CHRISTOPHER WARD
When Mike France, Peter Ellis and Chris Ward – three entrepreneurial British horophiles – established the Christopher Ward dial name in 2004, e-commerce was largely regarded with suspicion by the industry. “The main intent was to take the middle man out of the process and deal directly with the consumer via a website,” France once told me during an interview for The Daily Telegraph.
“We were one of the few companies shaking the tree and I genuinely think we spearheaded a trend.”
Operating from its Maidenhead HQ, Christopher Ward launched its first watch, the C5 Malvern, in 2005. It soon gained traction thanks to positive reviews on internet forums and, in 2008, the brand upped its game by collaborating with Swiss movement maker Synergies-Horlogères to introduce a mechanical chronograph to its collection, the C7 Rapide. But it was the official merger with Synergies-Horlogères in 2014 that really established Christopher Ward as a serious player in the mechanical watch game, a place it sealed with the introduction of its first in-house movement, the Calibre SH21, which was developed by a young, 20-something watchmaker called Johannes Jahnke.