourth-MD-of-Fears role is one you might say Bowman-Scargill has been preparing for all his life. Not just because it is in his blood, but because of his CV.
A graduate in pure economics, he interned at Deutsche Bank, spent three years as a PR, worked in watch retail and was an apprentice at Rolex in London for seven years – trained in both technical watchmaking, and the machinations of the luxury watch business.
He works hard. Originally from north Yorkshire, he upped sticks from London to Bristol, reasoning there was little point in flying the flag for your great-great-great grandfather’s city if you weren’t actually going to be there. (He’s also made a point of employing Bristolians.)
Bowman-Scargill splits his time between his home in York, and a flat in Bristol.
“Anyone who knows me, knows that I lead a somewhat unusual life, living in York yet working in Bristol,” he says. “That’s before you add in the weekly visits to London and at least once a month boarding a jet and flying off somewhere. Fears still consumes most of my waking hours. That is okay, as I adore this company, the watches we make, the team we have and our beautiful office in Bristol.” |
The elegantly understated world of Nicholas Bowman-Scargill |
Fears HQ, 5.11, Paintworks, Bristol |
Fears’ original workshop and showroom was at Redcliff Street, near the city centre, before it moved to bigger premises by Bristol Bridge.
Today Fears occupies “five-eleven” – a light, split-level unit in Paintworks, a mixed-used business space geared towards the creative industries, and a one-time Victorian paint and varnish factory, not far from Temple Meads railway station.
Bowman-Scargill has cleared his afternoon for me– and after a proposed early dinner in Clifton Village turns into one Martini after another – most of his evening. Like the boss, the office is spotless, with a determined air of industry.
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The Fears office, with designer Lee Yuen-Rapati hard at it |
Bowman-Scargill is candid enough to show me Fears’ unannounced schedule for the next 12 months, prototypes of which I’m encouraged to try on. There are some crackers, each watch very different but equally interesting and ambitious.
The team — there are currently 10 of them — refer to each launch by a code name, first to help prevent the information from leaking out, but mainly because it amuses them. |
2024-5 launch calendar, complete with "dad jokes" code names | Upcoming is Project Terrace, Project Snow and Project 23 (that last one is a biggie). Past launches include Project 736, a purple dialled “Jubilee Edition” watch for the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II in 2022 – codenamed for the hull number of the QE2 passenger ship. Also, Project K2 for the aforementioned jump hour watch, whose code name came from “Jump”, the 1990s hip-hop song by Kris Kross (Kris Kross = K x 2).
“Some of these are very dad jokes,” Bowman-Scargill says. “They’re not great.” About Time: You’ve described Fears watches as “old-school luxury”. What does that mean?
Nicholas Bowman-Scargill: To me, old-school luxury is not about a logo. It’s not about a price, or even a price point. Old-school luxury is about a way of feeling towards the product and the brand. So, it's about something that is very preserved. There’s no hype, there’s no FOMO. It makes you feel like you're actually acquiring an object, not a unit. I think people really know the difference between going into a big luxury brand, where it’s all the pretence of luxury, but you feel very intimidated and unvalued. Versus going into a place where people are valuing you and they put you at ease. Old-school luxury always makes a person feel at ease.
I’ve also heard you compare Fears to Cartier.
Yes. Old-school luxury is something the French are very good at. I mean, if you go to Paris and you go to Charvet for the shirts, or Hermès for the ties. Those luxury boutiques in Paris and those old luxury brands, they’ve still got that charm. You go in and there’s no pretence of queuing behind some made-up rope line. It’s all about service. It's all about quality. It's all about making everything feel effortless. That's really, fundamentally, what luxury is about. You’re a dapper chap yourself. I try and make an effort. |
Brunswick 38 Polar White - "perfect simplicity"
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Fears dials often have something interesting going on. That can easily become "quirky for the sake of being quirky". Where's the line?
Fears should absolutely surprise people, but it should never shock people. As a Brit, I shouldn't ever say anything overly positive about myself – it might come across as arrogant. But my designer Lee and myself, I think, have a very, very good eye and an appreciation of good taste. Sometimes you have to do the age-old Coco Chanel quote: "Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off". Take our Brunswick 38 Polar White. The reason, after seven years, it’s still one of the most appreciated pieces, is its perfect simplicity. A good analogy would be the difference between going for a very fancy but inexpensive wallpaper, and then going for a simple wallpaper that's high quality.
