AnOrdain Announces Its Acquisition Of Fellow Scottish Brand Paulin Watches
The Scottish brand anOrdain has garnered significant attention here on Fratello. The brand’s craftsmanship and striking enamel dials provide a unique and somewhat-bespoke approach to watchmaking in their price tier. I’ve been particularly interested in anOrdain throughout its development, mainly because of its beautiful enamel dials and relative transparency around the processes behind its watch builds. I would love to pick up a Model 2 from the brand’s collection someday. For now, though, let’s leave the watch-related daydreaming aside; there’s other news to attend to, and it concerns Paulin Watches!
It seems fair to say that anOrdain has built success upon success with its striking releases, including the Model 1. Another sign of this success is that the brand has now acquired fellow Scottish watchmaker Paulin as a sister brand.
It’s a family affair
As RJ noted when reviewing the Paulin Neo C in 2020, the company was founded by three sisters from the Paulin family. Although their history in creating things goes all the way back to their great-grandfather, the three Paulin sisters (Elizabeth, Charlotte, and Eleanor) established the current company in 2013.
Paulin Watches marked its tenth birthday in August this year. While the two brands will remain separate, they’ll share a studio and facilities in anOrdain’s Glasgow workshop. Imogen Ayres, anOrdain’s type designer, will become Paulin’s creative director. It turns out that the two companies already had considerable connections at a personal level, with the marriage of two founders, anOrdain’s Lewis Heath and Charlotte Paulin.
A fresh direction
In a press release, the brands said that production of Paulin’s watches will occur in Scotland with a transparent supplier list with pricing for all models under the $1,000 mark. The commitment to transparency in suppliers will be a welcome one for consumers, particularly those interested in finding out as much about the production of the new watch on their wrist as possible. The company said it is also looking to train up to five new watchmakers over the next year to help with local production.
Over the last year, both anOrdain and Paulin have been putting together plans to release the new Modul watch, which will come with either a top-grade La Joux -Perret D100 movement or a new old stock (NOS) quartz movement from ETA. AnOrdain founder Lewis Heath said that acquiring Paulin would provide new creative opportunities for the teams at both brands. “With the highly-skilled, time-intensive nature of what we do at anOrdain, and the well-documented demand, Paulin presents our designers and watchmakers with the opportunity to explore new ideas in design and manufacturing, and make them available to a broader audience,” he said in a press statement.
Final thoughts
Ten years into Paulin’s journey since its founding and with anOrdain now behind the brand, it will be exciting to see what will come of this new development. We wish both brands continued success!
