Inside Christopher Ward with Senior VP Mike Pearson | Bel Canto, The Twelve, Loco & What’s Next | Ep.15

Where do you think the line sits between designing in an established category and becoming derivative?

I think it's about the wearer, right? You've got to look at it and see different things.

I mean, you could listen to one song.

You and I could listen to the same song and I might hear The Queen, you might hear Stones, you might hear Beatles, but I might hate it, you might love it, and you might not ever listen to it again.

It's all individual tastes.

But if you get really deep into it, does it matter to everybody else as long as it matters to you? What I do know is that when you go to Chris Ford HQ and then you go to Beale and you see the design team in England and the engineers in Switzerland, and these guys spend three years on the true D&T, three and a half years to perfect it, or you see what's coming out in 2028 on the screen in front of you, you've got CAD models in front of you, you've got drawings, you've got hand sketches.

And all of it happens from a level of a pen and a paper, a pen and a piece of paper, and you get an idea.

And it's not because we're putting a watch next to it and going, boom.

It's like, what if we did this? And then around it, there are colours and inspirations from all walks of life, be it a sunset, a sunrise, a watch from yesteryear, a bracelet from a piece of jewellery.

And then you take it and make it a Christopher Ward within the light catcher case with the logo, the way that we do our finishing on the dials, the materials we've and the finishing we use for those materials on the dials.

It's a load of things.

But what's tough is, again, when you look at a white, black, and blue dial, how many times can you make a round watch look different? But to the eye of the beholder, on an Instagram screen, that's tough.

But on the wrist, in that moment, it's only about you.

But those moments happen because of three to five years of work from really special people.

That Trigger GMT is going to be my next

Christopher Ward.

Which colour?

Silver or black dial? Black dial.

i love them but they are we have we were talking about them on the podcast before gorgeous watches it's

been a weird one it's been it's been one of those ones that people have gone oh my god it's so that's been the one model in the three years i'm like it's just night and day in real life absolutely nice and day i'm glad you like it

oh i love it i can't wait question dear so could christopher ward have launched the 12 10 years earlier or did the brand have to be in the right place to release that sort of watch do you think

Well, we've done ultra slims in the past.

We've had integrated styles in the past, but I don't think the finishing of the steel and the titanium could have been done like we do it today, 10 years ago.

Yeah.

So we've, we've had, like I said, there's, there's certain models that have kind of moved you through, but when the 12 came out, we were ready.

Where do you think the line sits between designing in an established category and becoming derivative?

I think it's about the wearer, right? You've got to look at it and see different things.

I mean, you could listen to one song.

You and I could listen to the same song and I might hear The Queen, you might hear Stones, you might hear Beatles, but I might hate it, you might love it, and you might not ever listen to it again.

It's all individual tastes.

But if you get really deep into it, does it matter to everybody else as long as it matters to you? What I do know is that when you go to Chris Ford HQ and then you go to Beale and you see the design team in England and the engineers in Switzerland, and these guys spend three years on the true D&T, three and a half years to perfect it, or you see what's coming out in 2028 on the screen in front of you, you've got CAD models in front of you, you've got drawings, you've got hand sketches.

And all of it happens from a level of a pen and a paper, a pen and a piece of paper, and you get an idea.

And it's not because we're putting a watch next to it and going, boom.

It's like, what if we did this? And then around it, there are colours and inspirations from all walks of life, be it a sunset, a sunrise, a watch from yesteryear, a bracelet from a piece of jewellery.

And then you take it and make it a Christopher Ward within the light catcher case with the logo, the way that we do our finishing on the dials, the materials we've and the finishing we use for those materials on the dials.

It's a load of things.

But what's tough is, again, when you look at a white, black, and blue dial, how many times can you make a round watch look different? But to the eye of the beholder, on an Instagram screen, that's tough.

But on the wrist, in that moment, it's only about you.

But those moments happen because of three to five years of work from really special people.

That Trigger GMT is going to be my next

Christopher Ward.

Which colour?

Silver or black dial? Black dial.

i love them but they are we have we were talking about them on the podcast before gorgeous watches it's

been a weird one it's been it's been one of those ones that people have gone oh my god it's so that's been the one model in the three years i'm like it's just night and day in real life absolutely nice and day i'm glad you like it

oh i love it i can't wait question dear so could christopher ward have launched the 12 10 years earlier or did the brand have to be in the right place to release that sort of watch do you think

Well, we've done ultra slims in the past.

We've had integrated styles in the past, but I don't think the finishing of the steel and the titanium could have been done like we do it today, 10 years ago.

Yeah.

So we've, we've had, like I said, there's, there's certain models that have kind of moved you through, but when the 12 came out, we were ready.