Talk me though the process of making a Fears watch.
There’s two ways of building watches. One way is by going to a white labeller in Switzerland and saying, “Here is my design. Turn it into a watch”. And that is a wonderful solution, because you have one person to deal with, one company to chase when things are delayed, and you receive a built watch which is all sealed, signed and warranted. The way we do it is the other way which, to be honest, has caused us so much trouble and so much learning over the years. Which is you go to a case maker, a hand maker, a crystal maker, a maker who only makes the rubber gaskets, and so on. You have to go to them with technical drawings of what to make. You have to invest in making sure that all those drawings work. The pressure is on us to ensure that when we get all these parts in, they will work together. Because it can be 20 companies supplying parts to build one watch. But the advantage is, we get to go, “Right, for this project, we’re going to this case maker, because they have a specialty in working with this kind of shape of case…” The same for dials. We pick who we want to work with, and therefore we get to work with some of the best suppliers. I've spent years traveling around the world, building the relationships with the CEOs of these suppliers. Because they don't want to make for anyone. They don't want to make for someone who’s then selling a watch for a tenth the price of their other clients, because that's going to annoy those clients. They also want to know that this is someone who has shared values, and understands them.
Can you give me an example?
I mean, our strap maker in Belgium – they hand-make all the straps. So, when I went over to Belgium, and I spent a day in the workshop, they got me to have a go at making one. And you suddenly go, “Oh, right, this is why it can take six weeks for our order to get made”. Because it's not just pressing a button on a machine and it chucks them out, or laser cutting. It’s someone literally with knives and needles and threads. But I’ve been very lucky that these suppliers will work with us. They see what we're doing, and they understand the long-term vision. And also they can see the consistency of what we do.
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Brunswick 40 'Aurora', with its mother of pearl dial. Surprising, not shocking |
How did you settle on Fears’ prices?
Our core is £3,000 to £5,000. That’s an area where we play to our strengths. We can make an exceptional watch at that price point. If we went down to £2,000 we are now compromising on how we do things. And, likewise, if we were to start going up to £6,000 or £7,000 as our core, that's a whole different set of skills, and a whole different ball game. Certainly in the last few years, a lot of the big brands have been pushing their prices up and up and up. And the annual Morgan Stanley report talks about that. You know, the value of Swiss exports is going up, but the actual quantity is going down, and that's because average price of a Tudor, a Breitling or a Tag Heuer is significantly more than it was a few years ago. We know we do an exceptional watch at £3,000 to £5,000. And we want to keep that for now.
You do also have a couple of much pricier watches…
We have certain pieces that we refer to as our Haute Collection [currently comprising two watches around £20,000], and they are very important to us. For a lot of people, they go, “What I like is I can buy the £3,500 Fears today, wear it and absolutely love it. But in five to 10 years’ time, I can aspire to own one that’s £35,000”. This doesn’t always work for everyone. But for Fears, and for some brands, I think it works having this sort of dual price point. Why do you think that?
Because from Day One we have had a lot of appeal to high-end collectors. When I launched the platinum watch in 2021 our highest price point was £3,150 pounds, and then we bring out a watch at £28,000. That was a very nerve-wracking thing. I was thinking “I’m going to be ridiculed. People are going to say awful things about me and the company!” You know, "Punching too high above his weight, turning into Icarus…" But actually, the response was incredibly positive. And you realise that there is a client for it. This goes back to what we were just saying about suppliers. It's about people feeling safe in buying into the vision and the long term. People aren’t going to suddenly drop £30,000 on a watch, unless they believe that in the next five to 10 years, Fears will still represent the same values that they have.
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And what values are those?
In the last few years there’s been the hype/ FOMO craze from the watch industry, where everything was selling out. There were times where I questioned my strategy, which was always that kind of quiet and steady… rather than jumping on the bandwagon. But where we are, the end of 2024… I’m not going to say I feel vindicated, because that sounds a bit harsh on brands that did jump on that way of selling, but I feel pleased that, actually, we’re coming out of this pretty strong. The last quarter has been a very strong quarter for us. And, sadly, it hasn’t for a lot of people.
How is the market now?
It’s not that there's a crash, it's that we're just returning to normal, to how things should be. Things are still better than they were in 2019. But those hype days, they’re gone – and I’m glad that I didn't damage Fears as a brand [during that time]. Because the value is not just about a pretty logo and a price point. It's about the belief in what you’re doing. Everything I’m describing is basically putting brakes on the potential growth of the company. We’re not going to be ending this year saying “There’s triple digit growth”. I don't want that. What I want is steady growth. Because also, I've got to invest in my team.
