”Why does this watch from an Italian brand say, ‘Made in China’?” ”Sir, more than 80% of fashion timepieces sold around the world are made in China. Even brands from Italy or Sweden manufacture their products in China.” After six years in the wristwatch import and distribution business, we have heard countless inquiries along those lines. In some cases, customers have accused us of selling counterfeit products after seeing the “Made in China” label brandished on their products. Whenever we encountered a situation like that, we kindly explained the reality of the industry to those customers.But soon, it made us wonder, “Why indeed do they make most watches in China?” The answer to that question is simple. China is home to large production plants capable of mass producing products. This drives down production costs and pushes product quality beyond a certain quality threshold. “Can’t we make watches in Korea?” I vaguely remember seeing plenty of Korean watches on TV or newspaper advertisements when I was young. Do you remember? Has anyone seen their parents wearing watches they bought as their wedding gift? Or watches bought by their parents as wedding gifts kept in a jewelry box at home?As for my parents, they bought watches from Dolce & Gabbana when they married. People say the 1980s was the heyday for Korean wristwatch manufacturers. But now, the glory days have long gone. Only a small number of factories remain in existence - barely - receiving orders from a handful of companies. We want to give it a try! We studied what type of watches people preferred, and how good the quality should be to make sure customers can use products without too much inconveniences. No matter how many imported products we sold, the fact of the matter was that those brands were not Korean. In other words, we did not feel as attached to them like they were our own babies. That is why we embarked on this venture. “Let’s create our brand, create products that consumers in our country like, make products in Korea ourselves, and give it a good try again!” That was the genesis of Harriot. After an exhaustive search, we went to Jang In-cheon, the CEO of Sungwoo Precision, who had been making watch dials in Korea for the past 36 years at the time and Kim Ha-beom, the CEO of Amitech. “Recently, I’ve been stressing the issue of production origins a lot. I’ve filed complaints and had meetings with public officials. I was fighting extremely hard for what I believed. So, when I heard that Harriot was launching its “Made in Korea” initiative, I was glad and intrigued.”
