How Jack Mason Became One of America's Most Exciting Watch Brands

Welcome to The Micro Collector, a podcast where I talk with the founders and operators behind some of the most exciting microbrands and independent watch companies. I'm your host, Justin Dorfman, and in today's episode, I'm joined by Peter Cho, co-founder and designer of Jack Mason, a Dallas-based independent watch brand that has become one of the most exciting American enthusiast brands in the space today. Jack Mason's story is a fascinating one. Because in many ways it mirrors the emergence of the modern microbrand watch segment itself, from the rise of direct-to-consumer and enthusiast-driven brands to the increasing focus on thoughtful product design and building deeper connections with collectors. Before launching Jack Mason in 2015, Peter spent years designing watches at both the Movado Group and Fossil Group, giving him a unique perspective on both the traditional watch industry and the changing landscape that would eventually give rise to today's enthusiast-focused brands. In this conversation, we talk about the journey of building Jack Mason, from launching the brand out of a restored Airstream and landing Nordstrom as an early retail partner, to the pivotal launch of the Strat-o-timer GMT and the brand's evolution into one of the standout American enthusiast brands. We also discuss Peter's long-term vision for Jack Mason. And its role in helping reestablish America as a global watchmaking powerhouse. If you enjoy the episode, be sure to subscribe for more conversations with the people behind these incredible watch brands. And with that, please enjoy my conversation with Peter Cho of Jack Mason.

All right, Peter, welcome to The Micro Collector Podcast. I am super excited to have you on today.

Thanks for having me on Justin, it's a pleasure to be here.

Absolutely. I have to tell you, as you know, I have done some research to put together some questions and sort of structure this conversation or guide this conversation. I've been really looking forward to this conversation over the last week because into my research, I learned so much about Jack Mason that I didn't know that I'm excited to dig into with you. But also, in some way, I feel like Jack Mason's journey parallels this sort of emergence of the microbrand space, right? Which is a space that I'm super passionate about. So again, really appreciative that you've taken the time to chat today and excited to dig in and learn more about the Jack Mason story.

Yeah, no, I'm excited to tell the story. I mean, I've told it a million times, but it is a very unique story. So I'm eager to dig into it.

Well, maybe to start, for those that aren't familiar with the story, maybe not even familiar with you or Jack Mason, take us back. What's your background? And I always like asking, how did you first get into watches? What was sort of the moment that got you interested and excited about watches?

Yeah, so my story personally is not, it's a little bit, it's different. I was not a watch. It doesn't have, I don't have that romantic story of I had a family heirloom or, you know, my grandfather got me into watches and my father got me into, I don't have that. I discovered this on my own. And the way that happened was I grew up is sort of very much exposed in the art and design world. My dad's an artist. Well, he was an artist. And my whole dad's side of the family are very creative individuals. My uncles, they were also painters and things like that. And so it was just kind of in my blood, this bone for having just artistic ability and just being in the creative space.

I knew that I wanted to go to a design school. And so I ended up attending the Parsons School of Design in New York City, which is a nice reputable university, mostly known for their fashion design, but they do have a really nice industrial design program. And so I went there at that time. So let's see, I attended from 2002 to 2006 and Even at that time, if think about it's a long time ago, but not that long ago. At that time, technology wasn't like what it was today. Things like these AirPods that didn't exist, the iPhone did not exist. And a lot of the ID students, the industrial design students, you go thinking that, want to work for a tech company. I actually have drawings somewhere of sketches that I made of CD players.

Yeah, mini-discs, mini-disc players and things like that. And then once I graduated, I fortunately got offered a job at the Movado Group. The Movado Group is, they're right across the Hudson River in New Jersey. And I took on this assistant designer role and that's what got me into watches. And it just completely blew my mind, this world that I just didn't know existed, and it just so happened to be the absolute perfect product category for me, just because I'm just a super detail-oriented person. So working in millimeters and looking at tiny little finishing details and all that sort of stuff, it really was right on my alley. So that's how I first got into it.

