TALKING SHOP: Dominic Wakefield on bringing Bond Street to Horsham
From its beginnings and the legend of founder John Wakefield riding into Horsham on his Penny Farthing bike and opening the first store back in 1911, to its current day status as a regional powerhouse, Wakefields’ transformation and journey over the course of over a century is quite something. Fourth generation co-owner Dominic Wakefield, along with his sister Melanie, are in the driver’s seat now. Dominic sat down with Watch Insider’s Daniel Malins to discuss the rich history of the brand and what the future holds.
Watch Insider: You’ve elevated Wakefields significantly over the past few years. To what extent does it protect you when it comes to market shocks like the current situation in Iran, and the potential inflationary implications that come with them? that make you more immune to events like this? Inflation generally doesn’t impact rich people as much as it does less wealthy people.
Dominic Wakefield: There is an element of that. I think wealthy people are slightly more protected, certainly with inflation and interest rates. You’d argue that maybe positive interest rates actually make it favourable for wealthy people, who have already accumulated that wealth and look forward to actually getting a better return. That said, I think the consequences of what’s going on in the world today do make it problematic for everybody, and wealthy people aren’t immune to those changes. The Middle East obviously has a massive impact, particularly with oil prices and the uncertainty that goes with it.
Watch Insider: How local is your customer base?
DW: We transact with people in quite a large radius. I mean, we go up to North London, all the way down to the south coast. We see a lot of clients from Surrey, Kent, East and West Sussex, into Hampshire, and even Berkshire to a degree.
We do see a lot of clients from London and maybe there’s some historical tie to Sussex. I’ve got some very good clients who were based around Sussex early on and then moved up to London, but still then come back to us. We are a family store, so for us that’s great. We believe we offer slightly more experiential retailing and that’s what we’ve tried to do.
Watch Insider: Could you elaborate on that a little bit?
DW: First of all, obviously we have family in the business, and the family element is important to our clients. They like to see a member of the family, whether it’s Melanie or myself. And most of my senior team have been there for many years. Tristan, my manager, has a great relationship with many of our watch clients.
On top of that, we have developed the store. In 2021, we developed it with the idea that we would offer a more concierge-type service. So we put the bar in at the front, and for me it is absolutely central and core to everything we do. We previously had a bar at the back of the shop that we put in in 2006, but it was never central to our customer journey.
When we built the new shop, we wanted to put the bar right at the front, and the reason for doing that is that when a client comes in, Joe, who is our front of house person, will see that client, settle them down, offer them a nice drink, ascertain what they’re in for, or greet them if he knows that they’re coming in with an appointment. That always surprises people — it’s a nice touch. Welcoming them with their name is great, but ascertaining their needs is really important. Too often you’ll get a client to sit down at a desk and then someone will come and serve them, and that person might not be the most qualified person to serve their needs. We looked at a lot of hotels and the way they operate, and how they operate their front of house. That’s why we believe we have a great conversion rate. We rarely lose a sale once they’re in the store.
WI: How much time do you personally spend in the store?
DW: I tend to see certain clients. I don’t spend any time on the shop floor unless it’s a booked-in client. My sister Melanie is more front of house, but she will also be appointment-only. To be honest, we’re trying to actually move all our clients to appointment-only if we can. Pre-Covid, we barely had any appointments, but clients are so used to booking appointments now and their time is precious. They want to walk into a store and have the right person in front of them.
If they want to see me or Melanie or Tristan, they know that they can definitely see us. It’s very rare now that good clients don’t book an appointment beforehand, and any client I’m speaking to, I always say, “Just let me know when you want to come in.” We’ve got a parking space at the back, so they can use that as well. It just gives them a better service, and you can prepare as well. If you know your client’s coming in for a diamond ring or a watch or an after-sale service, you can prep beforehand and give them a more elevated experience.
WI: Could you take this logic to its extreme conclusion and end up in a situation where you can save costs on the high street rent, and instead end up in a first floor location, which is invariably cheaper? You can then re-invest that saving into more customer experience-related activity.
DW: I think it’s a valid point, Daniel. I think there’s a combination of both. I wouldn’t want to lose the high street presence because I think we also are family jewellers that have been operating in that same location for over a hundred years. We want to be accessible, we want to offer the same experience to all, whether browsing for a gift or knowing exactly what you want. We want people to experience Wakefields.
We have elevated our brands. We only became a Rolex authorised dealer in 2012. And then Tudor when it launched in 2015. And they’re the only two watch brands we offer, along with Rolex Certified Pre-Owned (RCPO), which is excellent as well.
