Everything you need to know about the Tudor x Time+Tide Library & Lounge

Russell Sheldrake

It’s not every day you get to announce to the world that you are collaborating with one of the biggest watch brands currently operating, but today we are very pleased to say that Tudor is coming into our London Discovery Studio for a four-month residency in the form a lounge and library where you can not only learn about and experience Tudor but also buy the entire brand’s catalogue. That’s right, the Time+Tide London Discovery Studio will be an official Tudor retailer! At least for four months from November 26th, and then who knows what the future holds…

So now you know the top line, you probably have a lot of questions. What will this look like? What does this mean for my next visit to the Studio? Well, I sat down with the man who manifested the whole thing, our very own Andrew McUtchen, to ask just those questions and find out the finer details. As you can imagine, when partnering with one of the biggest watch brands in the world, there are a lot of exciting developments and discoveries to be found in these details.

Why Tudor?

“Tudor is unique among the big box brands; they have and cultivate a broad acceptance from the enthusiast community and nearly everyone who walks into our studios. I got to truly experience this first-hand when I attended a collectors’ event here in London during Christmas 2023. It wasn’t just the number of collectors that turned up, but the depth and bizarre breadth of their collections and knowledge was staggering. It was this atmosphere that I wanted to replicate in our Studios. It felt so different to any get-together I had been to, and that is where the compatibility between Tudor and Time+Tide began for me.

“Since the Studio has taken root, here in London, the sheer number of Tudors that I have seen on our customers’ wrists, as well as our staff’s, has amazed me and proved the deeply held love our community has for them. And the fact that they are able to slide right into the dock next to all of these young brands and compete in a healthy way without standing out is awesome.”

Why now?

“I like to earn my stripes. I had this dream ever since that event, and so I shared that with Sven and now Yannick, who heads up Tudor in the UK, and ever since I did, I’ve been incredibly reassured by the rigour that has gone into the entire process. This hasn’t been one of my rash ideas; this has needed both sides to test and push it in every direction. Was it going to be a good fit for us? Does it fit for our customers? And of course, does it fit for Tudor? That was going to be the deciding factor here.

“Then we had to consider how it was going to work. How could we slide a brand with nearly 100 years of history into a space that almost exclusively holds brands that are 20 years old and younger, with some not even a year old yet? And to get that all to work, I needed reassurance from Tudor, but also internally. Sometimes, as a leader, you have to trust your instincts and run with something, but in this case, it was such a shift from our MO that I needed everyone on the team to look me in the eye and say they thought it made sense. And that’s why it took so long. I also wanted to get a year of trading under our belts, and we just happened to be making this announcement the week our one-year anniversary is taking place.”

Why London?

“Good question. Time+Tide is a global business; we’ve been operating our retail business in Melbourne for three years now, London for a year, and New York is on the horizon. But it was really that first event I attended over Christmas 2023 that cemented London in my mind. The feeling of how engaged the local community was with Tudor.

“But also, the video that you and I did with Tim Green and Justin Hast, and there were three vintage Tudors on the table. There seems to be something about Tudor in London that feels incredibly resonant. It feels very hand in glove doing this partnership in this city with this brand, and doing so with this concept.”

What is this concept?

“Tudor at retail is not a novelty. So I needed to find a novelty, and that wasn’t hard. This was actually the most fun part, to reconstruct and reimagine a story platform for Tudor. That story is provenance and constant performance over a century, and we want to bring these achievements to life through artefacts, through literature that can place everything in its historical context. And it’s all thanks to the world-famous Tudor Collector, Ross Povey, helping curate this selection, making sure we do it all right. We will know we’ve succeeded when someone walks in and says, “I’ve seen a standard retailer 100 times, but I’ve never seen this before.”

“When you’re in a transactional space, you’re talking over glass cabinets; it’s war. This place will be far more relaxed. We will have a lounge with soft furnishings, some of the best Tudor literature for you to read while you rest your feet, and even some vintage pieces to gawk at. We want people to dwell for a long time in a world where dwell times are trying to be cut down in every other retail space. In this time, we want people to discover why this brand is believed to be truly unbeatable on so many levels.”

Why come here and not a competing and bigger retailer around the corner?

“I want people to come in here and feel like they can explore this brand on their own time. But also not feel like they are looked down upon for not choosing a bigger, more expensive brand. You always get that look of disappointment that you haven’t gone for one of their higher price point brands upstairs. Here, you’re going to feel cherished. In fact, Tudor sits in our higher price point anyway, so this is going to be our ‘upstairs’. You’re more than likely to see me in here, and you’ll be getting the usual love from our great staff here by just coming in and showing your support for us.”

What kind of events can we expect?

“Of course, the whole concept of the Discovery Studio was that it can go from our standard retail offering to an event space in no time at all, and so we will, of course, have a full calendar of events. If you buy any Tudor from us over this period, you’ll get a season’s pass to all of these events. And they will be many and varied. We will have a collectors’ event, a launch event, and this one will also be a significant moment for Tudor as well, marking a new way for them to interface with their collectors. We will also look to run community events throughout this residency.”

What’s next?

“That’s a tough one to answer. For Tudor and Time+Tide, we will take this residency nearly all the way up to Watches and Wonders next year, which is pretty much perfect, especially as Tudor will be celebrating its centenary next year. And in my head, it’s all about trying to make it stick. It’s going to take all of our energy to pull this off. It won’t be a small undertaking with this series of events running alongside this first-of-its-kind concept. But I am really excited to see the long-term potential of it.

“I’ve already been quoted elsewhere that this is going to be a bigger deal for us than New York. And I think for me that really means that New York is an extension of what we are already doing. An extension and expansion. This tying together of the Tudor and Time+Tide brands in the Library & Lounge concept is breaking new ground for us. Yet, it still feels like a completely natural fit inside what we have already built with our Discovery Studios. There will be some sleepless nights ahead. Not from nervousness, but from excitement.”