And I had seen that you spent time at both Movado and it looks like Fossil as well. So you got sort of that experience that, I mean, I guess these are the two major US based watch companies in our generation, right? Tell me a little bit about that experience at both companies and sort of what it exposed you to and what you took from that experience that sort of fed the rest of your journey as you went on to build Jack Mason and build your own brand.

Yeah, so for starters, Movado Group and Fossil Group, yes, as you mentioned, the two biggest sort of players in the US, mainly due to the fact that they own so many licensed brands. So at that point in time, when you think about all the fashion watches that you see in malls, like Hugo Boss, Tommy Hilfiger, DKNY Michael Kors was a huge thing a long time ago. These kind of dominated that, at least that, that fashion watch space. And so my time at Movado, I bopped around several of their brands, intentionally trying to gain experience. And actually at one point during my time at Movado, I was fortunate enough to spend time in Switzerland in La Chaux-de-Fonds, which is kind of a mecca of watchmaking. And they had a Swiss office there. So I spent some time working out of that office and working with more seasoned watch designers. And it was at that point when I really started to grow an appreciation for more of the art and design side of watches. Cause they just kind of, I mean, we all kind of know the Swiss culture. They view it as pieces of art. And so I took a lot of, I grew a love for it. At that time and I knew this is what I really wanted to do for a long time. So upon returning to the US, I spent a couple more years at Movado and then I decided I needed to gain a little bit more experience with regards to different types of brands and different types of demographics. And so I was primarily focused on men's watches. And the last project that I actually worked on at Movado was a really exciting one. I don't know if you're familiar, but there's a, line in Movado, which still exists today is called Movado Bold. And Movado Bold at that time, was completely, a completely different and new, category for them because, they wanted to target more of the younger demographic and infuse more color into the product because. It's, Movado was always known for, it's old, it's for old people. I mean, very much Northeast kind of style and all that sort of stuff. So this was a really cool, innovative sort of approach to the brand. And myself and a couple of other designers, we were tasked with launching this brand. And so we did the whole, we designed the entire collection and we were able to go to market with it and it was a raging success.

And from there, I then decided, okay, well now I want to learn a little bit more about the women's watch industry. And so I took a job on the Michele watch, Michele watches, which was owned by Fossil Group. And that's what brought me to Texas, Dallas, Texas. And it was there when I started to be more exposed with the women's side of the business, which is completely different. And not only was it a women's brand, It was very much about the glitz and glamour. Was all about mother of pearl. It was about using little diamonds and things like that. Was honestly, it was a lot of fun because it was so much more about cosmetics than it was functionality and things like that. Yeah, and then from there, I worked on, participated on several other brands. At that point in time, Fossil was a mega giant group and they kept bringing on additional brands. During my time there, they brought on the Karl Lagerfeld brand, which I helped launch the Tory Burch brand, which I helped launch. So I kind of had a knack for being able to launch new brands due to my experience, which was really great. Then, you know, all throughout the years of my experience, I kind of always had an idea in the back of my head of what would my own brand look like? And I knew this was the direction that I've always wanted to go in.

And it just never materialized until I met a couple of other who then became my business partners and the timing and everything kind of worked out to where we decided to launch Jack Mason in 2015.

Wow what a journey. You know, I had one of those Movado Bold watches. I remember buying it at Nordstrom actually, I'm pretty sure. And it was really cool. I had been eyeing it for a while. Remember it. I think I still have it somewhere. It was like an all black watch. So black case and black strap. And then it had this like bright purple sort of the circle, you know, the little circle that, and it was one that I remember sort of staring at. Over and over again every time I went into Nordstrom and then eventually made that purchase. So I remember that very, very clearly. And

Yeah, yeah, that's cool. That's cool.

I'm also very familiar with some of the female, the women's brands that you mentioned. My wife is really into watches. So she's had Michele, she's had Michael Kors. So what a cool experience because I think you've gotten, you got both sides, right? You got the launching of new brands, got the Swiss background, right? And being able to see how it's done in sort of the Mecca of Swiss watchmaking. And then you've got, know, the, I think from the women's watches, you know, the proportions, the materials and all of these different things that I think, you know, as I think about Jack Mason, I start to see how things come together into that brand. Tell us a little bit about that, more about that. So, you know, I could see that sort of yearning to create something of your own. It's not the usual thing, right? Especially at that point in time, there weren't a lot of people branching out and starting their own watch brands, right? So what gave you the confidence to do it and sort of, yeah, what was that moment where you're like, I'm ready to actually take this leap and start my own brand?

