Schofield: Time Kept Otherwise

6 January 2026 Luxfanzine

Spend enough time around watchmaking and patterns emerge. Familiar shapes, familiar stories, familiar promises. Every so often, though, something refuses to fit neatly into the expected narrative. It does not make noise, it does not chase, and it does not explain itself too quickly. This is one of those stories.

Some watch brands arrive fully formed, polished and confident, as if they had been waiting patiently backstage for their cue. Others feel like ongoing conversations, the kind that resume easily after long pauses, picking up threads you did not realise you had left dangling. Schofield belongs firmly to the second group. It is less a brand you encounter once and understand, more one you keep bumping into, each time noticing something new, occasionally wondering how you missed it before.

First Encounters, Lasting Impressions

I first met Giles Ellis years ago at SalonQP. Or rather, I first met the watches, and then the man behind them. My memory insists this happened in a far corner of the Saatchi Gallery, warm to the point of mild discomfort, with the stand tucked just far enough away to feel slightly removed from the main flow. That detail may be wrong. It was a long time ago, and watch events blur together after a while. What has stayed with me, though, is the sense of encountering something that did not quite behave like everything else in the room.

The watches oozed confidence without coming across as “loud”, serious but with a glint of mischief that suggested the designer was enjoying himself, and this mischief reveals itself in later models with engraved case backs that feel more like pages from a tattoo artist’s reference book than a traditional watchmaker’s mark – scenes of UFOs over lighthouses, buried treasure maps and cultural motifs that transform the underside of a watch into a private narrative canvas. That combination tends to reveal itself slowly, and it has continued to do so over the years, across subsequent meetings, events, conversations and releases.

We have crossed paths many times since, including a recent catch-up where I had the privilege, not for the first time, and promising to keep it all to myself, of seeing work in progress. Not polished launches or finished narratives, but ideas mid-thought, objects still deciding what they want to be. It felt like the right moment to step back and look at the wider arc, not just of the watches, but of the thinking behind them.

Authored Way of Making

From the beginning, this was never about reacting against Swiss orthodoxy, nor about flying a nostalgic flag for British watchmaking. If anything, it felt more personal than that. An insistence that watches could still be authored objects, shaped by curiosity, references and taste rather than trend reports. Architecture, the sea, typography and literature all inform the work, but they are absorbed rather than referenced directly, shaping proportion, rhythm and restraint instead of appearing as literal motifs. They are absorbed, translated, and occasionally teased.

One thing I have noticed repeatedly, and I am quite sure I am not alone in this, is how often design elements that felt distinctly Schofield seem to surface on other brand’s creations some time later. Proportions, dial shapes, watch-face details and embellishments, converting the digital into physical, restraint, typography that knows when to stop. Whether those ideas were already circulating or whether Giles simply got there first is almost beside the point. The effect is the same. The work often feels half a step ahead of the wider conversation, without making a fuss about it.

Part of that clarity comes, I suspect, from teaching. Giles is an Assistant Professor of Product Design at the University of Sussex, and it shows. Not in a didactic way, but in the way he talks about process and judgement. In conversation, he mentions his second-year students, and there is a genuine sense of responsibility there. His enthusiasm for their potential is palpable, and there is an urgency in the way he encourages them to question everything while still demanding rigour. I have a feeling that they are unlikely to encounter many people who care quite so much, quite so openly, about making things properly.

That balance between curiosity and discipline runs through the watches themselves. When I asked him how he balances experimentation with cohesion, his answer was disarmingly simple. “Yeah, but is it good?” It is a phrase he teaches his students, and one he applies mercilessly to his own work. It does not matter how clever the idea, how sophisticated the tool or how novel the process. If the result does not hold together artistically and functionally, it does not survive.

Thinking in Chapters

Spend time with the watches and that philosophy becomes obvious. The Telemark, probably my personal favourite thus far, is a good example. On paper, it is bold. On the wrist, it is calm. The proportions feel resolved, the dial invites inspection rather than demanding attention, and the whole thing carries a sense of having been thought through, and then thought through again, and again… It does not chase you. It waits, quietly, like a small team in a snowy valley – a nod, perhaps, to the daring precision of The Heroes of Telemark, where timing, patience and courage define the outcome.

