‘It was at Gaydon that the pair first saw the Aston Martin collection, whose dashboards proved significant for the design development of the C3 Malvern Chronograph’


the business model, Chris Ward, Mike France and Peter Ellis came up with the idea for their watch company on a boat on the River Thames early in 2004. Chris was the watch aficionado, while Mike and Peter were expert retailers – they had owned specialist store group, Early Learning Centre. At this point the business had no name and no products, but it did have a concept – to sell top quality English designed watches made with precision Swiss movements at accessible prices. The trio was determined that the company would focus on elegant, understated English design and styling that would resonate with customers. So the starting point was looking


at quintessentially British traits – from Elgar’s music to the typically English countryside of the Malvern


Chris Ward (above left)and Mike France discuss progress during the creative process. Inspiration mood boards for the C5Malvern (above) are working documents that everyone in the team contributed towards.


Hills. Not only did Malvern provide the eventual name for the first watches, but the rolling hills led to a design in which every visible element is rounded, from the date window to the two-piece dials and hour markers.


Chris and Mike also spent happy hours researching ideas for watch design at venues and museums, such as the Heritage Motor Museum in Gaydon in Warwickshire.


It was at Gaydon that the pair first


saw the Aston Martin collection, whose dashboards proved significant for the design development of the C3 Malvern Chronograph, and which were the inspirational kernel for the later Grand Prix series concept. It possibly also helped that Mike had


just placed an order for an Aston Martin DB9!


By the summer of 2004 they were working out of an office in London’s Soho where the walls were soon covered in a meleé of inspirational mood boards, tear offs and post it notes. From these first design thoughts, rough sketches were created. And at this point they started working with Adam Devey- Smith, founder of the London based consultancy The One Off. Chris says: “Adam had worked with Bentley, the British Design Council and other well known British brands and we thought it would be great to bring some fresh eyes to English watch design.” The One Off supported the


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