Yeah. So at that time, know, Movado group and Fossil group were just absolutely thriving in the fashion space, fashion watch space. And when you walk into an Nordstrom or any sort of big box retailer, the case, the watch case is pretty much 50-50 owned by Fossil or Movado. And so what that meant was a lot of the watches started looking the same because it's all trend driven. And in fact, these companies were so big, they literally had the power to shift trends because they owned eight or 10 brands each. And so if they decided one day, Hey, you know, purple is going to be the new trend. Well, then they just give the directive let's do purple across the board. And then all of a sudden that's the trend, you know? And so, um, and you know, during that time, I, uh, uh, as I mentioned, I kind of started conceptualizing ideas on you know, what really, what was it that I personally liked? And me, generally speaking, I'm an extremely classic kind of guy. I'm not really huge into the latest trends and from a fashion standpoint and all that. And I typically are, I'm more drawn towards the classics. And so, you know, as my time at these more corporate environments started coming to an end, it, At that point in time, I knew, look, if I were to start my own brand, I want to start by just sticking to the classics and executing really well. And so that's when the idea started popping up of, well, a lot of these brands that owned by Fossil and Movado are fashion houses. They're massive fashion companies that just launch watches as an accessory. And so none of them are actual original watch companies. And so we thought, well, why don't we enter the market as an independent watch brand from day one, but live in that space and create something that's a little bit of higher quality. And with, of course there's always a budget, but not trying to think about high margin dollars per se, you know, let's just really make sure the product is right. And so our timing happened to be impeccable, which was not necessarily on purpose. It's just one of those lucky things. And so we felt, okay, this is the moment in time we got to do this. And we went to market. And so I launched with these different buckets of watch classics. So an aviation watch. A sort of a nautical watch, a dive watch, a field watch. And so we really started going after this kind of land, sea, air type of concept, which, you know, more of the classic brands, the heritage Swiss brands, they kind of cover those. And so we thought, well, let's bring this sort of structure into more of the fashion space. So, so yeah, and we, you know, always thought, yeah, I'm prepared to start the brand. And from a product standpoint, absolutely. I was prepared.

But what nobody tells you is the business side of things. And that just hits you like a freight train. You're like, my god, there's all these other variables where it's not as easy as it sounds. It's more than just having a nice product. The product isn't going to sell itself. So yeah, that's kind of how the genesis of Jack Mason started in my transition into it.

And as I said, sort of in the beginning, I think this was sort of like a little bit of foresight into where this microbrand space was going to go, right? Because, you know, what you sort of mapped out in terms of your catalog, right? The pilot watch, the dive watch. Again, these are things that brands, traditional watch brands had in the past. It kind of had disappeared and the fashion watch space had taken over. And now, if we fast forward to today, it's actually more common that, know, microbrands and independent brands, enthusiast brands is actually more what I like to call them, have that sort of a layout. So I think you were a little ahead of your time in a way, right? And like you pointed out, the business model wasn't quite there yet in terms of where we are today and the microbrands and how they operate. So it sounded like, if I'm not mistaken, the way that you approach your go-to-market was much more like a traditional fashion watch, you know, getting into sort of retailers and so on. And I think, if I if I remember, there's an interesting story with a Airstream, right, where you guys took a road trip. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about that that story, and I know there's also like a Nordstrom part to that. So I'd love to dig into that.

