Jacob & Co has never been a brand for the shy collector. Its watches spin, orbit, glitter, gamble and occasionally seem designed less for the wrist than for a small private stage. For years, that made the maison easy to place in the world of celebrity watchmaking and high-jewellery spectacle. In India, however, the conversation around the brand has become more layered. It is no longer just about spotting Jacob Arabo with celebrities, or seeing an Astronomia appear on Instagram. It is about a growing base of Indian buyers who seem increasingly comfortable with watches that are not merely expensive, but expressive.
That momentum has been especially visible over the last couple of years. Jacob Arabo’s appearances around the Ambani wedding season gave the brand a very public boost in India, while India-facing pieces such as the Salman Khan edition of The World Is Yours Dual Time Zone, along with Taj Mahal and spiritual editions, helped move the maison closer to local cultural codes. The Mumbai boutique gave collectors a physical point of contact. The new Delhi-NCR boutique at DLF Emporio now takes that story further, placing Jacob & Co inside one of North India’s most important luxury retail addresses.
For Ethos, which has played a key role in building Jacob & Co’s retail presence in India, the Delhi opening is not just another boutique launch. It is a signal that the brand’s audience here has become large, serious and distinct enough to support dedicated spaces across cities. In this conversation, Pranav Saboo, Managing Director & CEO, Ethos Limited, speaks about how Jacob & Co built momentum in India, the changing nature of luxury watch buying, the collections that resonate most with Indian clients, and why he believes the brand’s India story is still in its early chapter.
When did Ethos first sense that Jacob & Co had real momentum in India?
Jacob & Co. has always been a brand that sparks conversation, but over the last couple of years we saw a clear shift in India. When we signed the exclusive partnership, our reading was that India already had a quiet base of Jacob & Co collectors. When Jacob Arabo attended the Ambani wedding, the brand gained more visibility in India and people got to know more about it. For us at Ethos, the real signal was when that awareness started converting into serious client interest and demand.
Was there a clear turning point for Jacob & Co in India, or has it been a slower build through celebrity visibility, collector curiosity and retail presence?
It has been layered rather than linear. The first layer was the global collector circuit, Indians who travel, who are exposed to the brand at international watch events and at the Jacob & Co salon in New York. The second layer was retail proximity, when our Mumbai boutique gave clients somewhere to actually sit with the watches. The third layer, which is where we are now, is cultural relevance, the Salman Khan edition, the Taj Mahal and spiritual editions. Each of these has brought in a slightly different client. So I would not point to a single turning point. I would say the brand earned its place over three or four cycles, and the Delhi boutique is the architectural confirmation that the audience is large enough to support a dedicated address in two cities.
Indian luxury watch buying has often been built around recognisable status. Is Jacob & Co proof that the market is now moving towards recognisable personality?
For a long time the Indian buyer wanted a watch that the room would recognise. That client still exists and we serve him very well. But our other clients, who are mostly younger, often a second-generation business owner, want a watch that the room does not immediately recognise but the one collector across the room absolutely does. Jacob & Co sits perfectly in that conversation. An Astronomia is not subtle, but it is not obvious either. It rewards the wearer who knows what he is wearing and is happy for ninety percent of observers to simply not understand. That is personality buying, not status buying.
What kind of Indian client is drawn to Jacob & Co? Is it mostly established collectors looking for something more theatrical, or are you seeing first-time high-watchmaking buyers as well?
Both. The established collector typically comes to Jacob & Co after he has built a base of the Holy Trinity and the independents, he already owns Patek, Lange, F.P. Journe, Akrivia. For him, Jacob & Co is the theatrical chapter in a serious collection. The first-time buyer is a slightly different profile, often someone whose first serious watch purchase is a Jacob & Co, because he has been watching the brand on Instagram. We are equipped to serve both, but the conversations are very different.
Which Jacob & Co collections get the strongest response in India? Are clients more drawn to the Astronomia-style spectacle, the Epic X line, high-jewellery pieces, or the more wearable World Is Yours watches?
