HOW OUR KEN BEGAN -

Arken started as a challenge to design one watch. With no experience in product design or any in-depth knowledge of the watch industry, it was an attempt to create something purposeful and practical. Simply for myself.

I had spent my former years communicating stories for brands and businesses alike, through video/photography and various other creative mediums. When the many years of hard work had finally paid off, as people do, I was ready to make that first, big watch purchase. However, I found myself wondering, then what? Well 10 months of worldwide isolation gave me plenty of time to answer that question. After re-assembling and tinkering with more Japanese watches than you can imagine, inspiration finally struck.

Why not just build something for myself completely from scratch? So in October 2020 I spent a month learning new skills, sketching, creating diagrams and mockups. A whole catalog of references to ensure I could approach every potential supplier with an exact specification on every little detail. During this personal quest, I documented it for friends and family on my social platforms and it soon dawned on me that I had something more on my hands than a single product for my own self-enjoyment. 

An exciting new challenge and an opportunity to finally tell my own story. A chance to push the boundaries of what any regular person like me could achieve, whilst challenging peoples expectations in how they perceive value in affordable everyday watches. At the time, spec for spec in full titanium, there was nothing remotely close to it on the market for anywhere near $500. So I wanted to make a promise to deliver on that and I kept that promise.

After a year of building the website, shooting all of the material and putting together a marketing strategy, Arken successfully launched crowdfunded pre-orders for the Instrumentum on the 15th September 2021. Within 10 minutes, it was no longer a pipe dream, Arken became a running company that now had the means to grow.

To be able to do it all over again is all I really hoped for. I wanted to launch it on our own website so that the people that decided to support the project, knew that I was prepared to shoulder the same risk as everyone else, because I believe in it too. Words cannot describe my love for everyone that stood patiently alongside this first campaign, through thick and thin, despite all the supply chain issues, because I’d be in a very deep hole without them.

The desire to be value driven stems from wanting to make the community proud. Proud of the things this brand can achieve and deep down proud to have me as a member of the community. That is ultimately why “Our Ken” was the origin placeholder that later became Arken. This brand, more than anything represents who I am and what I want to give and create for people to enjoy. I only hope my passion and drive creates more opportunities to learn and develop better products for many years to come.

- KENNETH LAM

DESIGNED TO ENDURE EVERYDAY ADVENTURES

The mission of Arken to offer premium aesthetics within practical and affordable tool watches. We hope to provide you with long lasting relationships and experiences with not only our products, but with us as a brand. As we evolve, so will our products and we expect our quality and execution to reflect that, especially as we learn more about being in this industry. Through our rough and ready approach, we aim to enable a freedom for the user. A freedom to explore, to challenge and to push boundaries without worrying about cost or caution. Trusting our products and relying on us to repair and reproduce the vessels that inspire you to go further. A modern watch brand that also acts as a tool for its user, more specifically as a tool that inspires. To do more, to live more, to be more. That’s not to say all adventures have to lead to Everest and not all accolades presented with medals of honour. We should recognise the achievements within our daily lives and the memories we scratch deeply into our timepieces.

Designed in Great Britain with our case housing and metal work currently sourced from varying suppliers in Asia, including the movements from Japan. Assembly, quality control and assurance, tolerance and performance tests are then completed here in the United Kingdom, before they are packaged up and shipped to your door. As an independently funded startup there are limitations to manufacturing on home soil but we aim to one day source more and more components from within the United Kingdom. However, we do not want to compromise our mission in delivering affordable high-quality products for bragging rights alone. In the same way we don’t want to create watches purely because of profitability. Arken was built on enthusiasm and it started as a brand that challenged expectations, pushed boundaries and we intend to keep it that way. It is an ambition and a process that we are actively working towards for ourselves, in hopes that one day we can have the best of both worlds and so can you.