Definitely.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Just, when we launched Jack Mason, the business was a, it was all about wholesale distribution, working with big box retailers. Didn't, mean, even at that point in time, this was 2015, e-commerce was not really a thing, you know, which is kind of crazy to think about because it wasn't that, this is like 10 years ago, 11 years ago, e-commerce was just on the, like on the rise. Social media was just. Social media influencing or influencer marketing was on the rise. And that's actually right around the time we started was also the time when MVMT started and they were obviously pioneers with social media influencer marketing and all that sort of stuff. So, but we started the business as a wholesale business because that's where we all came from. Myself and my other business partners. That was also the industry from more of a sales and operations side of things. All came from the fashion watch industry. So of course, you know, this is what we knew and that's how we decided to launch the brand. And so when I put pen to paper, this was January of 2015. What was really kind of nice for us was there wasn't a whole lot of time conceptualizing and actually designing, because I already knew exactly what, like visually it was all up in here and I just had to get it out.

So we went from January to our first trade show in July to actually launch the brand. Was a show, it was a men's fashion and accessory show called Liberty Fairs, which was in New York City. But in the midst of all that, we had this 1971 Airstream that was completely restored and modified to be a mobile showroom.

And we had, outfitted the whole thing, had these really cool watch cases in there, like display cases. It all had, it smelled of wood because it was all reclaimed wood and, you know, things like that. And we drove from Dallas to New York City in that Airstream. And we had all this kind of cool marketing on the outside of it that said, hey, launching soon. And we're going to be in New York, blah, blah. And it was kind of cool because along the road trip, people were taking pictures of it thinking like we were up. I remember we stopped at a gas station and this random guy was like, are you guys in a band?

Because I mean, it makes sense. Why would you roll up in a big airstream? And anyway, we go to New York and it's extremely nerve wracking because, I mean, know, taking on big risks to you put a lot of time and energy into this brand and we go. And in New York, it was a great show. Was a really, I don't think at that point in time we had written actual orders, but it was really great exposure. Shortly after that, I think it was like two months after that, that same show also happens in Las Vegas, which I think is in August, September, something like that. And so after New York, we drove back to Dallas. And then refreshed, reloaded, and then we drove to Las Vegas. And that is where we landed our first account, which was Nordstrom. And the way that happened was really cool. It's a moment we'll never forget. We were inside the Airstream, and of course you have all these buyers walking in and out of it. Then, and typically at these trade shows, you know, everyone, has these badges, these lanyards with badges on them. And typically the ones who are more of the more important buyers, they have their badge flipped the other way around. So you don't know who they are. And this group of people walked in and sure enough, they had their badges and flipped around. And we go through the whole presentation, they look at the product and then they reveal that they're Nordstrom buyers and they were extremely excited and that they wanted to have a meeting in Seattle, which is where they were based.

And at that point in time, it was pretty much a go. Like we want to carry you. And that moment was, it was unforgettable. We were jumping up and down, trying to hold, we were trying to hold our faces to contain our excitement during that moment in time. But after they left, we were, it was, it was cool. We all cracked open a beer after the show and just kind of celebrated because we knew that this is exactly what we were striving for. And to be able to land an account like Nordstrom. Was we had sort of hit our goal.

That's really cool. I feel like that could be a movie, the road trip on the Airstream and all that stuff. Very cool. So you hit the pinnacle, you hit your goal. At what moment did you start to realize that there was a shift going on in the market and that's the fashion watch space and wholesale and being in retail stores was not going to be the future? Because that's a big, you grew up in that world. And you finally get there and then to make a decision that actually we're gonna change our ideal customer, right? It's not the normal fashion buyer, it's the watch enthusiast and we're gonna go direct to consumer. That's a big decision, right? And it's probably a hard decision to make, right? Like, especially coming from your background and sort of what you've experienced and seen, what were some of those signals or those signs that made you really believe that that was the right move to make?