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On a round table by some bookshelves sits Fears’ design department. There is Lee Yuen-Rapati, their watch designer, whose masters’ dissertation was on horological typography and whose evident talent is perhaps best appreciated by his mind-boggling Instagram account onehourwatch, where for more than 2,000 consecutive days he took it upon himself to hand-draw a watch in an hour (or less). And Laura Aust, Fears’ design engineer.
The pair are working on 3D modelling Project Snow, due out next September, and something Yuen-Rapati first sketched out in December 2021. “We’re giving it the same level of finishing you get on a Lange [A. Lange & Söhne],” Bowman-Scargill says. |
Bowman-Scargill checks the 15.14 to York |
Upstairs is Bowman-Scargill’s tiny desk – complete with a gadget replica live train departures board, useful for all that commuting. But also because he’s a train nut.
This is the operations department, which consists in its entirety of Bowman-Scargill and Oliver Richardson, a terrifyingly bright business and project management undergraduate from the University of Bournemouth, who got the gig after turning up at trade fairs and other events where Fears was present and, by his own admission, stalking them. (Like his employer, he is wearing a suit.) They show me their Gantt charts detailing each step of each watch in development – tables showing dial, dial samples, crystal, crystal coating, hands, movement delivery, assembly, winding instructions, swing tags, stockists, etc etc... As someone who struggles with a shopping list, it looks like a total colour-coded nightmare. |
Fears archive watch, circa 1924, with sterling silver cushion case |
Downstairs there's a well-ordered stock room, lined with boxes labelled with every conceivable watch bit – from screws to straps.
In parallel with the today’s business, there is also Fears Owners' Club ,where anyone in possession of a Fears watch, from 1846 to today, can put it in for servicing and repair. (Members get invited to events and owner meet-ups, as well as a coveted Fears "pipette pin badge".) “We can say to anyone, ‘We can service this. We can give you an extract from the archive. We can give you a period-correct strap’. We work with all kinds of artisans who can do that,” Bowman-Scargill says.
About Time: There’s a head of steam around British watchmaking at the moment. Do you feel that, as a company?
Nicholas Bowman-Scargill: Definitely. I think it’s growing. And I think what’s really growing with it is self-belief. I remember a few years ago talking to [Christopher Ward founder] Mike France about this. Without wanting to sound negative on British brands, a lot of them have traditionally been quite hobbyist. And what we’re seeing now, and what collectors are seeing, is that a lot of brands are starting to professionalise. That doesn’t mean they become big corporates. We’re not going to wake up one day and find half the British watch industry is being bought out by one of the luxury groups, and everything’s become soulless. It’s the fact that companies are becoming more sustainable. They’re able to launch more new and interesting things. They're also able to employ more people. That’s incredible. If you’re someone who is into watches, who loves British watchmaking, and you work in finance or marketing or operations, now there are actually jobs appearing on LinkedIn for British watch companies. And there’s a general feeling of positivity around it. We’re not just using the old rhetoric of, “Oh, it’s British, therefore it’s best”. Because people don’t buy into that anymore. Globally there’s still a very positive feeling towards the British. But we have to earn it – and I think we are beginning to. People from abroad are experiencing British brands now, and they’re finding better service, better quality than they would have in previous years, which is great.
Mike France has talked about British watchmaking becoming a £1bn industry. Can you see a future where watches are fully made here, like Fears used to?
I think there is one. My hesitation is that it needs to be done where there’s a good, solid business case. In the past, a lot of the discussion of bringing watchmaking back to Britain and why we want to make these parts in Britain, has been very much marketing led. I’ll blame my degree in economics, but I'm a strong believer that for it to actually work, it’s got to first and primarily be for a business-led reason. Which means that we’re getting the same, if not better, quality than elsewhere at a lower price point – even when you remove the hassle of customs and duties.
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Brunswick 40.5 Jump Hour Coral Lacquer |
On the other hand, do normal people really care where the insides of their watch comes from? Obviously brands like to make a fuss about making things "in-house"... The order of the top five reasons why people buy a watch will change every single year. Five years ago, movement was very important. Nowadays the talk around in-house has very much subsided. Why is that?