Over the years we’ve stocked a number of watch brands, but have since removed them all because we just didn’t have the space. And for me, I’d rather dedicate more space to fewer brands and do them well, than spread myself thinly or the brand thinly across the store and not do it justice.
For us, Wakefields is the brand. We’ve been there for 150 years, and that is the constant in Horsham and the surrounding areas. That’s our heritage, and our history is the most important part.
When we redesigned the store in 2021 it was a big step because the store was historic. There were some elements of that store that my great-grandfather put in, and we tried to be sympathetic when we re-did it. But Mel and I were really keen to engage a designer who could interpret our image of our art deco history, but also create an environment where you’re actually putting in materials that endure.
We’ve put our character into the store, and when people come in, they do say, “Oh, this feels a bit like Bond Street in Horsham.” And bringing a bit of Bond Street to Horsham is quite a nice thing.
WI: On the point you brought up about the evolution from being quite high volume and brand heavy, to where you position yourself today, with Tudor and Rolex being the only two watch brands you sell. How have you achieved that? Do you have to spend years proving that you’ve elevated the store in the hope that at some point you’re accepted as being ‘worthy?’ In my experience talking to jewellers, it’s always sounded like there’s no quick fix where the likes of Rolex and Patek Philippe are concerned.
DW: I would say it was a traditional store before. I wasn’t happy with it at all. We’d evolved the retail space since I joined in 1996 and it was a completely different store, with the look and feel. It was only at the front before we gradually expanded out the back. Then we turned the back into more of a silver branded area with Thomas Sabo and Nomination and Pandora.
And I have to say, Pandora was transformational for our business. We got heavily into Pandora in the early stages, and then we were offered the chance to set up a store in Brighton, and we then set up another store in the Isle of Wight, Horsham, and Winchester. So we had four Pandora stores at the time, until 2017 when we sold back to Pandora. So we had an eight-year period of massive growth for the company — great revenues, fantastic gross profit, but no discounting. The traditional jeweller would be discounting the lot. Why? You don’t need to do that. Value your product, value yourself, value your brand. And too many jewellers don’t think of themselves as a brand, but we are. We’re a 115-year-old brand. To clients in Horsham, they know us over some of the other brands we stock. So they trust us to be able to sell them our brand first.
WI: So, on some level, you were learning from Pandora how to be a brand?
DW: Correct. Links of London in the jewellery world were the first, and we were with Links of London early doors. That was the first proper brand in the UK that really did it well.as a jewellery brand. Before that, it was very much generic jewellery. They taught you how to sell it as a brand. People wanted to buy it for the box and the brand. Pandora took it to another level. You learn how to merchandise properly because of its volume; how to merchandise a stock properly; how to get a proper stock turn; how to market well.
We all contributed to the marketing budget, and then they taught you how to professionally market yourself. So all of this was really great learning to develop our own brand and further what we wanted Wakefields to be. So when we left Pandora, it gave us all of that knowledge, but it also gave us some money to then invest back into Wakefields to do the development. Investing in Rolex in 2012 would have been hard had we not had Pandora.
WI: I appreciate that Pandora gave you the cash flow that would be required to do the sort of refit you needed to do to elevate the store and attract the likes of Rolex, but there are umpteen jewellers who are also cash rich but still haven’t been given the Rolex agency. So was it just a case of being in the right location at the right time? Was there a personal relationship that you could leverage? Was it a combination of all the above?
DW: We created a beautifully bound brochure of our store. We always thought you needed to wow someone, so you needed something to land on their desk in front of them that’s a bit nicer than a letter. Everyone was sending a letter to Rolex every year, so we thought, “Let’s set ourselves apart.” So we spent about three months putting a brochure together. Then that landed on their desk, and that created a phone call. We got their regional sales manager to come down and have a look at the store.
WI: Because you’d got to that stage where you wanted fewer brands, but to do those brands more justice?
DW: Correct. It’s the best brand in the world. It’s the most high profile brand, particularly in the watch industry. We love what Rolex represented. It was a watch company that was a similar age to us. We then invested in Tudor. It’s part of the Rolex family, and now it’s RCPO on top of that. For us, we want to just work with one company who are aligned with the same values as us.
WI: How do they dovetail as two brands? I know there’s distinct branding but there is the perception from some that one is the little sibling of the other.
DW: I think in the early days there was, but now Tudor is its own distinct brand. Tudor are doing really good things. They’re wonderful to work with and they’re well represented in the UK now. We really don’t reference it. Even clients, they are aware that Rolex and Tudor are represented together at the same company, so they know that it’s going to be quality, and that’s a positive thing.