Yeah, so there were a couple of moments in the history of our company that were, I would say, just pivotal and lucky. But one of that, that first moment where we completely changed our business model from wholesale to direct to consumer came from a number of reasons on more of the kind of business and operations side, the partners that I was working with. They start to realize, we're not making any money this way because that whole business model is, it's tough. It's all about volume. It's all about get those orders, send them out the door, get those orders, send them out the door and then sell through. And at the end of the day, you got to pay all these different people and you have no money left. So, for a very long time, mean, to be transparent, the company was not making not making much. Honestly, it wasn't making money at all. We were in debt. Were really struggling. So my partner, his name is Craig, he, from a business standpoint thought, okay, we need to shift to direct to consumer to have higher margins and all that sort of stuff. And then from me on the brand side of things, being in all these retailers was cool. Mean, we had like, think over 200, close to 300 different accounts all over the country. At that point, we were also working with distributors in Japan, Australia, the UK, all this sort of stuff. So exposure was huge. But again, you're not really making much. So, but from the brand standpoint, having all these people involved, we start to realize you have no brand control. Have no, we should be spending our time building an actual brand. Because that's what I really cared about is brand. And I like to tell people we're not a company that makes watches. There's a lot of those. We really try to create a brand that actually means and stands for something and has a story behind it. So from that standpoint, if we were to go direct to consumer, we can take control of the brand more and really tell the story our own way instead of having some random part-time sales associate on the floor of Nordstrom. Trying to sell a product they have absolutely no, they have no knowledge about, you know? And so this was, this was a really, I think a smart decision that we had made. The lucky part of that was the timing. We switched this business model in January of 2020. We did not know what would happen in March of 2020. The whole world changed obviously and it was in hindsight, the absolute luckiest move because had we not done that, we most likely would have been out of business because all of our, it's like many other, companies, all your inventory is out at retail, no, nobody's allowed to go shopping, you know? So, you know, had we not set up more of an online, store and start getting into more digital marketing and things that we would have no way of. Making revenue. So, so that, that happened in 2020. And then even at that point in time, we were not in the enthusiast space. And so we were still kind of in a, in the, in the fashion watch space. And then, there was one, another lucky moment. And this is the moment that changed the company completely into the enthusiast space.

And that was the launch of our Strat-o-timer GMT. And more importantly, it was the opportunity that Miyota gave us with this movement. This was 2022, which I can't believe it was actually that long ago, thinking back on it. But 2022, had a our quarterly meeting with Miyota. Now being in the fashion industry, we use millions of Miyota movements. You know, was just that standard. So, you know, although I've never, I wasn't always in the enthusiast space from a product design, product development, supply chain standpoint, it was all, I already had that all ready to go. The relationships that I had built with Miyota personally, our factories, our supply, everything was already set. And so, Miyota had visited our office and at the end of our meeting, they pull out this movement and says, hey, we've been working on something new that nobody knows about really. And we want you to be a launch partner for this. And they were extremely selective. As I'm sure you know, when the Miyota 9075 movement came out, it wasn't widely available. And so they were actually hand selecting which brands to work with.

And then they worked with us. And when we received that movement, that was another moment where I thought, okay, this is something really special. And I can't just put this into the types of watches we were making before. We have to create a completely new watch, ground up. And not only that, we have to really elevate our game in terms of quality, the construction. Uh, just everything, A to Z. But before we did that, we spent a lot of time, myself, the team, we were scouring the internet, scouring, going on all the watch forums. I mean, hours and hours and hours of taking notes and understanding what is it that enthusiasts like, because it's a completely different customer than the customer we were selling to before. This is the customer we were selling to before is just a mall shopper, right? They're just looking to spend a couple hundred dollars on a watch and be done with it. Whereas now we're really going to start selling to someone who understands watches, you know, more than me to some degree. So that Miyota 9075 movement really changed the game for us. That was extremely lucky. I mean, that was not planned. I didn't know they had made that. And we seized the opportunity. And in 2022, at Our first Windup was in New York City. We launched that movement and we were the only, I believe we were the only brand in the US who had this at that time.

You kind of touched on this a little bit, but what are some of these changes that you have to make when you shift from FashionWatch? You kind of touched on, obviously, there's going from in-store to online. There's a change in sort of the product and how the product has to be developed and the quality expectations, but also the way that you engage community as well, right? Maybe you can give us a little bit of the core pillars of changes that one has to make to make that shift.

