In a compelling post, m2 offers an exclusive look into the Vancouver workshop of independent watchmaker Bradley Taylor. This piece not only highlights Taylor's impressive in-house manufacturing capabilities, including guilloché, but also sheds light on the unique challenges faced by luxury watch businesses operating in Canada, providing crucial context for understanding the dedication behind such craftsmanship.
Recently I had the chance to visit Bradley Taylor’s workshop here in Vancouver with a small group of watch nerds. Brad walked us through something very cool he has been working on involving his new in-house processes for doing things like manufacturing components, guilloche, etc.
It was great having someone like him explain his work & passion. You can tell he is really into what he does, which is always a treat.
If you’re ever visiting Vancouver, it’s definitely worth shooting him an email to line up a visit.
We are in Canada, which means everything is exponentially more difficult for this type of small business to operate versus the US or Switzerland. I say this as a Canadian that gave up and did everything in the US (lol!).
What makes it hard?
Things like how machines need to be freighted in and imported VS sourced in-country. A huge pain. There is no thriving watchmaking industry here that you can buy tools/machines from or anyone to learn from in-person.
There’s not nearly as much easy access to credit either, which makes buying machines and setting up very hard. For example, in the US you have the SBA, a government entity that reduces risk for bank lenders when they lend to small businesses. In Canada, we have the BDC, but the terms are much worse.
Then given our tiny population, finding people that know how to service specific machines is basically impossible.
To me, things like that are what make Brad’s operation and goal extra impressive.
Luckily, a few of Brad’s customers live close by, and they brought their watches with them so I got to handle 4 of Brad’s watches!
Sorry in advance about my awful pictures! There are some great high quality macros floating around of his work online but hopefully these help!
The package as a whole comes together very nicely. Perfectly sized, sits well on the wrist, and really pops with lighting thanks to the hand cut guilloche.
Personally, the applied numerals, purple hands, and crown are my favorite parts. The font was actually developed with Ian Brignell in Ontario which is a nice touch. I am an absolute sucker for applied numerals and think they should be on every watch. The dials on this series were done by Comblemine, and movements from Vaucher. Brad’s new watch will be mostly in-house, and I think his prototype for that is done in ~Q4 or Q1 but I’m not sure when it will be teased/released officially. The watches I posted below are, if I recall correctly, sold out. As far as what we walked through, here are some pictures and explanations.
