Peter Cho was in his Deep Ellum office in 2022, getting a demonstration of a new watch movement, the guts of a wristwatch, when one little feature made him change Jack Mason’s entire business model: if you pulled out and turned the crown, the hour hand moved in one-hour increments. Watch nerds know why that’s a big deal. It means a GMT watch—one with four hands, so you can track two time zones—is a “true” GMT, not a “caller” GMT. For most people, this is a ridiculous feature that has no bearing on what makes a watch cool. So you have to trust me when I tell you that enthusiasts—watch-obsessive buyers, sellers, and collectors like me—think this is a big deal. It’s a feature that until recently came with watches that cost $2,000 or more.
So when Cho was shown this new, more affordable movement by Miyota, he figured he could sell such a watch for about half the traditional cost. That’s when he realized that Jack Mason, whose watches had sold in the sub-$700 range, could level up and play with the big boys. Cho decided that day to take the firm he co-founded in 2015 from a designer brand (think Fossil) to a true entry-level luxury microbrand (Farer, Formex, etc.). In 2022, he introduced the Strat-o-timer GMT, housing that Miyota movement, featuring several higher-end upgrades (nicer bracelet), and sold it for $999. The first 500 watches sold out before he could get one shipped.
“That moment, it was a crossroads for us,” Cho says. Going online retail instead of in-store just before the pandemic hit had saved the firm in 2020. But this was a chance to redefine the company’s future, and it seems an even greater milestone in retrospect. “We were like, OK, are we going to go hardcore into the enthusiast space? Because now we have the perfect weapon to do so.”
The GMT watch brought Jack Mason to the attention of enthusiasts who weren’t just value shopping for pretty jewelry, collectors who wanted to strap high-quality watches on their wrists for less than the four to six grand it takes to buy an entry-level Breitling, Tudor, or Omega. People like me. Like a lot of watch nerds, I got into watches during the pandemic. (And cameras. And knives. Online shopping is evil.) I started with buying a $500 Seiko Prospex diver off Amazon and eventually ended up buying and selling dozens of new and used watches off eBay, Reddit, and Chrono24, ranging from vintage cool (Breitling Navitimer Cosmonaute) to trusted tool (Sinn 104), from cheap and iconic (beaten-up Seiko SKX007) to expensive and same (Rolex Explorer 40).
“We were like, OK, are we going to go hardcore into the enthusiast space? Because now we have the perfect weapon to do so.”
I knew about Jack Mason early in my watch collecting, finding them online because I had searched for a Texas microbrand I could support. A Dallas brand, even better. Truth is, I didn’t love the watches. I bought one diver for a few hundred, then sold it after wearing it a few times. The looks were solid but familiar, without the distinctive design language that sets some microbrands apart. (The unique colors of Farer, for example.)
Cho acknowledges as much, pointing out that although he has 20 years of watch design experience—working at Movado and Fossil before co-founding Jack Mason, he also has enough brand savvy to accept that familiar touches sell watches. There is a reason the Pepsi and Batman bezels (red/blue and blue/black, respectively) on Jack Mason’s GMTs are its bestsellers. People don’t go broke paying homage to Rolex.
But now Jack Mason is selling watches I want: the Strat-o-timer; its diver cousin, the Hydrotimer (also $729); and the recently released Swiss-made movement, three-hander sports watch, the Canton ($1,500). They offer great value, feature-packed with the modern touches (ratcheting clasp, date window at 6 o’clock, nearly three-day power reserve on the Canton) that watch nerds chat about on forums. This brings them into competition with heritage brands I adore that offer similar watches for significantly more money, such as Longines’ gorgeous but $3,000-plus Spirit Zulu Time GMT.
I’m just one watch nerd. But Cho thinks I’m indicative of an enthusiast horde waiting to fall in love with a Texas brand. “I’m building an army,” Cho says. “And that army is full of Texans. I’m just so convinced that we have this opportunity to where we can get the entire state of Texas to back us. Only Texans understand the connection that Texans have with each other. To me, that is something really special.”
Next year, he hopes, Jack Mason’s 10-year anniversary releases, including a planned collaboration with Dr Pepper, will further spread the brand ID. “Every time a new customer comes in, they’re like, Yeah, I just want to support something Texas. So why don’t we allow them to do that but with a brand that is actually of high quality? Then we go from a Texas success story to an American success story.”
This story originally appeared in the November issue of D Magazine with the headline “Time Will Tell.” Write to feedback@dmagazine.com.
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