Time+Tide is Coming to New York! Founder McUtchen Speaks About Discovery Studio Opening and Growth

He’s conquering the Big Apple! That’s something I’m thrilled to announce, as our colleagues from Time+Tide are growing again. Founder Andrew McUtchen and I have known each other for many years, and I’m grateful to call him a friend. In 2014, he founded what was back then a watch magazine, “because”, as he said to Esquire, “there was an opportunity in Australia to be a preeminent watch website”. The “home of watch culture”, as he named it, has grown significantly over the years, first by opening a Watch Discovery Studio in Melbourne in 2023, followed by a move to the UK in 2024 and the launch of a second studio. And now, he’s about to cross the Atlantic, as Time+Tide will launch a Discovery Studio in New York City this autumn. This was the perfect opportunity for me to speak with Andrew and learn more about the recent and impressive growth of T+T.  

Frank Geelen, MONOCHROME – What led you to start the first Watch Discovery Studio in Melbourne?

Andrew McUtchen, Founder of Time + Tide – Well, like many stories in life, it started with an eviction! We were renting a former motorcycle workshop in a suburb called Cremorne, on the CBD fringe of Melbourne. It was a half-industrial space with a showroom at the front, a warehouse at the back, and it had a double-height vertical bi-fold door that we could open up onto the street. I had a huge mural of Steve McQueen laminated on it. It’s that shot where he’s peering grumpily over a cup of coffee, his Rolex Sub in full view. He became a local icon. People would get pictures in front of him.

We set up a couch and living room area right in the showroom, which was also our YouTube set, and we wrote stories on tables out back (Editor’s note: you can see the old Melbourne office/studio in the two videos below). It was exactly like that Raymond Carver short story called Why Don’t You Dance, where the man rearranges his living room on his front lawn. People walking past had no idea what we were selling or doing; it’s pretty funny now that I reflect on it.

The whole operation in those days appealed to the Brooklyn hipster in me. There was a back half of the warehouse we used for table tennis, storage, and the showroom part we’d clean up for big brand events and club get-togethers. It’s crazy to think of it now, but we did a super high-end event with Jaeger-LeCoultre in that space. The brand wanted to colour-match the gaffer tape to the floor. They were happy for it to have an ‘edgy’ vibe, but the gaffer tape had to match. Good memories; we catch ourselves laughing and thinking about it!

We had enough space to dabble in retail when we weren’t pumping out stories or videos or playing table tennis. We convinced Doxa to give us a shot at distributing the brand. But being on the fringe of the CBD, with no real foot traffic and being in an area that was full of architectural practices and car dealerships, it wasn’t really working. Despite being the biggest watch website in Australia, we didn’t sell many watches at that time. When the news came that we were getting kicked out, my CFO Luke Martin and I knew we had to step it up. We also had the prospect of distributing Hamilton on the horizon. We were too embarrassed to even tell them about the motorbike shop when we were pitching them. The time had definitely come to level it all up.

We started hunting for first-floor places in the “Paris end” of Collins Street in the heart of Melbourne. We found a perfect place – a former travel agent on a first floor, opposite the Omega and Montblanc boutiques. It’s a beautiful heritage building with street frontage and another open side. Heaps of natural light, high ceilings, Melbourne trams going past right under the window – and yet away from the hustle and bustle. It’s a perfect little sanctuary. It was our first Watch Discovery Studio, and it opened in August 2023.

How does it work, now that it’s been around for over two years?

Often, when you look back, you say you’d do things differently if you could go back in time. But we had the fundamentals right in the first Studio. In terms of the space, the environment had to be a “third space”. It had to feel more like a library, or a clubhouse, or a loft inner city apartment than a watch retailer. But it also had to have clear transactional intent. Personally, I get a bit lost in the house or lounge retail concepts. I want to browse! I want to build a tray of stuff I could buy, even if I’m pretty sure what I’m after.

