Tatler speaks to the creative director and co-founder of Ming, an independent Kuala Lumpur-based timepiece brand, which has created a buzz among watch enthusiasts across the globe
From a corporate career to a passion for photography, Ming Thein’s path to horology is anything but traditional. The Asian watchmaker and co-founder of watch brand Ming speaks to Tatler GMT about how his love for watches was ignited, lost, and then rekindled, leading to the birth of a fresh venture in a domain ruled by Swiss giants. We also delve into the challenges faced by an Asian watchmaker, and how breaking traditional moulds can lead to innovative creations. Finally, he touches upon their latest watch drop, a blend of stellar aesthetics and mechanical finesse. Read on to know what Thein has to say.
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Tell us about your journey.
I had a corporate career and gave it up because I wanted to do something creative. I was a photographer for many years, and I started shooting for [watch] brands. That ignited but also killed [the passion for watches]: there were watches that I would see at collectors’ meetings maybe once every year or two, and then my contracts said that I needed to photograph ten of these [watches from the] front, side and back. That kind of killed the joy.
At that point, I dropped out for a little bit. [But later] I reconnected with some friends and we started talking about watches, and I started getting interested again. At that point, e-commerce was in its infancy and the Swiss supply chains opened to outsiders because they needed more business. So I think the elements [for starting the business] were kind of in place; the ignorance was certainly in place, because we didn’t know what we were getting into. We wanted to make things that we liked; it was not any more complicated than that. But it’s also not as simple as that. As you get more experienced as a collector, you get to own more pieces, you see more pieces and you decide what you like. That’s what we created.