The Fourth Wheel, Issue 64

What's it like running a young watch brand? With Fears MD Nicholas Bowman-Scargill

Hello and welcome back to The Fourth Wheel, the weekly watch newsletter that is back to publishing on a Friday. If you missed the last newsletter, you missed the news that my wife and I spent last week in hospital as our second child was born. A boy, happy and healthy, and we could not be more pleased. It does mean my eye is not quite so keenly fixed on the watchmaking world as usual, so the recommended links and miscellaneous nonsense aren’t quite in such plentiful supply. The watch world tends to take August off anyway, so all things considered it’s worked out quite well.

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As mentioned a while ago, I’m keen for The Fourth Wheel to be more than simply a reaction to the week’s events, although that element will never disappear. We write so much about the watch industry, yet so much of what we hear from those who work in it is heavily filtered: one of my ideas is to put together a series of insider accounts that give an honest picture of what it’s really like. We start with the managing director of Fears Watches, Nicholas Bowman-Scargill, someone who while being extremely polite still manages to be scrupulously honest¹. Fears has been going from strength to strength in the last two years - well placed to embrace the return of dressier styles, for one thing - yet the always-travelling, always-on MD still found time to give us an insight into his daily life.

A Day in the Life of Nicholas Bowman-Scargill

6am

Every week of the year I pack my Carl Friedrick suitcase at least once. Either for my weekly commute from my home in York down 200 miles to the Fears HQ in Bristol, or for heading abroad to meet with collectors, retailers and media which I do at least once a month.

A result of all this moving around is my love of a solid routine, which means waking up at 6am each morning and going for a jog while my phone is still on airplane mode. No possibility of distractions help me clear my brain and daydream. When running a company you need to always be dreaming of what you’d like to achieve and this is the perfect time of day to do it.