The Astronomia remains the headline act, it is the watch that defines what Jacob & Co means in the public imagination, and clients who want that statement come asking for it by name. The Epic X line has built its own quiet following, it can move from a board meeting to a wedding sangeet without negotiation. The Casino Tourbillon has been a surprise; the playfulness of a functioning roulette wheel on the dial connects with a certain kind of Indian collector who appreciates wit in his watches. And the World Is Yours collection has opened up a softer entry point, especially after the Salman Khan edition. High jewellery is a longer conversation, those clients buy in private, often as gifts, and that part of the business is meaningful but discreet.
The brand has done India-facing pieces tied to spirituality, monuments and celebrity. How do Indian clients respond to that kind of cultural storytelling?
Indian clients are emotionally articulate buyers. A watch that references icons that are close to the hearts and emotions of India is not simply a souvenir purchase for them and Jacob & Co has been one of the very few high-watchmaking houses willing to invest the design and movement-engineering effort to do these editions properly, rather than as cosmetic exercises. Our clients can tell the difference between a brand that genuinely engages with Indian culture and one that prints a motif on a dial. Jacob Arabo himself has visited India multiple times, met clients, sat through long dinners, that personal involvement matters here in a way it might not in other markets.
The Salman Khan edition is an interesting crossover between film, celebrity culture and watchmaking. Did that collaboration change the conversation around Jacob & Co in India?
It widened it considerably. The Salman Khan edition of The World Is Yours Dual Time Zone carried genuine emotional weight, because it was structured as a tribute from one son to his father, mirrored against Jacob’s own tribute to his father. So it was not a celebrity endorsement in the conventional sense. It was a personal collaboration with a public figure who happens to have one of the largest audiences in the country. The dial in saffron and green, the SK signature at six o’clock, the case-back inscription, these are details a serious watchmaker thought about carefully. The conversation that opened up afterwards brought a different demographic into our boutiques, and many of them stayed to look at watches that had nothing to do with the Salman edition. That is the real measure of success.
With a brand like Jacob & Co, how important is customisation? Are Indian clients asking for personal symbols, family references, gemstones, colourways or fully bespoke ideas?
Customisation is central to this brand. Jacob & Co was built originally around bespoke high jewellery, and that DNA carries into the watches. Indian clients are among the most ambitious requesters globally, we receive briefs for family crests, religious symbols, regional motifs, specific gemstone combinations, anniversary dates engraved on movements, and full colourway changes to match a wedding or a milestone. The brand has the atelier capacity in Geneva to honour these requests, and the willingness to engage on a one-piece basis, which very few houses at this level still do. For our top clients, the customisation conversation is often more important than the catalogue conversation.
What are your personal favourite Jacob & Co watches, and which pieces do you think best explain the brand to someone who still sees it only as a celebrity watchmaker?
My personal pull is towards the Astronomia Regulator, the engineering of having the time, the tourbillon, and the celestial mechanism rotating in three dimensions on a single axis is, to my mind, one of the genuine technical achievements in modern watchmaking, regardless of which house produced it. For someone who carries the celebrity-watchmaker assumption, I would put two pieces in front of them. First, the Astronomia, because once you understand what is mechanically happening inside that case, the dismissal becomes impossible. Second, The World Is Yours Dual Time Zone, because it shows the other side of the brand, restrained, beautifully proportioned at 43mm, with a genuinely useful complication for travellers, executed without theatrics. Between those two, the cliché collapses.
What changes with the opening of a dedicated Jacob & Co boutique in Delhi-NCR? And where do you see the brand’s India story going over the next few years?
The opening of the DLF Emporio boutique is a commitment to bring the Jacob & Co Maison in its entirety. It is a commitment to the city, and a home in North India for haute horology, with jewellery to follow. Looking forward, I see India becoming one of the brand’s top five global markets within the next three to four years. The depth of collector interest is real, the wealth creation is real, and the cultural fit is real. We are still in an early chapter, not a closing one.
