Meet Anneke And Jerome From The Camden Watch Company

The Camden Watch Company is an independent British brand (based in Camden). The business was Founded by a wife-and-husband team, Anneke Short, and Jerome Robert.

Launched in 2014 (by the Anglo-Swiss duo, Anneke Short and Jerome Robert), The Camden Watch Company’s timepieces are designed in Camden. They’re inspired by British heritage, it’s rich industrial past, and the vibrant present of the local area.

With prices starting from as low as £69, the duo uses their high-end expertise to create beautiful, yet affordable timepieces, which can be purchased on their website (or at one of their three bricks-and-mortar stores in Camden and Greenwich).

“We pride ourselves on giving fashion watches the high-end treatment, concentrating on every detail, from the embossed ‘C’ on the crown, to the engraving on the case back, – maintaining high quality at all times, whilst ensuring that every design decision is firmly rooted in Camden,” said Anneke Short.

Each of the Camden Watch Company’s models are inspired by Camden itself. From their Victorian pocket watch-inspired No. 29 (taken from Camden’s strong railway heritage), to the turquoise-blue seconds hand of the No. 88 (based on the iconic ‘Camden Lock’ bridge), the watches, No. 24, No. 27, No. 29, No. 88, and No. 253, are all named after bus routes that run through Camden Town, with No. 24 being the oldest unchanged route in the whole of London.

Anneke Short was studying in Switzerland when she met Jerome Robert. They were working together on designing watches, jewellery, and homeware for top brands (with price points ranging from £100 to £1 million). In 2010, they moved to London, where Anneke worked for a British watch company as their lead designer. Not long after, they decided to launch their own design company, AMS Design Studio, designing luxury products such as watches and jewellery for various Swiss and British clients.

Anneke Short, a Co-Founder of The Camden Watch Company said:

“Jerome and I originally launched the brand as a showcase for our design studio (which we opened in 2010), as a way to show potential clients what we could do. We worked hard to make each product the best it could be, and we used something we know and love as inspiration: Camden Town. And because it started as a showcase, it meant that we had the freedom to do whatever we wanted. We didn’t need to worry about how commercial the products were, and we didn’t need investors, a five-year plan, or a marketing strategy.”

Anneke and Jerome initially launched the brand with a pop-up store on Camden High Street. It proved so popular, that they changed their entire brand strategy. Instead of going down the traditional route of selling their watches into other shops, they decided to open shops of their own.

Their flagship store is in Camden’s Stables Market, and there’s also store in Greenwich Market. They’ve also organised pop-ups in Spitalfields and in Brighton, and they’ve showcased their products at a wide range of events, including vintage cycling festivals, tattoo shows, as well as running their own murder mystery event in Camden Town.

The brand has garnered up a celebrity following, with actors such as Martin Freeman and the television chef, Tom Brown sporting their watches. Because of their love for cycling, Anneke and Jerome also started a friendship with Kitty Pemberton-Platt, who happened to be the first person to ever mention their brand on social media, and they went on to develop their first ever collaboration timepiece – the No.88 Camden x KPP.

There have also been several other collaborations, too, including with the Shoreditch barber Frank Rimmer (to create the No.27 Camden x Thy Barber), and with the famous British tattoo artist Rebecca Vincent, with a timepiece due to come out at the end of 2021.

Find out more here: https://www.camdenwatchcompany.com