So, there are plenty of watches to choose from, and to discover, but there are also lots of window seats, couch areas and hang spaces. It’s inviting you to chill. The service piece is just as critical, and on this front, we got lucky. The first people to apply were our hardest core hardcore fans. They were addicted to watches and wanted to talk about them all day. We told them they could do that, and that they didn’t have to go the hard sell on people. There are sales targets, but we have an internal culture that celebrates 5-star reviews as much as big sales. “Service over sales” is something you’ll hear often back of house. This was the right move. Our retail team can meet anyone on any level of watch enthusiasm, make them feel at home, and enable them.

Then, you need the candy. We launched with what I consider to be the Rolex, Cartier and Omega of microbrands with Baltic, Furlan Marri and Studio Underd0g – we did unique studio editions with all these brands to make them draw even harder, and we never stop scouting the next wave.

These brands made up the bulk of our early sales, with Hamilton also being a mainstay in Australia. These are the ingredients that make the Watch Discovery Studio work, not forgetting the most important and obvious ingredient of all – the community. We have always had a community vibe on Time+Tide, and when we opened our doors, they did not let us down.

What did you have to set up, aside from an editorial team for Time+Tide?

We already had the editorial side locked down. We needed a studio manager, floor staff, an events manager and a general manager. The GM was the key piece here. We had already been in long discussions with the former GM of Tissot Australia, Scott Jungwirth. He was the guy for the job, but he was urging us to dream bigger and spend more on the fit-out. We had a budget of, let’s say $150-$200k AUD. He was like, no way, $500k AUD minimum!

I can’t remember the final figure, but it was north of that. Scotty got his way. “You’re not going to get, or keep Hamilton if you don’t go big!” was something we got tired of hearing. But Luke and I knew he was right. We had a ‘media office slash showroom’ concept in mind, but Scott shifted the weighting from 50/50 to more like 90/10.

So we needed all that shop infrastructure, and we needed a shopfitter who understood the customer journey of watch buyers. We worked with a bloke who was a regular Swatch Group shopfitter, Curtis Martlew. Those early meetings could get quite spicy. I was pushing Curtis to deliver something that I considered didn’t exist at that time. Scott and Curtis were more used to delivering Tissot-style boutiques.

I was working back from the feeling I wanted people to have. “I could live here” is what I wanted the first feeling to be. Followed by, “Look at all these watches, I’ve never seen that one in the metal”. But I’d never done a fit-out before either. It was one of those bottlenecks in a business’s life that was painful, but necessary. I was obsessed and going slightly mad with this vision, and I wouldn’t compromise. There’s a photograph from our recent trip to New York that sums up how it turned out. Curtis, CFO Luke and Scott, and I were beaming at the prospect of another challenge. Four proud fathers. We got it done twice; we’ll do it again.

And then you moved to London, how was that? And how did you get the idea to move to London?

This is where we had a real split in the executive team. One of us was happy with where we were. We had a product/market fit. Melbourne was working. But two of us had our sights set on testing the concept on a bigger stage. Melbourne and Australia are, after all, small but mighty markets. I’d been asking friends about London. Did it have an alternative retailer like us? Did it have many other digital titles on the media front? So many questions. The answer was to go over and check it out for an extended period. My wife and I packed up the kids on Australia Day (the most beautiful time of year in Melbourne, and when all the events are cranking, not an easy time to leave!) and commenced a three-month trial period to answer as many questions as possible.

The aha moment came on British Watchmakers Day 2024. Richard Benc from Studio Underd0g and I had teased the pizza collab we did really hard, and were ready to launch on the day itself. When I arrived – late, I’m sad to say – the queue was out of control, and the people were the most excited I’d ever seen at a watch event. It was BRILLIANT. I texted my exec team and said, we gotta get here!

We gotta go. From there, we put the foot on the gas, found an incredible space in Oxford Circus that fit the vibe of the Australian studio – a long corner quarter floor in a heritage building with a great layout, lots of light. And off we went. Watch Discovery Studio number two!

Do London and Melbourne differ?

