Correct me if I’m wrong – and I’m sure you will – but I think I might have been the first person to write an in-depth article about Linde Werdelin for a major national newspaper.
The newspaper was the Financial Times, the publication date was Saturday, November 13, 2004, and the headline across my seven-column, 1,200 word piece shouted:
“A computer for your wrist” followed by the strapline ‘A Danish team claims to have come up with a design that combines the best of mechanical watch making with a cutting edge data bank’.
Although Jorn and Morten had founded Linde Werdelin two years before, the firm still hadn’t made a watch, meaning my article had to be illustrated with a couple of computer renderings which gave an accurate impression of the proposed ‘Biformeter’ and its matching ‘Land Instrument’.
This lack of actual, er, watches, prompted a journalist colleague (now dead and much-missed) to grumble about valuable column inches being used for ‘a brand that will probably disappear without trace before it even gets going’.
Well, he got that wrong, didn’t he?
At the time, however, I empathised with his scepticism. It was a booming era for the watch business, but also one during which many new dial names did, indeed, evaporate almost as quickly as they had arrived.
But there was something about Jorn and Morten’s approach to the enterprise that made me feel confident that they would not only produce some watches, but that the Linde Werdelin name would be here to stay.
Being a Luddite, the electronic ‘Instrument’ that the Biformeter’s case was designed to carry didn’t interest me that much – but I loved the design of the watch itself, partly because it looked different without being idiotically wacky and partly because, for once, it was entirely original without any hint of having been ‘inspired’ by an existing model.
In fact, I liked the Biformeter so much when I finally saw one in the metal that I put my name down for a Founder’s Watch (number 64) which, 17 years later, remains one of my favourite pieces and still sparks conversations every time I wear it.
I still have the original Instrument too (unused) complete with its charger, boxes and instruction booklet.
But while I felt confident that Linde Werdelin would be around for a while, I wasn’t to know that its existence would lead to what will soon be a 20-year friendship with Jorn – or that I would go on to write many more articles about the brand, its development and, as it turned out, how it was to quietly lead the way in so many aspects of the watch world.
Jorn and Morten, for example, pre-empted the demise of the Baselword watch show, choosing to leave it behind a good two years before many more major dial names also pulled out in protest at the way the event was run.
Linde Werdelin had also been a pioneer of watch e-tailing/direct selling from the very outset, and was one of the very first to offer ‘try before you buy’ and certified pre-owned sales facilities.
Now, 18 years after I wrote that first FT article, I feel somewhat honoured to have perhaps played a small part in raising awareness of one of the early 21st century’s first accessible and truly different independent watch makers – and entirely vindicated for believing that it was going to go the distance.
In fact, I can’t help feeling that Linde Werdelin will be around for a lot longer than I am…..