Time to fly: How Abingdon Mullin is redefining watches for women who break barriers

Abingdon Mullin is as unconventional as they come. The first proof of this is that she is doing this interview on a Zoom call while sitting on a Harley Davidson, all set to go riding with the all-women group The Biker Belles (she admits it’s her first interview like this). The second is that she is a pilot, SCUBA diver, and a car racer. And finally, and most interestingly, she is the founder of The Abingdon Co., a watch brand that only creates timepieces for women.

A watchmaker whose sole focus is watches for women—it’s safe to say that there aren’t too many of those out there. But that’s the brand that Mullin has built. The Abingdon Co. was founded in 2007 in Las Vegas, Nevada; Mullin zeroed in on the idea when she felt the need to buy a fully functional aviator’s watch. “I found that there were only big and chunky ones available in the market and I wanted a different watch which fit better on a woman’s wrist,” she says. A conversation with her colleagues made her realise that there were others like her who wanted more from their aviator watches, and on her birthday in November 2007, Mullin launched The Abingdon Co.’s first aviator watches, Jackie and Amelia.

These models are robust timepieces crafted in surgical-grade stainless steel, topped with a sapphire crystal. Jackie is a 41.4mm 60-min chronograph watch set with 64 Swarovski crystals, and a mother-of-pearl dial with accents of red. The timepiece is equipped with a E6B circular slide rule used in aviation, and there is a date window between 4 and 5 o’clock. Powering it is a Miyota FS20 Japanese quartz movement. Amelia is a 40mm GMT watch featuring a date window at 3 o’clock, and equipped with Ronda 505.24H Swiss quartz movement. Both watches have interchangeable straps and took 11 months to put together.

Apart from the aviator watches, The Abingdon Co. has distinguished its products in categories such as diving, motoring, tactical, equestrian, and the ‘Legends’ collection. USPs of the timepieces include an ‘Alpha bezel’ in the motoring watch Katherine, which allows you to remember Automatic Terminal Information Service (ATIS) when you fly; and the Legends line, developed as an homage to the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASP)—a group of 1,102 female pilots who flew military aircraft during World War II. The WASP is a 33mm timepiece with a bi-directional third time zone bezel, WASP wings on the dial, a blue GMT honouring military uniforms, a date window at 3 o’clock, and the number 38 in between 7 and 8 o’clock as a tribute to 38 martyred WASP pilots. The watch is powered with Ronda 505.24H Swiss quartz movement and completed with a 16mm chestnut oil-tanned genuine leather.

The Abingdon Co. employs Miyota, Rhonda, and Ameriquartz movements, and the straps are genuine leather made in Florida—all the pieces are assembled in Las Vegas. The entry level price point for the watches is US $700.

There is no dearth of watch brands who make timepieces for women, but do they really think about women as their first customer? Mullin picked up on this and thought about what it was that women really wanted. “There are women out there who love flying planes, SCUBA diving, biking, and car racing, BASE jumping, and are in other tactical fields,” she says. “They obviously want more and what they want in a watch is that it is made keeping them in mind, is fashionable, versatile, and a great fit.”

Watches have their own personalities and the one that The Abingdon Co. creates get their names according to those personalities. The watches are tested by the crew members and they decide the watch’s personality, and then collectively rule on its name. ‘‘When you think of Amelia, you think of your sister, best friend, the girl next door, and that’s the Amelia watch,” she says. “But when you think of Jackie, you might think of somebody who is very fashionable, who takes the spotlight. Jackie has crystal, a pearl dial, and there are many women in history with the name Jackie who had flashy personalities. The other collections of The Abingdon Co. are the Nadia, the Elise, the Katherine, the Jordan, and the Jane.”

Mullin has over 4,000 hours logged in over 80 different aircrafts, and so creating pilot watches was her first instinct. Creating diving watches was a natural extension. So was born the dive watch Marina, a 40mm titanium timepiece that features a diver’s unidirectional bezel, along with a bidirectional worldtimer inner bezel and a mother-of-pearl dial. It has Super-LumiNova®-coated hands and hour markers, and a date window at 4 o’clock, and water resistance to 200 metres. Beating inside the timepiece is a Miyota 8215 Japanese automatic movement, offering about 40 hours of power reserve. Finishing the watch is a 20mm titanium band that is expandable to 10 inches.

So how challenging is it for The Abingdon Co. in a crowded market as a non-Swiss brand? “I hardly find it challenging, although I do have Swiss movements in the watches,” she says. “But that does not make it a Swiss brand, does it? If people want Swiss brand watches, there are plenty of options. But if they want a very durable, fashionable watch with women in mind, they won’t find many brands.” And perhaps not surprisingly, Mullin says that the brand has male customers, too.

While The Abingdon Co. makes dynamite tool watches, it also runs a non-profit foundation that brings more women into skilled trades from the profit that comes via all the watches. And becoming their crew member will give you the opportunity to take part in a good cause. The brand added new collections of watches namely, the Legends collection, Tactical collection and motoring collection.

Images: Courtesy Brand

This story first appeared in WatchTime India's Watches For Women Special Issue 2023.

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