David Henderson-Stewart, Managing Director at Raketa Watch Factory / Russian Timepiece Brand

Raketa (https://raketa.com/) was created in 1961 in honour of the first cosmonaut in the world, Yuri Gagarin. With its moving parts all produced in the Factory, and with a design marked by the DNA of three centuries of Russian history, the Russian brand Raketa has acquired a strong reputation amongst worldwide collectors. The main sources of inspiration for the brand comes from heroic personalities and sensational achievements e.g. the Baikonur model has special features needed for space travel and was designed in collaboration with famous Russian cosmonaut Sergey Krikalev. The Factory has also collaborated with the great Russian aircraft constructors Sukhoi and Tupolev to develop watches for pilots. Some models have achieved iconic status and are prized by collectors around the world, such as the Polar model with a 24-hour movement specially designed in 1969 for Soviet arctic explorers. Raketa is one of the few brands in the world whose mechanical parts are all products within its own factory, including the spring (the beating heart) which is one of the most difficult parts to make. Each watch has no less than 242 separate components and manufacturing of one watch involves the work of 103 specialists, and 8201 separate manual operations. In this episode of the MenswearStyle Podcast we interview Raketa Watch Factory Managing Director David Henderson-Stewart about how he came to be involved within the horology  industry with no prior interest or knowledge of watches. David