Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays to you and yours from Atticus Watch Company. We hope you are all enjoying this holiday season and we hope you will all get to enjoy time with family and friends. As is often the case with the holiday season upon us, we have been reflecting on the past and looking forward to the future. As such, we thought we would share a little more about our “why” with you all.

The story of Atticus: from HER point of view.

After the burglary that started Rusty on his search for the perfect watch and introduced him to Chris Vail of (Lew & Huey at the time) NTH Watches, Rusty started working with Chris on design work for the NTH subs. The NTH watches are wildly popular among the affordable watch wearing crew and Chris has done an amazing job with his company. He has often been asked to do non-dive watches, but why change something that is working beautifully?

Rusty has been tinkering away on his own non-dive watch designs for several years now. He has also been doing the 3D renders (and animations) for NTH Watches for several years. This work helps Rusty support his family of 5: Rusty, three classically homeschooled boys (I promise, they really DO have social skills) and me, a stay-at-home mom and teacher of all things. With his experience with watch design for a very successful brand, and a slew of his own designs just waiting to be produced, why not take that giant leap of faith and start a microbrand of his own?

So why did we chose “Atticus” and what does it mean anyway? There’s a bit of back-story here so bear with me… I have an appreciation for all things classic. I love classic cars, classic British literature, classic beauty, classical education curriculum, and my classic southern gentleman husband. My mom was my heroine. She looked like a movie star from the 1940s. She had a classic beauty and a classic style and was so very elegant. Maybe I inherited my appreciation for classic things from her. Maybe I learned to appreciate classic beauty because she was one.

As Rusty mentioned in his first blog post, he has an appreciation for classics as well: classic rock, classic cars, classic watches, and being a classic southern gentleman. (He forgot to mention his classic southern wife.)

We have been on a homeschooling journey with our three boys for the past seven years. The curriculum we chose to use is a classical model of education. We read many many literature books and we study Latin. It works for us. But as you can see, it’s just another classic thing in our lives. Oh, and we also deal with classic problems such as, “Mama, I accidentally knocked Elliot’s loose tooth out! Gosh! That’s a lot of blood!” And we come up with classic solutions to some of our problems, “Honey, the dryer is broken again. Can you please install the clothes line so I can dry clothes?”

With our love of all things classic, it was only natural that we would choose a classic name for our brand. So FINALLY I’m getting to the explanation. In researching names to use we came across the name Atticus. We found that “Atticus” means “classic” and “elegant” in Latin. In Ancient Greece, Atticus was the name of a Roman senator, a Greek philosopher, and a rhetorician. For me, the name is one of refinement and elegance and it immediately makes me think of all of my favorite classics.

So having chosen “Atticus” for our microbrand name, we needed to name the five designs Rusty decided to show the world.

Pelion - The Atticus Pelion features snowflake hands. In Greek Mythology, Mt. Pelion, located in central Greece, was the homeland of Chiron the Centaur. Chiron was the tutor of many Ancient Greek heroes (Achilles, Theseus, Jason, and Heracles). From January to March you can expect to see snow on the mountains so what better name for our “snowflake” watch? Also, Chiron was a teacher. That works for me!

Meteora - Our Meteora watch features pillar-like markers. When many of us think of Greece we think of the architecture and the magnificent columns and pillars from the ancient architecture found there. “Meteora” means “suspended in air” to the Greeks. Meteora, Greece is composed of natural rocks that have eroded into the shapes of immense pillars. It was the home of twenty-four monasteries (only six remain today though) that sit atop these incredible natural, stone pillars. Natural columns/pillars, twenty-four monasteries, twenty-four hours in a day….time….a watch with pillar-like hands and markers.

Pytheas - Pytheas was a Greek geographer and explorer from the Greek colony of Massalia. He made a voyage of exploration to northwestern Europe around 325 BC. The Atticus Pytheas is a nod to the wonderfully classic Rolex Explorer.

Icarus - This is one that many may already have figured out on their own. The Atticus Icarus is our take on a very classic Pilot watch. There is a tale in Greek Mythology of Icarus, the son of the master craftsman Daedalus. Daedalus constructed wings from feathers and wax in order for him and his son to escape from Crete. He warned Icarus of complacency and also hubris, asking that he fly neither too close to the water, where the sea’s dampness would clog the wings, nor too close to the sun, where the sun’s heat could melt the wax. In his infamous attempt to escape Crete, Icarus ignored the warnings, flew too close to the sun, and melted his wings.

Téleios - This one is my personal favorite. When Rusty showed me his render of his modern take on a classic Universal Geneve Polerouter, I gasped and said, “It’s PERFECT.” So of course we selected a Greek word meaning “perfect”.

I feel like Rusty has designed some beautiful watches for you all and I hope that this gives you a glimpse into why we chose “Atticus” and the names we have given to each of these designs. I feel like the names go along really well with the designs and also tie into our lives with classically homeschooling our kids and our appreciation for all things classic.

Wishing you all Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year,

 DeeDee