I think there's a couple of reasons. It became broad knowledge that Swatch Group was going to stop supplying ETA movements to brands outside of the Group [In 2020, Switzerland's Competition Commission (COMCO) ruled that ETA would stop supplying its mechanical movements to other watchmakers. It had been bought five years earlier by the Swatch Group, home of Omega, Longines, Hamilton and others]. That started the whole rush [for other brands] to go in-house. But of course, it's much more expensive, and so a lot of the messaging and marketing and the perception was, “Well, if it’s in-house, it’s more expensive and therefore it’s better”. And I think people are now asking: ‘What do I want?” Do they want to buy a watch with an in-house movement that could be double the price and it may be more difficult to service and repair in the future? Also, in the last few years, [another popular movement maker] Sellita has improved vastly in quality. Their quality is vastly superior to most other movement manufacturers. We work with La Joux-Perret and their quality has grown massively. So, we’re now at a point where a lot of the people who started talking about in-house and manufacturer and all of that, go “Yes, this is lovely but actually, that's not how the industry worked”. You know, 60 or 70 years ago, the Swiss industry certainly bought movements in from movement makers. In-house was very much a preserve of only the finest independents. Patek [Philippe] in the 50s and 60s used to buy movements from other companies and then finish them and regulate them in-house. So I think there's more education now, which has removed quite a lot of the snobbery.
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Brunswick 38 Salmon; Brunswick 38 'Orchid'; Redcliff 39.5 Date Raven Black |
What’s Number One on the list for why people buy a watch this year?
I think we're going through a very, very strong dial phase. People are putting dials up there as one of the most important things. I mean, you saw the incredible pieces created for the Swiss auction, TimeForArt. You look at that Furlan Marri, you look at that piece done by Chanel. My designer and I have been non-stop chatting about that… And you go on Instagram and that’s what people are talking about with watches – dials.
What else is up there?
I do think being a British brand is an interesting point of difference. Intrinsic to Fears is our elegance and understatement and refinement, which are all very British traits. I’m sure a lot of people would argue that you walk down the high street today and most people are in tracksuits. But we do still have Savile Row. We still do that kind of level of refinement and class and sophistication, better, I believe, than anyone else in the world. Because we also do it with flavour and character. We’re not cold and too precise. You’ve seen enough people at the pub after an event in their dinner suit with their bow tie undone around their neck. We’re very good at playing that. So, I think being British is an interesting point for a lot of people. And I reckon, certainly by the end of this decade, that watch cases will become the Number One thing. I’m beginning to get this feeling that people are picking up on case construction, and finishing. At events, at shows, I’m getting this undercurrent of people touching, feeling, holding, and really examining the case in a way that two years ago, people would just have asked “What size is it?”
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It’s time to Uber it over to Clifton Village, one of the oldest and most affluent parts of Bristol, characterised by handsome Georgian terraces and well-to-do shops. In April Fears opened its first permanent boutique here – “No.4” – not far from where it was based in the 1940s and 1950s. Inside I meet boutique manager Todd Harding, poached from his job as brand specialist at Breguet on London’s Bond Street.
“The first couple of months people were walking in and saying, ‘I didn’t know Bristol had a watch brand’,” Harding says. “And then you tell people how old we are and it’s ‘Wow!’
“And then you have the watch lovers who have been waiting for us to open a boutique.”
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On display alongside Fears’ contemporary models is a cabinet featuring photos, ephemera and old timepieces – the latest acquisition being a gold pocket watch from 1888. Harding opens a bottle of fizz. “West of England local sparkling wine,” notes Bowman-Scargill. About Time: In the Fears’ book Elegantly Understated you quote your mum as saying you have the “watchmaking gene”. Do you believe that?
Nicholas Bowman-Scargill: Yes. I’ve been into watches since I was about eight years old. As a kid, I would go and look in the window [of watch shops]. And when I was a teenager, I would come up with all kinds of weird, elaborate stories to go in to jewellers and try on Rolexes and Pateks. Usually I’d be saying, “Oh, I'm going to be turning 16, and my godfather promised me a nice watch”. I’d be this gawky, gangly 16-year-old boy trying on these watches that there was no hope in hell I was ever going to own. I don't think that comes out of nowhere. Before I embarked on my watch career, I did three years in public relations, and before that I was training to become an investment banker. I’m not superstitious but I do believe that these things happen for a reason. You know, there is clearly something in my blood that draws me to that sort of precision, that sort of engineering, the sort of aesthetic. That’s the rare thing you get with watches. Watches are not just aesthetic. They are also engineering. It’s the left side of the brain and the right side of the brain coming together. And that's something I think I’ve had since I was a kid.
