The Timex name first appeared in US shops in the 1950s, as an affordable but well made watch, manufactured by U.S. Time. The Timex was marketed on its ‘indestructibility’ and adverts at the time featured the watch enduring a number of torture tests demonstrating its resilience. These included the watch being fastened to a variety of different items, including a boats propeller, a baseball star’s bat and even a lobster’s claw!

These adverts – fronted by leading newsreader of the time John Cameron Swayze – ran until the 1970s, where Timex sales had reached 500 million, counting for one in every two watches sold in the United States at the time!

The 1980s saw a revolution in the world of mainstream watches, low-price digital watches from the Far East flooded the market, and while many US brands attempted to react to this influx, it was only Timex who survived, and ultimately flourished. Their digital watch relied on years and years of experience mass producing low-cost, reliable watches, and their simple design soon established itself as a modern classic.

The ethos of the Timex80 brand is to celebrate that classic digital style, reproducing watches the original shape and including some of the patented advances Timex added over the years, such as the Indiglo back-light. Each watch comes in a display box in the shape of one of the LCD cyphers that make up digital numbers, and aside from the original black rubber colourway the Timex80 collection comes in a wide palette of vibrant colours.

This season sees a brand new model released from the Timex 80 fold. The Jumbo series are an over-sized version of the original, complete with all the details and functions that made it so successful. The Jumbo has already garnered a great detail of interest, and this brilliant take on the Timex digital watch deserves the plaudits.