SJX Watches
Conversations: American Watchmakers Jason Lu and Zach Smith of 1776 Atelier
The 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States did not escape notice from the nation’s fledgling watch industry. To mark the occasion, 1776 Atelier released the Liberty 250, a watch credibly claimed to be more than 90% US-made. The brand’s most American-made and technically ambitious watch to date, the Liberty 250 also illustrates the difficulty of building a complicated mechanical product without an established domestic supply chain. Its HP 917 movement is the product of extensive iterative development, incorporating newly manufactured components, a free-sprung balance and a markedly more elaborate finishing programme. We sat down with the brand’s co-founders, Jason Lu and Zach Smith, to unpack the 90% figure, discuss the challenges of manufacturing watches in the United States and understand what the Liberty 250 means for the future of the brand and American watchmaking more broadly. The Liberty 250 is the most American-made product yet from Atelier 1776. The interview was edited for length and clarity. Brandon Moore (BM): Why start a watch company in the United States, particularly given the limited domestic supplier network and the additional cost involved? Jason Lu (JL): Because this is where we live, and this is where we wanted to build it. The United States was founded on ingenuity, and American watchmaking has a remarkable history. The fact that much of the former infrastructure no longer exists does not mean it cannot be rebuilt in a new form. Th...