What did you learn from your time at Rolex that you’ve applied to Fears?
A strong sense of independence. I don’t think there’s a watch brand owner out there who wouldn't secretly, deep down in the deepest, darkest depths of their belly not want a bit of the Rolex magic. It is sublime. Even the people who hate it, admire it. But everyone looks at it through the marketing and the hype, and how many copycat Submariners there are. I worked for Rolex UK, in their head office, in the workshop. And you got this sense of: they know they’re doing well, but they don’t need to brag about it. It’s actually a very British thing. Let's actually be quite humble. So, inside the company is actually very humble and very self-aware.
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Brunswick Midas II; Brunswick 40 Silver; Brunswick 38 Salmon; Brunswick 40 'Aurora' |
What else?
They do not follow trends, and they’re big enough that they are a trendsetter. There have been many times when people have been going, “Well, why are they not doing this, and instead sticking with something totally different?” And this isn't a new idea. They've been doing this decade after decade after decade, when it would have been so much easier to have followed the masses. I think the other thing is, they have strengthened their conviction with what they make. I mentioned we’ve got a model which has been in our catalogue for seven years. Over those years, we've upgraded the components – it’s got a more refined case, an upgraded dial, hands, strap, etc. But I don't think I know of many other brands other than Rolex who have the same model running for that amount of time. You’ve got to have the strength of your convictions. If you want to buy a date dive watch from Rolex, you’ve got the Submariner in black, or the Submariner in black with a green bezel. If you go to Omega and say “I would like a steel dive watch with a date” we're going to be here until next Monday, right? If you go to Rolls-Royce, they offer you very few models – the Phantom, the Cullinan, the Dawn, the Wraith, the Spectre, or the Ghost with a long wheelbase. How many models do BMW and Mercedes make today? So, these are things I’ve taken on board. When we launch a new model, we don’t need to do it with 25 dial colours. We don't need to offer it in every size under the sun. It's having the confidence and getting people to understand that you really do understand what you’re doing. And therefore, they should trust you and believe in that.
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1946 advert, celebrating Fears's centenary and its "High Grade Wrist Watches For Men" |
Dinner has been booked at The Ivy, a five-minute walk away. Bowman-Scargill orders glasses of champagne, before moving on to the Martinis. From this point I confess memories become a little sketchy, at least for me.
After the fourth – fifth? – cocktail Bowman-Scargill appears entirely unfazed, however, holding court as eloquently as ever on subjects including the annual Cunard cruise he's about to embark on with his mum; the collapse of Enron; the importance of manners; how he started reading the Financial Times aged 12; the films of Anne Hathaway; kitchen renovations; and the best way to tell your husband you’ve just used the joint account to buy a signed Lowry. There is also a quite remarkable story about how he got Fears through the 2020 covid lockdown. Realising that the best-case scenario would be that he would have to lay off his staff, Bowman-Scargill stopped paying himself a wage.
To make ends meet he took whatever job he could.
That turned out to be the 2am-8am shift at Asda, picking home-delivery orders off the shelves. Every day for three months he woke up at 12.30am, showered, shaved and made breakfast, and started his shift at the supermarket. On the second day his car broke down. Without any way to repair it, he added a two-and-a-half hour walk into the mix.
During daytime hours, he’d continue to run Fears, often squeezing in an Instagram Live to sell the brand to a suddenly watch-hungry demographic trapped inside their homes. His story made the Daily Mail. When the time came to hand back the Asda uniform his boss complimented him on his work ethic.
“They did point out that I was 20 per cent quicker than anyone else,” he says. To be honest, it's the least surprising part of the story. |
Hermano da Silva Ramos's Audemars Piguet Royal Oak |
French-Brazilian F1 driver Hermano da Silva Ramos really is the last of his kind. Now 98, he is one of two surviving participants of 1955's ill-fated 24 Hours of Le Mans. His personal life has been equally interesting – wives include a celebrated Swiss supermodel and the daughter of the president of the Bank of Brazil. He also has an eye for a nice watch. His circa 1974 Royal Oak "A series Jumbo" ref. 5402ST is up for sale at Sotheby's Paris Fine Watches Sale next week. Although interested parties will need to put their foot down. Bidding shuts on Wednesday, and at the time of writing stands at €28,000.
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