Has Dennison risen from the dead?

Russell Sheldrake

The watch industry loves a reissue. And these classic comeback stories always scratch that vintage itch, with traditional styling, classical cues, and often a direct comparison to a highly collectable watch on the secondary market. What we don’t see very often is a brand being brought back from the dead, and completely revived with near-instant success – but that has been the case for old case maker Dennison.

A name that is written in the annals of British watchmaking history, Dennison has been around since the industry began, and was known to those few enthusiasts who bothered to look into the “name behind the name” on old pocket watches from the golden era of British watchmaking. While the brand had its official relaunch in New York, we have recently taken stock of them in our newly opened London Discovery Studio, and as soon as they hit the display cabinets, they’ve captivated everyone who walks by, even our staff. So, I wanted to take a quick look at what the brand is doing now, and what makes this recent relaunch so successful.

We began by grabbing a few words from Toby Sutton, the owner of the brand, but also a man known across the industry as one half of the father and son duo that runs Watches of Knightsbridge. In Toby’s words: “It was back in 2010, after years of opening old pocket watches and vintage Rolex and Omega watches with my father (Simon Sutton – a vintage watch expert) and seeing Dennison made cases for them that I started to research into the brand’s long history and why they were not still going today.” Having Toby and Simon backing this brand’s revival lends it a large dose of credibility, the two of them have built an incredible reputation at Watches of Knightsbridge, and bringing their combined level of knowledge and passion to this project must be one of the many secret ingredients that have made this so successful.

So we have the combination of an old, historical name, with the backing of extremely well-informed execs, but the thing that causes so many people to stop and stare at these watches is the design. The shape itself is actually an original 1930s Dennison cushion case, used for wristwatches that the team found in their research. But in order to execute this delicate form, they turned to one of the best living watch designers, Emmanuel Gueit. The man who was tasked with beefing up Genta’s design and created the Royal Oak Offshore, penned the Rolex Cellini, and his father Jean-Claude Gueit designed the original Piaget stone dial watches, among many, many others. In other words, watch design runs in Gueit’s blood.

Proportionally, the watch design seems superb to my untrained eye, and the thin case that is afforded by the Swiss Ronda quartz movement makes it a particularly elegant dress watch. But it’s in the small details that I think Gueit’s genius comes through. Take the buckle for example. It’s shaped to match the cushion case, evoking pieces from Cartier that would cost you many times the price of a Dennison.

Unsurprisingly, the one model that we can’t seem to keep hold of for very long is the tiger’s eye. This natural stone dial plays with the light in a way that causes striations to jump up and then disappear just as quickly, making it feel almost animated. However, as Tony tells us, it’s not easy to execute this look flawlessly: “it is not a straightforward process, and there is a lot more QC involved, but the end result is well worth it.”

The full collection of stone and sunray dials forms an incredibly tight and cohesive package when you see them laid out. This level of complete thoughtfulness has been carried over into the campaign and marketing for this watch. The lifestyle shots taken for it seem to have been done with real care and attention to detail, offering us journalists the chance to use decent pictures of a new watch even if we don’t get the chance to photograph them ourselves – something we always appreciate.

Now that we have seen the next step in the evolution of Dennison, I’m left with a question. From being a case maker producing up to 200,000 cases a year, to now having one of the hottest new dress watches on sale at an insanely attractive price point, where do we go from here? Toby Sutton has a hint for us: “We have other case designs already in the pipeline, and the second model confirmed but no release date planned as yet. We feel this current model and case design will be our signature watch, and so it’s our main focus for now. We will be experimenting with different dial designs and stones, as well as case materials.”