That patience is evident across the broader “mark” family. Daymark, Daymark Dark, Telemark, Landmark, X-ray. This is not range-building for its own sake. It is a long, careful exploration of a theme, revisited from different angles, refined, occasionally complicated, never abandoned. Watching that evolution unfold over time has been one of the quiet pleasures of following the brand. You begin to recognise not just shapes, but decisions.

Then there are the moments where things take a sharper turn. The Blacklamp Carbon was one of those. Carbon as a material was not new, but its use here felt considered rather than performative. It was not about signalling technical bravado, okay, there was some of that… It was about texture, weight, and how light interacts with a surface. It marked a point where experimentation became more overt, without losing coherence.

Elsewhere, restraint takes centre stage. The Bare Bones series strips the watch back to essentials, not as an exercise in minimalism theatre, but as a way of foregrounding proportion and surface.

The Beaters, often misunderstood until handled, are radical in a matter-of-fact way. They assume the watch will be used, worn, knocked about, and they embrace that reality rather than pretending otherwise.

When the Light collection arrived, it would have been easy and lazy as a writer to frame it simply as a more affordable entry point. In practice, both the Light and Light Dark variants feel like exercises in translation rather than dilution. The core sensibility remains intact, just expressed with a lighter touch. They are reminders that accessibility and integrity are not mutually exclusive.

Beyond the Wrist

Beyond wristwatches, the world around them has expanded in ways that feel entirely natural. The wall clocks are a case in point. Freed from the constraints of wearability, they lean more heavily into architecture and graphic presence. Mr E (Mister E, nodding playfully to mystery) is a side project that exists as a space for ideas that may or may not feed back into the main narrative. It is light-hearted, but not frivolous.

The same can be said of the Almanac, particularly the Six Pips Almanac. It is not marketing material dressed up as a journal. It is an artefact in its own right, part correspondence, part reflection, part quiet provocation. The website as a whole operates in much the same way. Visiting it feels like an experience rather than a transaction. You are encouraged to wander, to read, to get slightly lost. In a world optimised for speed, that friction feels deliberate, and welcome.

The move into the new headquarters and shop in 2021 brought many of these threads together. It was not a grand statement, more a calm declaration of intent. A place where making, thinking and showing could coexist. It reinforced the sense that this is a long game, played patiently.

Kindness, Time, and Staying the Course

When I asked Giles what he might say to his younger self if granted only three words on day one, his answer was unexpectedly candid. “Beware of tricksters.” What followed was a reflection on vulnerability, trust and kindness in an industry that does not always reward them. He spoke openly about caution, about learning, to spot signs of trouble earlier. Yet there was no bitterness. Hardness, he said, is not a virtue he aspires to. Kindness is.

That outlook shapes how he navigates opinions. Not all feedback carries equal weight. Views are valued, but they do not determine design decisions. The target audience is those who share his aesthetic, not everyone. Preservation, in this sense, is not about standing still, but about maintaining intent. To keep on keeping on.

At the centre of it all sits beauty. When asked what drives his aesthetic decisions, Giles did not hesitate. Beauty does. He acknowledges its subjectivity, but argues convincingly for a universal thread that runs through cultures and histories. His role, as he sees it, is to add to that thread. Then comes the line that feels like a quiet thesis for the entire project: “Coolness is beauty plus zeitgeist.” It is there, he says, that he makes his home.

Humour and curiosity are never far away. This became especially evident when though our interaction, I asked him to imagine a letter to his future self, to be opened in ten years. The possibilities ranged cheerfully from selling the brand to diversifying into perfume, ceramics, denim, even running a lavender farm. There was laughter in the speculation, but also acceptance. Whatever happened would be okay. He would trust that his future self had done their best.

Luxfanzine has returned to this body of work many times over the years, observing releases, noting shifts, recognising consistencies. Each encounter reinforces the sense that this is not about chasing relevance, but about cultivating depth. As British watchmaking continues to find its voice, it is tempting to look for movements and manifestos. This work resists that. Its influence is felt more subtly, through permission rather than proclamation.

Returning to the hazy memories of past watch shows, what stands out now is never the lighting, temperature or the layout, but the feeling of encountering something that asked for time. Years later, it still does. These watches do not rush you. They invite you to slow down, to notice, to enjoy the process of looking. In an industry obsessed with the next thing, that might be the most joyful position of all.