Our Story

Ours is a story that, like all great stories, started with an idea. It is a story of the simple and the routine metamorphosing into a great business concept and success story. It all started when our founders, Stephen Windsor and Swiss-born Thomas Keller, were students at a hospitality management school in Lausanne, Switzerland. A work placement in one of London’s elite hotels was the perfect catalyst for their introduction to their mentor, who was also the inspiration for the brand. He was the hotel manager, a man renowned for his elegance and sophistication.

His pristine attire would inevitably consist of a three-piece suit, the twist being that it was a different suit for each day of the week. However, there was one item in his attire that never changed: a simple and elegant watch on his wrist. This was a timepiece he had inherited from his father, who was a retired engineer. During his moments of nostalgia, the manager would explain how his father, who worked in a dynamic role that involved technical complexity, never believed that the way we tell time should involve advanced technology. His father believed that the instrument of time-telling should retain an inherent simplicity that ensured there was no distortion of the fond memories from our past. This simple but profound belief would later become the design philosophy that drove all ThomWindsor creations.

When Stephen and Thomas returned to Lausanne and graduated a year later, they decided to partner in a business venture. The words of their mentor remained etched in their memory and they decided to make that wish a reality by getting into the business of watch-making. A chance encounter with their mentor and his words of simple wisdom together with the vision of the watch on his wrist had triggered for them a Eureka moment.

The rest, as they say, is history…