British watch brand firing on all cylinders
Recent visitors to the Square Mile’s super-exclusive Royal Exchange shopping mall will have noticed a new next-door neighbour to Watchfinder’s pre-owned WF&Co boutique, its window populated by an ejector seat and a model of Louis Blériot’s Channel-hopping XI of 1909. But rather than selling Airfix kits, this is the second London boutique for Bremont – a British pilot-watch brand that has not so much taken off in its 10 years as gone stratospheric. Its two flyboy founding brothers, the appropriately named Giles and Nick English have been canny with their aviation hook-ups, to the point where 40 per cent of the firm’s Henley-on-Thames factory’s output is officially commissioned by military squadrons worldwide. However, the latest deal to be landed by the former City-boys is treading Civvy Street, with none other than Boeing. Soon, in among their core collection of rugged, super-precise mechanical chronometers, we are promised a new breed of Bremonts boasting advanced material technology, thanks to the brand being granted extensive access to Boeing’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre in Sheffield. bremont.com