Yeah, the going from Fashion Watch to Enthusiast was, I think the biggest, one of the biggest changes is the way we, the design process changed. You spent a lot more time going through every single detail, really scrutinizing everything. And the thing is, from the years of experience that I had designing watches, designing a watch was not the difficult part. It's just, this is what I've always done. And so the difficult, I would say the hardest change for us was trying to change the narrative that we are more than capable of making an enthusiast based watch that's on par, if not better than most of the microbrands that are out there. And this was a giant mountain to climb over. And it took a lot of work and again, a lot of hours on the internet, on forums, just chiming in here and there, really explaining our process, you know, and trying to sort of prove ourselves that just because we came from this fashion watch space doesn't mean that we don't know how to make a really nice watch, you know? And it was just that we were, as a business, were producing product for a completely different customer. Now that we shifted, all we do is recalibrate and then we just, make better product. Again, me being a designer, I think the difference is when you are, I know a lot of microbrands are enthusiasts who end up launching their own brand and you're working with suppliers, you're working with their in-house design team and you don't have to total full control you're using off the shelf parts and sort of piecemealing and watch together. I'll tell you, even as a fashion watch brand, not a single component was off the shelf, even as a fashion watch brand. Every case, hand, crystal, case back, strap, bracelet, everything was completely, we pay for our own tooling. We paid for all that product development costs that go into it.

It was all original. Never, not as there has not been a single time in the history of our company that was an, like a bin or off the shelf part, because I'm an industrial designer. And so I'm going to design what I feel like is right for the product. So, so it, that's why when you look on our own YouTube channel, we have this little series that we call Design to Watch where I really start going into, this is how you design it. This is what's going on. So we had to really create more content to really show.

Hey, this is what's going on behind the scenes. Know, so this is, as I mentioned, that was probably the hardest. It took years. It took years. I would say probably last year was when we started to realize, okay, people are starting to understand and view us as someone who's more of a serious contender in this microbrand space. And, even still today, we'll see. Comments here and there, which is fine. I mean, the history is out there. It's never going to change. So saying, what, they shouldn't charge these prices because they used to be a fashion brand, which that makes absolutely no sense. But, you know, but I get it. I get that it's hard to, and the comparison that I like to use is when you look at the Kia cars or Hyundai cars, they were all about entry level cars. And now Kia, Hyundai, they're making 50, 60, $70,000 cars, which are unbelievable, you know? But I understand it's hard to sort of shift your mind to, why should I pay for that? But I can tell you right now that we put so much attention and care into our product today. And something else that you touched upon was the community aspect. This was something that we had no idea about. We didn't know that we would grow a community like we have today.

We have an incredible sort of army of Jack Mason customers and loyalists and fans who want to see us win, especially as an American brand. So yeah, that part has been absolutely fantastic.

In a way, I feel like you had the DNA of a enthusiast brand. The market opportunity just hadn't presented itself yet, right? Because a lot of the things that you even talked about at the beginning, right? How you built the collection in a way where it was, know, pilot watches, dive watches, the way you constructed the collection, the fact that you were investing in the product more than the average fashion brand would, right?

And even the way that you launched your product and sort of the story that you were trying to tell with the Airstream and all that stuff, you had all the ingredients, I think, to become an enthusiast brand. It was just sort of the right market opportunities, I think, that perhaps pushed you to take that leap.

Yeah, for sure.

And I can tell you from a collector standpoint, I think maybe it's harder for you to see as you're living it day to day, but I think you guys have done an amazing job at making that leap.

I was at Windup Dallas and I felt like in a way that was your home event. I know it is, but I felt like

Yeah, it was.

This energy around your booth, where this is the home team, this brand encapsulates this environment and this collector group, this enthusiast group. It felt like there was this energy and this Texas vibe that was just oozing out of your booth, right? Which was

Hahaha

Really cool. And there's music playing and all that stuff. So I think you guys have done an amazing job at that. Maybe very quickly, you can tell us a little bit about the collection today and some of the products or the models, let's say, that best reflect this shift. Because I know there are some models in your collection that, again, there's the dials, the attention to detail, the finishing, the movements that you've invested in that really reflect that shift. What are some of the? The few that you would point out that people can go to and check out to really see that outcome of that shift that you've made.

Yeah, no, absolutely. You know, the first, the first, our sort of flagship model is our, is our Strat-o-timer, which I have here, which everyone will kind of, kind of recognize. And it's kind of interesting because, and there's a story behind this watch. Of course, at first glance, people are going to think Rolex Master II, which is by design.

