Without a shadow of a doubt, one of the coolest guys in the watch industry, Jorn is the co-founder of Linde Werdelin, an adventure meets St Tropez chic brand driven by nordic design, Swiss engineering and based in London. Hope you enjoy this brief chat Jorn and I had recently:
Jorn, how did you come to watches?
I’m fourth generation in the watch and jewelry industry so it’s in my DNA, but a more important milestone was my grandmother letting me choose a Timex as my first watch when I was about 5 years old. When we started Linde Werdelin in 2002 it was a combination of love for watches/design and skiing.
What was the first watch you owned and loved?
The first real mechanical watch that I owned was the Cartier Santos when it launched in 1980.
How long did it take to bring the LW brand to life?
It’s an ongoing development and continual evolution. There is a point where you move from community to a brand and that can take decades.
What was the greatest obstacle?
Ourselves - in the sense you want so many things to go right too quickly; time and patience and a bit of luck works wonders.
You now operate a very different model to back then - do you look back and wish you had acted differently?
Ohh yes - I wish i had taken a lot of decisions much quicker and intuitively
What are the key attributes to how you currently operate?
Flexible, customer centric, evolutionary and our own path
What are you most proud of at LW?
That we are still here and doing well. It is for a multitude of reasons very hard to build a watch business - to be relevant to existing and new clients.
What does success look like moving forward at LW?
Continue to create products, values and ideas that resonate with our clients
Hit LW up here.