BY GEORGE! BAMFORD WATCH DEPARTMENT GOES LEGIT WITH ZENITH

With all the entrepreneurial prowess of his JCB-founding grandfather, George Bamford identified a considerable gap in the market in the early 2000s. It led to the launch of his watch customizing business, Bamford Watch Department (BWD). BWD’s raison d'être ever since has been to “jazz up” treasured timepieces by blackening the cases, coloring the dials and adding all manner of special symbols and characters to the standard aesthetic of everything from Rolexes to Audemars Piguets and Patek Philippes.

While after-market alterations are nothing new — Rolex co-branding, for example, is something that has existed for decades — Bamford has managed to upset the great and the good from Switzerland’s fourth-biggest export industry, leading to much hand-wringing, foot-stamping and tearing up of warranties. All of the official