This time last year was bananas, to say the least. Right as the Vancouver Timepiece Show was getting underway, the #watchfam found itself watching favorite brands navigate a full-blown trade war, sometimes on an hourly basis. Some brands were upfront about passing on the tariff costs. Others quietly ate them to keep prices steady for their customers. And a small few, including Elliot Brown, made the difficult call to pause sales to the United States entirely until things settled.
A year on, Gem Parker of Elliot Brown is back on the mic at the 2026 Vancouver Timepiece Show to recount that year, and to tease out where Elliot Brown is going next.
Tarrifs and Trade Wars
Elliot Brown stopped trading into North America for two months. At one point the tariff rate to get into the States hit 160%. Today it sits at a flat 15% across the board, and the brand is up year on year in North America. The strategy throughout, as Gem put it, was simple. Honesty was the best policy. And the community they had been building at shows like Vancouver and WindUp was still there waiting for them when they came back.
Community Connections
One year later the community was there, and it had grown. That sense of connection has been the thread running through everything Elliot Brown has been building in the lead up to the 2026 Vancouver Timepiece Show.
A collaboration with the Royal Armouries produced an Arne field watch with a bronze chapter ring packed with hidden details nodding to the Bren gun, the original weapon having carried a bronze plate stamped with its issue number. Those watches are due in soon. The Sketchy Boys collab, originally planned for last April before tariffs intervened, finally landed at the start of the year with a new blue dial. And most recently, Elliot Brown closed out a collaboration with Graham of Wild Geese, formerly of the Peninsula Kelp Co., a project Gem described as an easy yes. Wild Geese is built around getting people outdoors, and has even incentivized it with a global geocaching treasure hunt, asking a network of adventurers to hide coins for others to find. As Gem alluded to, what gets hidden in one of those caches someday might not just be a coin.
California Dream’n
Coming this summer are the California Dream Arnes, four colorways, 75 pieces each, with real wood dials, a California dial layout, and colors pulled straight from 70s and 80s surf culture. Very un-Elliot Brown in the best possible way. Prices around £400 to £450, a little more with the bracelet option. I wish I had pictures to share, but embargoes prevented me. What I can tell you is that you can hear the reaction and get some of the first details exclusively on this episode.
Updates to the EB lines
And then there is the Canford, the very first watch Elliot Brown ever designed, now 16 years old and getting a proper refresh. The new Canford is getting the “Shrinky-Dink” treatment going to 39mm with shorter lugs, a slightly domed sapphire, a display caseback, and for the first time ever it will be an automatic, running a Miyota 9075. The internal bezel is also being upgraded from the fluid action of the current model to the 121 click lock used on the Beachmaster, giving it more real-world purpose for timing and navigation. Pricing will sit above the automatic Holton but below the GMT Holton.
As Gem put it, the Holton and Beachmaster are not going anywhere. No news of a “Shrinky-Dink” Holton, as many of us OG Holton owners have long hoped for, but this podcaster can dream.
SOTC | Gem Parker
As Gem, just as herself as a friend of ours in the #watchfam, in the last year she picked up a 40 year old Cartier Tank, small and wonderful patina on the case (pic hopefully to follow later).
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Fac tempus ad explorandum — make the time to explore.
