As someone on the verge of closing in on what has been a 16-year-long pursuit of a dream, I must say that my excitement comes in the form of a renewed sense of responsibility.
The launch of my watch brand, A. Hodge Atelier, inches closer every day as my manufacturing partner completes the final stages of R&D. The plan is to release my flagship timepiece–a jump-hours model with nontraditional movement composition—later this year.
I’ve thought about this moment every single day since I sketched my first watch. Granted, the tasks currently taking up most of my time are finalizing packaging designs, orchestrating my distribution strategy, sewing together a sales team, etc. All of the usual suspects to address when launching a company. But I can’t help but reflect on the early days of when and how I started my journey into the world of haute horlogerie.
Many people who know me know my love of designing watches was born out of my passion for designing cars and architectural blueprints when I was 19 years old. I was living in Los Angeles at the time and didn’t have any local educational resources regarding horology available to me, so I consumed and Claudius Saunier’s I even purchased books I couldn’t read yet because they were written in French, such as I began teaching myself the language to continue gaining knowledge.
