British invasion
It took the English brothers two plane crashes. The first one was in 1995, when the millionaire adventurer brood of Giles, Nick and their father Euan were practicing for an air display. The 1942 World War II Harvard aircraft they were flying crashed. It took Euan instantly; Nick survived. “He broke over 30 bones and was in intensive care for many months,” Giles, having witnessed everything from the ground, tells the story during the Manila launch of their exclusive watch company Bremont Chronometers now carried by brothers Ivan and Emerson Yao’s high-end watch retailer Lucerne.
The English patriarch loved building things but his biggest passion was watches and clocks. As Giles reminisces, “He would say, ‘Here’s an old clock, fix it.’ It took us weeks and months to realize we couldn’t fix it — and we loved it.”
Their father’s passing had the brothers grappling for some way to be with their father again.They learned life is, indeed, too short. “When Nick came out of the hospital, we swore we were going to live our lives and follow our passion.”
Three years after their father’s passing the English brothers were back in the air, this time flying through France — which is where the second crash happened. They had to land in a farmer’s field, and just when they were anticipating arrest, the farmer offered his hangar and saved the brothers’ lives as he kept them under his wing while inclement weather persisted for days. “This guy was in his 80s, he restores his tractors, he had his own motorbike, he’s a real character. If our father had been a farmer, it would be this man, this chap Antoine Bremont.”
Shouldn’t it be Swiss?
Asian watch expert Su Jia Xian — more popularly known as SJX — was present to shed light on British watchmaking history, which counts the minute repeater, perpetual calendar and Greenwich Mean Time as its inventions. It was really the Longitude Act, when the British government offered money to clockmakers in the 18th century, that secured its spot, riling up its best talents. “To know where to go, you need to know the time precisely anywhere in the world, otherwise you end up in the wrong place,” he explains. Out of this, John Harrison invented the chronometer for the navy to chart exact positioning.
Chronometers denote watches whose Swiss movements have passed a rigorous 15-day accuracy test by the independent observatory Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres in Switzerland and subsequently are awarded with a certificate allowing them to carry the lettering “Chronometer.” Since 2002, Bremont only makes chronometer watches and is now the 12th largest producer in the world of them.
“As a brand, we have that British spirit of adventure ever since John Harrison invented the marine clock and really grew the British empire, exploring from a small country without colonizing,” Giles says.
The brothers design the watches. By 2010, Bremont started bringing infrastructure back to the UK across two sites, one where watches are surface-hardened by a British engineering outfit working with the F1. While Bremont relies on Swiss movements (from Sellita and ETA), in 2015 Bremont recruited the talented Stephen McDonnell to lead its watchmaking efforts (he devised the MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual).
Bremont grew by collaborating with top British brands. Before the idea of a watch with Jaguar came about, for five years, Bremont built clocks for them, including The Queen’s cars as well as a pocket watch that Jaguar gave to Prince Philip for the Jubilee Celebration. Bremont is worn by Colin Firth throughout Kingsman: The Secret Service. Bear Grylls and Ewan McGregor wore them. More than great PR, Bremont saw how the watches fare out in the field.
The military connection
“Our whole ethos was to create a classical British aviation watch that could be worn in a boardroom or on Mount Everest,” says English. Now, 20 to 25 percent of Bremont’s business is making watches for the military. On Bremont’s military Instagram account (@bremontmilitary) are reposts of selfies the pilots have proudly uploaded. “You don’t wear a mechanical watch for an accurate time. When you’re flying an aircraft, you’re surrounded by GPS systems and time systems. To the second, you’re relying on your GPS. For pilots, legibility is key. Then there’s brand identity. When you’re a pilot there may be 30 to 40 different squadrons in the aircraft carrier all dressed the same. What differentiates those guys are their watches. If you’re flying an FA18 for five years of your life, the rest of your life, you talk about those five years. Having that watch on your wrist is the ultimate memory of you flying.”
The watch as a status symbol
Bremont Asia general manager Peter Lao shares, “In a lot of Asian markets, they buy something because a brand is a certain status symbol. There are those, on the other hand, who have already obtained that status and are comfortable with that status. They explore brands that not everybody else has to differentiate themselves. They see Bremont and learn about Nick and Giles’ adventurous spirit that drives their entrepreneurial spirit — they both do everything themselves, and a lot of businessmen identify with that. I see this in the Philippines. In our other markets around Asia, we don’t have events like this one where the VIPs want to hear about the story. They talk about making their life count. And Bremont, a brand for adventurers and explorers, talks about how life is too short. Anything can happen tomorrow. Do what’s going to make you happy.”
At the end of the day it still has to be a fantastic watch. And that, Bremont is.
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In the Philippines, Bremont is exclusively distributed by Lucerne on the second Level of Shangri-La Plaza main wing, EDSA Corner Shaw Boulevard, Ortigas Center, Mandaluyong.
