Round up of 2018 for Mr Jones Watches
Happy new year!
I’d like to start by taking a moment to thank you for all of your support through 2018. It was a record-breaking year for our small business and we couldn’t have done it without all of your support, so thank you.
We had some of our best designs last year - that sold out in record-breaking time.
A look back at 2018...
The year really started for us with a stunning design by one of our previous watchmakers (now full-time jewellery designer maker) Dovile B. Sekretas was a hand-made beauty, limited to just 50 pieces it sold out very quickly.
The next watch of the year was equally unique and designed by Crispin (Mr Jones). Inspired by the nature that he often spotted in his home city of London, and using the Sun and Moon mechanism, Crispin designed the Hidden City.
In May of 2018, we released the beautiful watch Ka 火. This watch was designed by French Verre Églomisé artist, Marion Labbez and is the third in a series of watches Marion designed for us. Her previous being Chinoiserie and Nuage. It was limited edition to 50 pieces and it's now sold out.
June saw the re-launch of our Oxo Tower shop! We’d had the shop for almost ten years and it hadn’t changed much over that time, so we worked with the talented architect Ieva Bartkeviciute to create a new look for the space and we were really pleased with the results. We hosted a little party to celebrate and some of our London-based customers joined us.
The Number Cruncher watch was our next limited edition release of 2018. This cute monster sold out in less than 24 hours! It was designed by character designer Onorio D’epiro and we absolutely loved it! You can see Onorio talking about his work below (as well as being very talented, he’s also a really great guy!)
In the summer we worked with the talented artist and typographer Vic Lee, to create the Dream Maker watch. This design was the first limited edition to go into an XL case. Vic previously designed Fantastic Exploits for us, so we were excited to work with him for a second design. There are a few Dream Maker’s left here.
After the success of the limited edition watch, we asked Onorio to make a few tweaks to the Number Cruncher design so we could re-issue it as part of our permanent collection. We’re pleased to say it has remained one of our most popular designs! See it here. Onorio will be working with us on a second design at some point in 2019, so keep your eyes peeled! (Or sign up to our mailing list here and you’ll be one of the first to know about it).
In September we were excited to do a pop up at Design Junction for the London Design Festival! We met some fantastic people at the event and introduced our little brand to lots of new customers.
We also welcomed three new members to our small team last year!
Ellie started in September. She works tirelessly in our shop Monday to Friday processing and packing all of your orders. Ellie also does a great job of managing all of our customer service enquiries, so if you’ve emailed us in the past few months, or visited our shop, you’ve probably spoken to her already!
We also welcomed Olivia. She’s a very talented marketing student and she assists Emily with marketing the Mr Jones Watches business one day a week. You might see her in the Oxo Tower shop some weekends too.
The talented jewellery designer Catherine joined our small production team in October. She works with Elena to assemble all of our limited edition and London made watches. You can see her distinctive and beautiful jewellery here.
Autumn’s Riches was the next watch released in 2018. It was the second design by Dovile B, inspired by her first watch Sekretas. This watch was handmade again and very delicate - there are just a few left in stock, and you can see them here.
In December we launched an exciting new website, exclusively for the United States. This was following a lot of feedback we’d received about concerns about paying in different currencies, exchange rates and fees etc. Now our customers in the United States are able to purchase our watches in US$ and even get next day delivery if they want it! How cool is that?!
We finished the year with another design by our in-house print technician, Paul Wardski. Paul is an award-winning print artist and he created 100 different very beautiful designs for Vertigo. Unsurprisingly, this watch sold out very quickly! Back in 2017, Paul also designed Wanderlust for us, you can see it here.
What’s in store for 2019
We try to go with the flow and we don’t plan too far in advance but there are a few exciting things we’re working on already…
One thing I can tell you about is this year we’ll be releasing our 100th design (I know, crazy, right?) So Crispin (Mr Jones) is working on something special for this right now.
Remember to sign up to our mailing list if you want to be the first to hear about all of our new designs and if you fancy £10 off your first order!
What was your favourite design in 2018? Let me know in the comments below ↓
