INTERVIEW :
MATT WILLIAM CONABLE ,
Co-Founder of William Henry
Can you describe how the William Henry brand came into existence in 1997 , including how you decided on a luxury knife as a viable product ?
I had been a custom knife maker for about eight years prior to starting William Henry . And honestly I did not know if a luxury knife was a viable business - I just knew I believed in my craft , in the timeless value of tools as art , and I was young and foolish . So I tried to build a larger business around the craft I had been developing , and William Henry was born .
How do you discover and decide on the exotic materials ? Did you have any previous experience with semi-precious materials that helped you bring them to life at William Henry ?
As a custom knife maker , in the small but vibrant custom / art knife market , I had seen a wide range of very cool and very obscure materials during my early career . As William Henry grew , we were able to really learn how to work with each material , over time , and integrate the beauty and stories of these material into our collections .
Then , and now , William Henry is constantly on the hunt , online and in person , for amazing materials that tell stories that people connect with . Once we find them , it is a long process of research and development to see if we can actually work with them and trust them over time in our products .
What is the inspiration for the name “ William Henry ”?
My middle name is WILLIAM , and at startup I had a business partner who provided the capital - his full name was Michael HENRY Honack . I decided to combine our middle names , liked the sound and the historical attributes of the name , and I imagined it could be a knife , or almost anything else luxurious that I ever designed and built .
In making luxury knives and other accessories , what were some of the more challenging materials to work with - and why ?
We work with a lot of rare organic materials , and probably the most challenging are the fossils . One-hundred-million year old dinosaur bone is as hard as agate , often cracked in nearly invisible ways , and every piece has its own flow we have to find .
It ’ s similar with fossil mammoth teeth and ivories , which are 10,000 years old and ornery . These and other organics are tough on the best day , and that is partly why almost no other brands work with them . Too tricky , too hard to source , too many variables . Pretty much the exact reasons that we DO use them .
Were there any “ dead-ends ” in materials where you thought it might work but simply did not make sense to pursue ?
Yes , too many to mention . For every material we use , especially the exotic and fossil materials , there are three or four materials that we could not make work . Either too fragile , too hard to work with , not durable enough over time , impossible to source beyond a couple samples , etc .
It is a constant process to find the next great thing , then trial and error behind the scenes to see if we get lucky enough to make it a part of our collection going forward .
Tell us about your timeline and process of adding the series of other accessories to the knives . Were there any surprises on the way ?
At a certain point , early on , I realized that William Henry really had an identity and many stories to tell . But knives are limiting , as much as I love them . Most people do not carry knives , do not collect knives , and are unlikely to no matter how fine our offerings may be . So I wanted to take our materials , techniques , stories , designs , and mechanisms and bring them to MORE customers - the best way to do that was to bring that DNA to new categories and excite a larger demographic .
First thing was a short-lived letter opener , then a money clip , then pens , then jewelry , and on we have gone from there - always keeping a focus on bringing that core WH DNA to each new product and collection .
Having followed William Henry since you launched the brand , I ’ ve always wondered if and when you would bring the exotic materials , design ethos , and impeccable qualities of your brand to watchmaking . When did you decide watches were next and how long did it take to get to the point where you knew they were ready ?
38 | INTERNATIONAL WRISTWATCH | SPRING 2023