GEORGE BAMFORD FOUNDER OF BAMFORD WATCH DEPARTMENT

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For both you and BWD, 2017 was a year of major change. Tell us about that.

I think I would say it has been the pivotal moment in my career. Yes, I’ve kind of become official with the customisation side of things, but more than that, I am now being embraced by the industry and that feels cool. People are starting to realise that personalisation will eventually go hand-in-hand with luxury brands – it has already happened in the car business, with everyone from Rolls-Royce and Ferrari to Land Rover doing it. And, as history shows, the automotive industry leads the rest of luxury. A few years ago, people were saying that luxury was dead and it was all about bespoke, but they have to go together now. It is not just a buzzword. If you don’t do personalisation, then you aren’t luxury. Cartier and Jaeger-LeCoultre have been addressing it for years but now other brands are catching up. As it is with tailors such as Huntsman, so it will be with watches – we will have our equivalent of off-the-peg, made-to-measure and completely bespoke.