They do, but the overall atmosphere is the same. I like how Aesop stores are all different but feel the same. The colour scheme, bookshelves, layout and floating island benches are the same, but in London we also have the ‘White Room’, a space for standalone exhibitions that can change day to day. New York will have a unique space, too. One of the core studio concepts that you will see in Melbourne, London and New York is adaptability. We design all our spaces to have mobile elements, and screen displays and changeable header plates so that in five minutes you can transform the space to be a mono-brand boutique, a nightclub, an aquarium, whatever atmosphere is needed.

How has the response been to London in the first six months?

I’m an incurable optimist, which is a liability I’ve had to manage with an extremely pragmatic CFO! But the response to the London studio has been beyond even our most positive projections. Totally humbling to be honest. Esquire Magazine even called it ‘The Best New Watch Shop in Britain‘. We had sales targets that we had to adjust up. We’ve had high-end brands like Piaget bring millions of dollars worth of jewellery and vintage pieces to events. Later this month, we will globally launch a new watch with a Swatch Group brand. We’ve had the local trade body – the Alliance of British Watch and Clockmakers – get right behind us, and co-host an annual event celebrating local brands, called ‘The Weekender’. The reviews have been so generous and positive.

Does any one event or moment stand out from the first six months of the London Studio’s life?

There was one single moment that was the top of the mountain for me, personally. It was the after-party of British Watchmakers Day 2025. Richard Benc, founder of Studio Underd0g and Nicholas Bowman Scargill, founder of Fears, had set up a ‘Gimlet Bar’ to serve the most delicious, deadly cocktails. The room was dark, the music was loud, the floor was sticky with spilt vodka from the martini glasses. All the British brands were letting their hair down after a huge day, and Mitch from my team came over to me and said, “Roger wants to say a few words”. We fired up the PA, and none other than Roger Smith took the mic. He invited Mike France from Christopher Ward up, and the two delivered a Churchillian-style speech about the re-emerging greatness of British watchmaking, the momentum that is starting to build, the future that beckons. And he mentioned us. The role we are playing in giving the local industry a hub. A town square. I stood beside them both with this big, dumb smile on my face. THIS is what I’d dreamed of.

And now, New York City! Tell us more!

Oh man, the space is so incredible. It’s the absolute Soho dream! 16ft ceilings, exposed brick walls, a mezzanine, and a fire escape on the street frontage. Direct lift access. It feels like a movie set. Then you walk out onto Broome Street, and you can get to Journe in a minute. Watches of Switzerland in under a minute, and Material Good in maybe three minutes if you hustle. It’s the ultimate first-floor watch lovers’ sanctuary in amongst the action, but also elevated just above it.

In terms of what to expect from the space, we’re working with Curtis again, our shopfitter, and I plan to drive him crazy once again in new and exciting ways. I’m seeing a cafe area with an actual coffee machine. I’m seeing our black bookcases stretching to the ceiling. I’m working on an idea for the mezzanine that will bring a new layer to what we do. We can’t wait to get started.

When it comes to the brands we’ll offer, you can count on our core brands coming with us – confirmed for the space are Fears, Norqain, Farer, Baltic, Serica, Furlan Marri, Studio Underd0g and Christopher Ward. In the same way that London has a British focus, it is our intention to source a strong cohort of American independent brands for the New York boutique. I’d be interested to hear from your readers who they think we should look at stocking from an American brand perspective? Feel free to comment below, I’ll be reading the comments with great interest!

What about people on the ground in New York? What roles are you hiring for, and how can they get in touch?

We’re looking for a General Manager, a Studio Manager, an Assistant Studio Manager and floor staff. The key requirement for us is simply being part of what we consider a magical, community-based world of watch culture. Anyone who loves watches and loves connecting with others through their love of watches is a potential superstar in our studio – we’ve taken enthusiasts on with little to no sales experience, and they’ve absolutely thrived. We’ve also been able to pivot people from traditional brand and boutique manager roles in the watch industry. Anyone interested can reach out to me personally at [email protected].