WI: I’ve heard so much recently about the shortage of skilled watchmakers, and the effect that has on the after-sales service experience. It’s not unique to the UK. To what extent do you agree with the basic premise, and how much does that affect the service that you can offer? People like yourself obsess over attention to detail and the experience you’re putting on for all your clients, and this can feel incongruous with the after-sales service that can be slow and expensive because of the shortage of skilled workers.
DW: Well, it’s a valid question. We’re big supporters of the British School of Watchmaking. and I was lucky enough to visit them when we were looking for watchmakers. I was put in touch with two watchmakers there who were halfway through their course. I sponsored them through their whole school, and then they started work with us the following January.
They’re both pretty much Level 40 now. They’ve been with me for two years. They are incredible and young. One was formerly a solicitor in Ireland, but decided to retrain. The other had worked in retail jewellery. They’re both excellent watchmakers, so I’m lucky to have two. We probably need more, and you’re right, there is a shortage in the UK because the British School of Watchmaking, as brilliant as it is, only has a limited capacity.
I think their biggest issue was actually instructors, and they’ve answered that to a degree. They’ve got a few more instructors, but they needed money. They needed sponsorship. Luckily, Houlden Group is pretty strong now insofar as we all sponsor the school every year and all the major watch brands contribute money to the British School of Watchmaking — Rolex, Patek, Breitling. They all put money into the British School of Watchmaking to help it grow. And now we’ve managed, through Houlden, to get any Rolex-accredited retailer sponsoring the school as well. We contribute a donation every year to support them, but it helps them develop, and that’s what we need to do because there is no other national accredited programme in the UK.
At the end of it they are Rolex-accredited But there’s also a WOSTEP programme, which is a Swiss programme, so the British government does not recognise it and therefore doesn’t give it any support for this.
From what I’ve seen, the British School of Watchmaking is expanding. I think there’s now 24 places per year going through. Before it was only 12.
At the end of 2024 we held a service centre event, and it was incredible. It was the best event we’ve ever done in-store. We invited 60 guests, and we had Tom Hamblet, who won MasterChef: The Professionals. He’s local, so he created beautiful food for the evening. We did workshop tours with clients. Our watchmakers set up the microscope with the video screen, and they were showing them all the components, servicing the watch and breaking down the watch movements, putting it through the cleaner, polishing, all of those elements. Funnily enough, it was the women (and partners) who all came out going, “Oh my god, it’s the most interesting thing I’ve seen.”
WI: Presumably, sometimes when you host events, it’s just champagne, canapés, and getting together, rather than the full workshop experience?
DW: We’re introducing the after-sales element to each of the events. Again, I think it goes back to the artisan nature of what we’re offering. We’ve all had jewellery workshops, but you wouldn’t take a client down there because they’re dirty places and it’s not particularly glamorous. Whereas a watch workshop is like a lab. It’s absolutely state-of-the-art, so it’s very beautiful and clean. You’re proud to take your clients there and show them what’s going on. And they’re fascinated because nobody gets to see what’s inside their watch.
WI: It’s like petrol-heads though, isn’t it? I don’t think you can be into luxury watches without also really enjoying the mechanics that go behind them.
DW: Well, the biggest takeaway from those events was not only did we pick up a lot of after-sales volume, but it was the fact that most people were saying they didn’t think it costs enough! You know that it’s not an insignificant cost to have your watch serviced, but they were all saying it should be more. They see the skill and what it takes to service your watch and what they’re actually doing. It’s not just opening the back, blowing a bit of something, and then putting it back on and testing it. You’re literally stripping down the entire movement, putting it through a machine to wash it down, reassembling it carefully under microprecision. It’s just quite incredible. They’re fascinated, and that’s brilliant. I think that experience for the customer is brilliant. And having the watch workshop on-site is a brilliant thing because it quickens up the whole process.
WI: As a fourth generation ‘custodian’ of a famous family jeweller, do you feel drawbacks as well as benefits? You benefit from the reputation and the history, but you might sometimes feel like it’s a betrayal of that history to make certain forward-thinking decisions. For instance, getting rid of some furniture that has been there for a long time, or moving to different premises altogether.
DW: We’re expanding by going next door and trying to give it more space. We’ve built on top of the store to create more office space. Eventually, we’d like to maybe put a third story in the back section of the shop because I think that would be a nice private area to take people up to that would be a bit like the Bond Street first-floor experience.
And I do look at a lot of these experiences that people are trying to offer now, particularly on Bond Street, because they’re saying that the ground floor on Bond Street isn’t the place anyone wants to hang out. Clients get taken upstairs. If you get taken to an exclusive place, you think you’re special, and rightly so. It’s nice. So I’m looking at spaces away from the shop floor that gives that slightly more meaningful experience for the client.
