Born and bred Singaporean, Ben Ang has cherished comic books and collectibles for over 20 years, kickstarting his journey to founding what is now Asia's most prominent statue collectibles company, XM Studios. Ben's passion began in the '80s with the intricate art style and creative plots of Japanese Manga and Hong Kong comics. A polytechnic dropout, Ben taught himself to paint and, from 1997 to 2012, teamed up with his brothers Seng Clair Ang, to run a hobby store offering painting services and classes. Ben expanded his creative portfolio to include landscape painting that saw him work on projects at Resorts World Sentosa's and Universal Studios. In 2012, armed with nearly 20 years of industry knowledge, Ben started XM Studios to address a market gap for collectibles with original designs and unbeatable quality.
Charlotte Hoe is the second-generation owner and the Master Enamellist of ROYAL INSIGNIA, a Singapore atelier that that has spent the last three decades designing and crafting luxury gifts for royal families and head of states from around the world. Trained in product design, and having spent three years learning the art of enamelling in England and the United States, Charlotte is passionate about sustaining the dying art form and seeks to breathe life into this traditional craft. Till date, she has spearheaded various local initiatives, namely – an enamelled brooch for President Halimah Yacob; bespoke enamel dials for independent watch brands; enamelling workshops for brands, banks and their clients; lectures with Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA); and an artist’s talk with the National Library Board.
Alvin is a huge proponent of dress watches on social media and his Instagram page, @Watchrology. As a history and culture buff, his great love for timepieces comes from researching and learning about the intertwining relationship between horology and history as he believes that one can inform you of the other. He has passionately written for numerous watch publications, spoken for brands, and even produced a thesis on the history of Singapore’s local watch industry, all in the hopes of spreading and advancing horological culture and knowledge.
Alvin’s passion in horology started a decade ago, when he made his first foray into tinkering with antique clocks. An engineer by training, Alvin has always been intrigued by mechanical clockworks and the ability to “create time”. His love for fixing gadgets and solving problems comes to fruition through watchmaking – which provides him all the opportunities to use his talents fruitfully. Over the years, Alvin has worked on simple time-only watches, to complex complications like multi-functional chronographs, moonphase and day-date functions. He attended WOSTEP (Watchmakers of Switzerland Training and Educational Programme) in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and completed the Chronograph syllabus. With that, he continues to share his passion with aspiring watchmakers and fellow enthusiasts through workshops and hands-on watchmaking masterclasses.
His vision is to share the love of timepieces from both the aesthetics and functional aspects; allowing a deeper appreciation of what truly goes into the creation of a timepiece, the mechanism and movement behind every masterpiece.
Ken’s interest in watchmaking was piqued during in vocational school days, when he was working on the lathe and milling machine. His curiosity led him to start his first job in the watch industry in 1997, focusing on watch and clock restoration services with major retailers. In that span of few years, he had the opportunity to visit manufactures to from the watchmakers there. He developed his first pocket watch with a two time-zone complication, with day/night indicator, jumping hours and city indicator display. The spirit of learning and development didn’t stop there. He continued to create precision escapement tools – and proceeded on to build other interesting complications, like the reversing crazy hours, moonphase clocks, retrograde hours, retrograde minutes, and eccentric hours, just to name a few.
Christopher Long is the co-founder of Azimuth Watch since 2003. His passion for watches was sparked at the age of 15, when he acquired his first mechanical timepiece from a flea market. His curiosity led him to join a watchmaking apprenticeship program which further ignited his passion for watches. Christopher landed his first job in an established local watch company after working in different fields, and worked in their brand management department. However, it was Christopher’s dream of creating his own timepiece that sparked him a few years later to have many conversations with Azimuth’s other co-founder and friend, Alvin Lye, which sparked off a grand idea of starting a revolutionary watch company together and the rest as they say, is history. Some of the most iconic and quirky design Christopher had created include the SP-1 Roulette, The SP-1 Spaceship and of course the instantly recognisable Mr. Roboto. Many of Christopher’s design cues are inspired, ironically by elements ‘outside of the watch industry’ such as toys, the automotive industry, and raw industrial products. When he is not busy developing Azimuth’s next horological toy, Christopher spends his free time searching for vintage curios.