Dutchman Jordy Cobelens, 26, 
has created a watch brand in less than four years, acquiring a global marketing platform in the form of A1 Grand Prix and selling 150,000 watches in 2008 through 3,500 retailers. 


Called TW Steel (The Watch in Steel), his take on massive, blingy timepieces appears to have updated the trick performed by Nicolas Hayek two decades earlier, when Swatch was hurled upon the Swiss market to challenge the all-conquering Japanese digital marauders.


This time, Cobelens and his watch-designing father have aped the super-expensive large-format brands such as Panerai, Audemars Piguet and IWC while making no claims to horological originality: “The watches are not a luxury product …but they look as if they cost ten times more than they do.” He puts the seductive, rose gold and matt black looks of his 45mm, 48mm or 50mm bezels down to Chinese manufacturing expertise, Dutch quality control and Japanese quartz movements.


Selling for between €150 and €1,000, Cobelens appears to have tapped a rich, new vein of price acceptance among consumers that pushes the median price point of a fashion watch higher than ever before (the original Swatch cost just CHF45) while falling deliberately short of the €2,000—€4,000 price point of blue-chip brands and entry-level Rolexes. 


It all started in early 2006 when Cobelens and his father paid their Chinese manufacturer €2,000 to produce 400 each of four new watch designs. “It was a pure experiment,” recalls Cobelens. “We just wanted to see if there was any appetite for an even larger format than was currently available.” With no overheads at all, they sold them all within weeks through a variety of Dutch jewellery stores, not least to women who saw nothing strange about donning the horological equivalent of Arnold Schwarzenegger.


In no time they had 11 models (115 today) and a clutch of distributors, plus pick-up from London’s Harrods, the first time the iconic store had ever taken on an unknown brand. Cobelens then hunted down A1 Grand Prix, the motor racing series, and last April became official timekeeper for a “seven figure sum.”


Previously an Amsterdam-based DJ with a record business, Cobelens is every bit the savvy entrepreneur and already looks forward to exploiting his brand witheverything from jewellery to sunglasses, while offices in Thailand, Hong Kong and Australia are being opened.


Yet behind his lightning success is family money, parental wisdom and previous failures, such as his father’s now-defunct Vanceur watch brand. A former distributor of Swiss watches in Holland turned marketing consultant turned watch designer, Corbelens Snr has contacts and credibility. 


Success in such a comeptitive niche is never as easy as it looks, but that doesn’t mean the trick can’t be repeated.