But when you break it down, if you were to look at this watch and a master two side by side in black and white, they're nothing alike. Yes, we do have a Jubilee style bracelet, which is seven links. But outside of that, the case is more of a shaped, more vintage style case. We have this boxed crystal on there. I'm a big fan of the seventies watch design. I just love.

Like for example, the use of these indices, are more of this bold, big rectangular. I liked sort of the attitude from that era And so I put a lot of my own personality into this watch. But it was a business decision to put this sort of red, the red and blue, the iconic red and blue Pepsi bezel on it. Because I knew right out of the gate, this thing needed to sell. Know, with this, are putting, cause not to mention when we first launched this, was a thousand dollars. Before that we were, the highest priced watch we sold was $400 quartz watches. And so I, it was like I said, a business decision to make it feel familiar. But if you were to break it down objectively, it's a really good watch. And so since that day, I mean, can barely keep these in stock. They're great. And from there, we iterated into this version, which is, this is our, it's all titanium, but it's our Strat-o-timer but it has a dive bezel on it versus a 24 hour scale. We moved the 24 hour scale to the dial, but it really translated into a really nice dive watch, but it still has the Miyota 9075 movement in there.

And so this is a pretty good example of when you take this and you remove the red and blue and you put a dye bezel on it, you know, does this look like a Rolex? Probably not. So, you know, this platform has been really nice to just come up with new iterations and we'll continue to do so. My favorite watch I'm actually wearing. Right now is our pilot. We call this the Pursuit Pilot. I put it on this nylon strap here, but this watch is extra special because back when we first started Jack Mason, this watch was the very first watch that I designed for the collection. Was a put because I was, and still today, I absolutely love the IWC brand.

I just think their design language, their eye for proportion and scale and everything is just so spot on. And so when I first launched the first collection I thought, you know what, let's do a version of that. And in fact, last year, and we had discontinued this watch for several years and we essentially reissued it last year because last year was our 10 year anniversary.

And we came out with this version, which is all titanium. A lot of people think it's a California dial, but when you look closer, it's just the 10. To celebrate our 10 year anniversary. So this was really cool. You can see kind of the case back. It had a big X on it saying 2015.

Really, really.

This is a special piece for me personally, it's just, because there's a story behind it. And then there's this other watch that we don't carry in the collection right now. We did at one point, but it was the Ellum. And so the Ellum was a 38 millimeter dress watch that was only nine millimeters thick because we were using a Sellita hand wound movement.

It's a beautiful movement.

Yeah, very beautiful.

But yeah, 38 millimeters, and this camera's probably not gonna capture it, but it has a linen dial on it. And so the design inspiration behind this, when you kind of look at it, was the old 50s and 60s kind of era, which again, I love the simplicity of that time. And so this was kind of our version of it, but we'll probably bring it back at one point. It just I'm sure, know, dress watches aren't as popular as like a dive watch, for example. So, but we're, working on some different concepts there. But we're, you know, we have our classics. We have those Strat-o-timer GMTs. We also have our Canton, which is our kind of gada watch. We have our Pursuit Pro, which is kind of the big older brother of this. And so now we kind of have these buckets and you will start to see starting this year, the collection really start to kind of. Like twist into more interesting executions of the classics. Right now it took about three years, three and a half years to set this core foundation of the classics, the day-to-day kind of bread and butter stuff. And now we're going to start doing different materials, different colors. And it's over the next year, things will start to look a lot different.

That's very cool. Yeah, I can definitely see how you have this foundation now to build off of and I'm really excited to see what comes next. I guess, where do you see yourself in 10 years? What's the long-term goal, long-term vision at this point? Because I think you've gone through a lot of changes through the years and there was just getting out there, becoming a known brand, there was then shifting to become a enthusiast brand and all the changes that need to happen there.

I feel like you guys have successfully crossed those milestones.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

What's the next major milestone for Jack Mason?

