Why we started Mr Jones Watches (and why boring watches had to go)
Once upon a time, your watch was one of the most useful things you owned.
Need to know the time? Look at your wrist.
Today? Most of us instinctively reach for our phones instead.
That simple shift changed everything.
If a watch no longer needs to be the quickest way to tell the time, then what should it be?
When Crispin Jones founded Mr Jones Watches in 2007, that question was at the heart of the brand. Rather than treating a watch as a status symbol or another piece of jewellery, he saw it as an opportunity to say something, make someone smile or simply look at time a little differently.
His earliest designs weren’t just about displaying the hour, they questioned what a watch could be in the first place.
That philosophy still guides everything we do today.
We don’t set out to make watches that look like somebody else’s. (They’re already doing a perfectly good job of that.) Instead, we collaborate with artists, illustrators and designers from around the world to create watches with personality.
Pieces that tell stories, start conversations or simply brighten a painfully ordinary Tuesday.
Some make you think.
Some make you laugh.
Some ask you to slow down and be present for a moment.
They’re all a reminder that the objects we wear every day don’t have to be predictable.
That’s why you’ll find skulls whose teeth tell the time. Cats chasing birds across city skylines. Robots playing endless games of pinball. Surreal landscapes, hidden jokes, moving stories and more than a few designs that leave people asking, “Hang on… how do you actually read it?”
For us, that’s part of the fun!
A watch can do more than count the hours. It can spark a conversation with a stranger. Celebrate an artist’s imagination. Capture a memory. Make you smile every time you glance at your wrist.
It can even change how you feel about time itself.
We’re often asked why our watches are so different.
The answer is simple.
We don’t think time is boring.
So why should watches be?
After all, if you’re going to wear it every day, shouldn’t it make you feel something?
