Worn By Adventurers & Operators Alike.

Special - Adjective: better, greater, or otherwise different from what is usual.

Project - Noun: an individual or collaborative enterprise that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim.

    For those of you who know me, follow my page or listen to my podcast you are already well aware of my penchant for the ever ubiquitous ‘special project’ watches that form a good proportion of my personal watch collection. I have special projects that range across A-13A, Bremont, Breitling and Elliot Brown. Now a special project clearly is a watch that had significant design details which make it stand out from the retail versions of the same watch. These design elements range from uniquely engraved casebacks, dial printing, different luminescent materials and even unique handsets.

  My special projects commemorate the various ‘milestones’ in my career to date. These ‘milestones’ range from my Corps, specialist trades as well as a few of the military units that I have served with. For me, this part of my watch collecting journey began when I was stationed in the Mediterranean, I was newly promoted and had hit the watch hobby hard by this point. I was serving at a specialist tri-service unit that composed of different specialists who all, it seemed wore special project watches when they weren’t conducting their operational duties. These watches all had various unique design elements to them across the various brands/companies that the service personnel had commissioned the watches with. The main thing that bonded all these watches together however was, they were all worn proudly by the personnel who owned them.

    Now this article won’t highlight my first project that I led, but it will talk about the most significant one. The reason I word it like that, is not because the first project isn’t worthy of an article, but as I was new to being a ‘project leader’ and I was definitely winging it; and I can confirm that I learnt lessons from the first project which applied to the development of the second, which I believe aided in it becoming a success.

    Elliot Brown Watches are based in Poole, Dorset on the South Coast of England. Elliot Brown started (as Elliot Brown) in 2013, but their experience in watchmaking harks right back to the extreme sports company Animal in the 80s/90s. Ian Elliot and Alex Brown (hence the name) are the co-founders of the company and they decided that they wanted to start making watches, not hampered by the perceived cost/value that the extreme sports world “limited” them to. They took all the experience of designing, building, testing and later servicing (across the longevity of the watches life span) Animal watches and applied it to Elliot Brown. Their mantra is to build the most durable yet accessible timepieces that you can buy, along with where you can, ‘don’t be a dick’. Their retail watches were received incredibly well and various awards followed, now fast forward a few years, Elliot Brown were approached by a specialist branch of the British military to develop a mission timer that would stand up to a battery of extreme environments and situations, this watch would become known as the Holton Professional and would eventually become the latest and now current issued divers watch for the British military, with it’s own NATO Stock Number. I would actually first meet Ian and Alex at a launch event in London for the `Holton Professional. Out the back of the development of the Holton Professional Alex, started to design military special project watches. These came hot on the heels of a few civilian special project watches; such as the Clipper Race watches as well as charity edition watches for Mountain Rescue England and Wales, the RNLI and even a British Firefighters. One of the earliest military projects (of which there has been many) was for a unit association, and like with the previous civilian special editions, they continued to raise money, a percentage of every watch sold will always raise money to the nominated charity of the Project Leader (it’s nice to be nice remember).

  In 2021, during the 80th year of the Intelligence Corps, I decided to drop Alex an email to see if he would be happy to humour the conversation of designing a watch which would commemorate the 80th Anniversary year of the Corps.

  I briefed Alex my intent, that the watch would have to encompass elements of the Corps identity, it would be open to all serving members and veterans of the Corps (at the time) and would intern raise some money to the association that supports Corps members, families and veterans. Alex requested that I would provide him some key points of the Corps identity and then “leave it to him to it”, 10 days later I was presented with the initial digital render of what the project could look like. from then on it was a two way conversation where we titivated the render until we got to the final design, and I believe this part of the process was made quicker due to the level of detail and attention Alex gave to it with the first design, we only added two minor additions to the overall render before I considered it final and ready to advertise.

  Now unlike other watch companies, Elliot Brown really do go the extra mile when it comes to the project design, they manage to put in multiple and often incredibly subtle design elements that, unless you knew the significance you would never initially see them. For those wondering the Intelligence Corps Canford has eight design elements that encompass the Corps identity and history, can you spot them all? Better yet, can you spot them and decipher the significance of them all?

Now I feel that this article has looked at special projects with the Intelligence Corps Canford as the example with rose tinted glasses, but I have a couple “negative” points that you should be aware of before you approach any company to commission a special project. Ironically the first one is also what all of us in the “watch fam” are low key obsessed with, it’s time. This process takes time, from the design render, to the advertisement to the production time and finally the time it takes for the DPD (or insert courier of your choice) driver to deliver it to you to put it eagerly on wrist. For me in this case the whole process from inception to delivery took around 7 months.
   The second one is “commitment” it is difficult to get potential applicants and “future owners” to commit to buying a watch that physically only exists as a digital render.


Negatives aside, I would never discourage people to starting a project. I think if you have a unique thing/experience that you can commemorate with a watch I would always say you should. I’ve seen so many projects that you wouldn’t believe could be turned into a commemorative special project watch, everything from military units, security and law enforcement organisations right through to charity watches and even historic watch projects. I can certainly say it leading special projects is addictive, to date I have led four (one due in 2024) two of which have been with Elliot Brown, one Canford and one Holton.

So if you think you are up for a new experience in the watch fam, reach out, and hopefully in time you will be able to wear your own special project and drop me a line via the RTWB or my own instagram/Watch Crunch/ ZT Podcast. I am always happy to talk about all things special projects (and Elliot Brown) and I am more than happy to help where I can and share my experience as Project Leader with you.

Now finally to finish off, and it is a rather selfish note, but if you haven’t heard it yet, Episode 87 of The ZT Podcast Gem and Guy from Elliot Brown join me and talk all things Elliot Brown, I hope you enjoy, and until then I hope you wear your watches adventurously.


Links
Elliot Brown - @ebwatches
Elliot Brown Military & Special Projects - @ebmilitary The ZT Podcast Episode 87