Yeah, it is trying to do as much as we can as an American watch brand and do grow operations and watchmaking at scale in the US. I think this is our unique angle. Obviously, we're not the only American watch brand out there. There's a lot of amazing US microbrands which are dear friends of mine as well.

And we often talk to each other to figure out what can we do on a larger scale together to bring more awareness and more credibility, honestly, to American watchmaking. And so for us being in Texas, which is like as American as it gets to some degree, I know a lot of people who are born or raised think, you know, that Texas is its own country. I mean, it's big enough to be one, but you know.

All jokes aside, it's really trying to set a foundation here in Dallas. And I want to be responsible for that. I want to be able to set up a comprehensive sort of operation when it comes to watchmaking, servicing, and, you know, to some degree, even manufacturing components because As is saying today, making watch components in the US is technically impossible. It doesn't exist. Now, of course, you can use a CNC machine to carve out a case, but the finishing, that is extremely hard to do. And the biggest problem that we have yet to solve as an industry here in the US is being able to produce these components at scale. At a cost that's actually reasonable. This is the issue. And nobody really has the answer right now, but hopefully we can get there. But in the meantime, we control what we can control. And that is the watchmaking, which is really where a lot of the skill comes in, is really putting those pieces together, making sure the quality is up to par. The servicing aspect as well. So that's actually really, I think, special. If you get if you go by yourself on Omega and need to get a service, you're probably going to have to ship it back to Switzerland and wait five, six months or whatever. Whereas being local or domestic, should say, you can send it in to us and our watchmakers would be like Rolex certified watchmakers and all this sort of stuff, but it's all US based. And so from an operations standpoint, I think that makes it really cool for all intents and purposes. Yeah, the components might not be manufactured here, but it's built, it's made in the US. You know what I mean? I mean, when you look across other industries like the automobile industry or technology, anything like that, yeah, I mean, there's a reason why, you know, certain parts are made elsewhere, especially in China. But the thing with China is, I understand it gets a bad rap because of course there is a lot of just Poor quality, you it's all about production, scale, you know, ship it out. But I've been to China many times to the factories that make watch components and it will blow your mind. How advanced they are, the amount of attention to detail, the care, the cleanliness. I mean, it's unbelievable. And I wish that there was a little more education around that so that they get the credit that they deserve, also that way it doesn't make, especially the microbrand space or even not even the microbrand, the entire watch industry, there's a little more like understanding of, you know what? This is just because it's made in China doesn't mean it's a bad piece, you know? And so anyway, the 10 year sort of goal is for us to be able to. Control what we can control and really make a mark when it comes to American watchmaking. I'm trying to build a legacy here. That's why brand is extremely important. Want to make sure that's why we lean into our Texas roots. You see USA everywhere. In fact, we just signed a deal with USA Cycling. It's a three-year deal heading into the Olympic Games in LA in 2028.

We're working on a USA cycling watch, which is really cool.

Very cool.

And that'll release later this year. And also coming up in July, there's America's probably one of the biggest holidays is America 250. So this year's extra special. So we will latch onto those kinds of moments as a country that's special to the country and try to do something, you know, unique. And so we'll have a special piece for that to celebrate that holiday.

Very cool. Peter, this was, as I said at the beginning, what a cool journey, an amazing story and an amazing future I think that you guys have ahead of you. Thank you so much for taking the time today to walk through it with us. If folks want to follow along, they want to learn more about Jack Mason, we're some of the best places for them to go to learn more and engage as well.

Of course. Yeah. Our website is jackmasonbrand.com. Instagram is also jackmasonbrand. We're extremely active on there. But one community, the community that we've built is our Facebook group. If you go, it's a, you got, it's a private group, but you just, you know, requests to join in, but it's an amazing, community that we built that we moderate ourselves actually. And so I myself engage with. With people in the group and the team. And there you will learn everything about the brand, talk to others who have experience with the brand and all that sort of stuff. So on Facebook, I would highly recommend if you use it, that's the place to be.

I'm definitely gonna check that out. And I know that many that are listening and watching will as well. So thank you so much for again, taking the time, walking us through this story and we're excited to see where Jack Mason goes next.

Thank you. Thanks for having me on again. Was a joy.