Tudor brought the heat for the official launch of our Library & Lounge

Russell Sheldrake

This is the biggest moment in Time+Tide’s retail journey. As a company, we have been around for nearly 12 years now, but as a retailer, we haven’t been operating that long. With our Discovery Studio in Melbourne being open for over two years and London for just over one, we can now lay claim to having one of the biggest and perhaps the most beloved brands in our London Studio: Tudor.

This week, we had the official launch of the Tudor Library & Lounge, which is our vision for what it should be like to discover and buy any of these historical names in our industry. While we have given you plenty of information about what this new pop-up is, and where you can find it (4 Great Portland St, London, W1W 8QJ), we still had to properly celebrate this momentous occasion.

Speaking with our very own Andrew McUtchen about the event, he summarised it as “a top two moment in the life of the London Discovery Studio, because it wasn’t a straight collaboration watch release, but a co-created concept that reconstructs retail to be more in tune with something we know our followers, readers, viewers, and customers are seeking, which is deeper engagement with the history and context for a brand like Tudor.”

It was striking to all of us who have been involved in this project along the way to see people sitting in this new space, reading the weighty tomes such as The Anthology of Tudor, while they compare and opine on the differences and similarities between a modern Black Bay 54 and a Sub from the 1950s. This is what we wanted this space to be used for, and it was proven on Tuesday night that it is what the collectors of London have been asking for all this time, too.

I asked Andrew if there was one moment from the evening that really stood out as being truly meaningful to him – after all, he has been buried deep in this project since the beginning, and this night marked the culmination of all that hard work.

“Hearing from Yannick, the General Manager in the UK for Tudor, hearing his perspective on this initiative in his own words. His recognition and awareness of the fact that we have dared to make this step from media to retail, and have him mention the fact that we moved from Melbourne to London to New York, was such a buzz. We are humble enough to think we are doing this in our little bubble, and you don’t think others might be watching and caring. But they are watching and do care and are linking arms with us in this initiative. That was very heart-warming,” Andrew relates.

The main vibe of the night was overwhelmingly positive; everyone there was enjoying the ability to talk all things Tudor in a space that was custom-designed just for that. As Andrew put it, “it was not transactional or salesy, but appreciative, the community feeling towards us and Tudor was incredible.”

If you haven’t seen it already, head over to our Instagram page to check out some of the vox pops I conducted throughout the night that show exactly how people were reacting to the space and what went down.

“It was a Tudor Town Hall,” was the simplest way Andrew could describe the evening: “A room full of people who have ideas and messages and feelings to communicate to each other and Tudor and Time+Tide about what they like, about what they hope is coming in the future collections and what they want from the next four months of the Library & Lounge. We have every intention to make this pop-up something that is remembered forever as a peak moment for Tudor in the UK.”