MAKING TIME: THE EMERGENCE OF LOCKE & KING WATCH COMPANY

42 MAKING TIME:

THE EMERGENCE OF LOCKE & KING WATCH COMPANY

WORDS & PHOTOS BY CHRIS TIESSEN

Have you ever held a quality wristwatch to your ear? Not a soulless smartwatch, mind you, nor a battery-powered quartz piece. I’m talking about an honest-to-goodness automatic timepiece: the kind of watch whose internals are filled with delicate gears and tiny jewels and a myriad wound springs that charge the thing when its external crown is wound or its internal rotor activated. I swear it’s like listening to a miracle. The whirring gears. Ticking hands. The layers of most delicate mechanical operations – all adding up to the wispiest percussive symphony you’ve ever heard. Mesmerizing. Emotive. Nostalgic. It’s time passing by.

I’m a sucker for a nice watch. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t scour hodinkee.com, or browse at chrono24.com, or break for episodes of ‘Talking Watches’ on YouTube. I was more than delighted, then, when I found out that a new Canadian timepiece company was situated smack dab in the middle of Steel Town. And so, on an unseasonably warm October morning, I found my way along the six from Guelph to downtown Hamilton to talk watches with Ryan Moran – founder of Locke & King watch company.

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‘It’s certainly got a nice heft to it,’ I remark when Ryan hands me one of three Locke & King watches he’s brought up to the rooftop patio of CoMotion on King – a downtown Hamilton co-working space founded by Ryan and some friends a few years back. We’re seated on red Muskoka chairs in a slice of shade at the edge of this airy sanctuary. Almost instinctually, I remove my own Tudor Black Bay Bronze from my right wrist (I’m left-handed) and compare the two watches’ weightiness. The Locke & King holds its own. And certainly looks the part.

‘I’ve always been enamoured with World War One-era trench watches,’ Ryan tells me when I ask him where he draws design inspiration. ‘Vintage trench watches by American brands like Elgin and Waltham especially speak to me,’ he says. The design language of these storied brands is clearly evident in the watch I’m holding. I rotate the Locke & King – released under the moniker ‘The James’ – in my hands, noting the turned stainless bezel and cream face. The tan leather strap and arched lugs. The delicate hour and minute hands and long, slender seconds hand. Noting the red accent on the end of the seconds hand, I nod – as if in silent agreement with Ryan’s design decision.

This Locke & King timepiece is a wonderful exercise in understated elegance and blue collar utility – and seems to signal an urge for adventure and exploration. As it turns out, this is just what Ryan was going for. ‘When I was designing ‘The James’,' he says with a chuckle, ‘I kept asking myself what watch Indiana Jones would wear.' I strap on the piece and instantly feel as though I should be on some faraway archeological dig, or searching for a lost chalice, or escaping pursuers in an old-fashioned mine cart somewhere.

‘Or making your way through the gritty streets of Hamilton,’ Ryan remarks when I let him in on my daydream. ‘Because, truthfully,’ he continues, ‘the motivation behind this whole project is as much about telling the story of my hometown – Hamilton – as it is about creating beautiful, adventuring watches.’ Like the name of the company itself: Locke & King. ‘I grew up near the intersection of Locke and King,’ Ryan tells me, ‘so these streets have personal significance to me. And they also have long historical roots in the emergence of this city. Locke Street used to be called ‘Railway Street’, for instance, because it ran to the Great Western Railway Yards. And King Street began as an indigenous trailway before it was ever paved.’

I’m loving what I’m hearing: a company that’s proud of its roots and reflects its heritage. Sentimental. Romantic. Evocative. And the connections to Hamilton don’t stop at the intersection of Locke & King. ‘I chose ‘The James’ as the name of the first Locke & King release because I want this piece to pay homage to the people and businesses along James Street,’ Ryan says. ‘They’re hardworking and look good doing it, they’re not pretentious, they evoke everything that Hamilton is and will become.’

I note ‘The James’’ wonderfully-designed minute markers. ‘They mimic the design of the clocktower at the intersection of James and York,’ Ryan says, pointing toward a building along the cityscape that unfolds before us. Almost instantly I recognize the clocktower’s clock’s design on the face of the watch. ‘The building is nothing spectacular,’ Ryan continues, ‘but its clock – transported from Hamilton’s original city hall – has historical significance.’

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I’m betting few Hamiltonians (or anyone else) know about this series of connections. That’s the thing about quality watches: it’s all in the details – whether they’re acknowledged or not. Like those fantastical stone carvings no one ever notices on top of medieval cathedrals, it’s the magic of seeming-invisible craftsmanship evident in automatic watches (from their exquisite internals to their gorgeous externals) that distinguishes them. And when these little details are recognized, they’re embraced and cherished – as well they should be.

When Ryan and I descend from the rooftop to the CoMotion digs for a proper product shoot, I can’t help but notice the historical nature of this co-working space. Worn floors. Exposed stone walls. High ceilings. Decommissioned electrical boxes. And vintage typewriters on display almost everywhere. ‘This is the old Hamilton Spectator building,’ Ryan tells me when he notices me poking my head here and there. ‘When we opened the CoMotion space here, we tried to keep a lot of the building’s heritage. There’s even a dumbwaiter system that used to bring loads of newly-minted newspapers up from the ground floor.’

Amazing. And so appropriate that Locke & King is located here, in another one of Ryan’s (albeit joint-) projects that hearken back to Hamilton’s past and embrace the here and now. I set three models of ‘The James’ – cream, blue, and black – on an old typewriter to shoot. Named for a thoroughfare that was once an entry point for newcomers to this country and now serves as an arts and culture hub, the watch palpably connects a textured past to a fleeting present.

I can’t resist raising one of these handsome timepieces to my ear – and listen to time passing by.

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