We’re fighting for space all the time. It’s ridiculous how much we used to trade from, to how much space we’ve now taken and still struggle for space. But I get what you mean from a heritage point of view. My great-grandfather is the one who started it, and he started four different businesses in the town and put a son in each one.
An outfitter, a clothing store (Warwicks, which is still around today), a china and gift shop, and then he had a restaurant which traded until the 70s.
As each generation’s gone, they’ve decided they didn’t want to carry on, as happens with family businesses. But our jewellers are the only ones that carried on. Mel and I have a really good relationship. She’s 18 months older than me. She’s been in the business longer as well, and she’s great with clients — she’s so good. She’s a gemologist and a diamond grader too.
I’m a diamond grader only, not a gemologist. She’s very focused on the customer and client experience. Clients love her. But her vision and my vision are very much aligned. Our shared vision, which is now being passed on to Georgina our marketing manager, and our team very much centres on giving that client experience.
We’ve done a vision statement that states our goals, and we always use those as a touch point to say, “Whatever we’re doing, is it giving the client the best service possible?” And that’s really what we want because ultimately your reputation is everything, and we want all of our clients to leave happy.
We always want to deliver exceptional customer service. That’s it. That is ultimately what we’re about, and we believe we do that. And sometimes we don’t get it right and learn from it. We strive every day to make sure that we’ve delivered back to that client over and above.
WI: I often think in business that if a mistake is handled the right way, you can often come out smelling of roses. Almost like an unintentional piece of PR genius, given the goodwill that can follow.
DW: As a family business, you care. That’s the thing. It’s your name over the door. That’s what you lose a little bit with the multiples. There isn’t that same relationship because teams change. You might have someone working in Bond Street or Regent Street for decades, but most of the time they’re going to get promoted or move store. You lose that contact with the client. So the client is transactional, and we’re about relationships.
I think on the high street there aren’t many family businesses. It’s not just us, it’s everyone in Houlden and CMJ, for instance. You look at the decline of the high street over the years, and jewellers are the ones who’ve stayed. Look at Gatwards of Hitchin, which has been there since the 1700s. It’s absolutely bonkers how long they’ve been there. Deakins are celebrating 175 years. We’re 115 [years old], but many family jewellers in this country are a hundred years plus. That’s incredible on the high street, when it has suffered so many problems and challenges over the years. I don’t see it with any other family businesses.
WI: I’d like to conclude by asking, in the time that you and Mel have been at the helm, if you could name one big success where you think you were really under pressure, but you got that particular tricky decision absolutely right. Conversely, can you think of a mistake or a missed opportunity that still hurts to look back on?
DW: Yes to both. If I was going to say there was a mistake we made, it was that we didn’t roll out enough Pandora stores when we could. We were the third or fourth Pandora store that opened in the UK, and it was a gold rush at that time. So many retailers, like TH Baker and Swag at the time, opened maybe twenty stores. We were too cautious. We could have opened multiple Wakefields stores if we’d been less cautious.
But to be honest, it’s like diluting your brand. If you’re not there controlling the narrative every day and watching your team and watching your clients and being able to interact on a one-to-one basis all the time, I feel that part of your soul is lost. You could do it, and people do it very successfully, with multiple stores in multiple sites. But for me, we are just cautious about thinning out our brand, our history, and our heritage.
WI: I’ve met many examples of stores who’ve done the opposite to you, and then my question is always: “How do you maintain standards?” You can do all the training you like, but if you’re not there it’s not quite the same, from a quality control perspective. Maybe the grass is always greener.
DW: You actually see the multiple stores now cutting down. Yes, you’ve got economies of scale in growth, but there’s an element of diluting the feel, the luxury, the experience as well. And for me, I don’t want to dilute it. I want it there. We want to be able to control it. We want to walk over the threshold and know everyone in our team.
As much as I’ve learnt from Pandora, I’ve learnt more from Rolex. Rolex has professionalised our business, in terms of attention to detail and standards. How we treat our clientele, how we merchandise our stock, how we train our staff. Everything that Rolex does is to the highest standards. Rolex has really raised us as a company, and they’ve done the same in retailing across the world. You can see it. I was just in America last week, and I went into a place in Denver, and their store is unbelievable now. The 1916 Company [formerly Hyde Park Jewelers] I think it is now. They’ve got a beautiful, newly designed store over there.
This article was first published in the March 2026 edition of Watch Insider magazine.
