Introducing
Hassan Madras
Hassan Madras from Prevail Watches featuring Matt Smith-Johnson
Words and photography by @furrywristabroad
Nothing could have contrasted our respective environments more. Based in paradise-like Tampa Bay, the founder of Prevail Watches, Hassan Madras, joined our virtual meeting looking refreshed and straight out of casting as the lead for a primetime crime television show. The famed watch designer Matt Smith-Johnson and I were seated in Mr. Smith-Johnson’s studio, a little worse for wear. The provinces of Ontario and Quebec were in the middle of digging themselves out of the biggest series of snowstorms in over a decade, and the fatigue that it brought showed on our faces.
What was immediately apparent to me was that the energy levels that both Mr. Madras and Mr. Smith-Johnson brought to the table were electric and infectious. For as soon as Mr. Smith-Johnson saw Mr. Madras on screen, he too looked refreshed. When I say electric, I mean as if you were to grab an industrial live wire. If there is ever a room filled with drowsy humans, these two gentlemen are the antidote. Mr. Smith-Johnson had been working hand in hand with Mr. Madras in bringing Prevail to life since the very beginning, and it was immediately obvious that these two worked together quite well.
Left: Hassan Madras; Right: Matt Smith-Johnson
“That’s so cool, I couldn’t even tell the time, I just knew that I had to have this thing,” said a gleeful Mr. Smith-Johnson as we were getting warmed up talking about our first watches.
“Who made [brand name redacted],” asked Mr. Madras as he matched his business partner’s energy.
“It’s the name of the brand, I’ve looked it up, it’s defunct, I considered buying the…”
“I literally was about to say that after this call I’m going to look it up and see if I can buy it!” At this point, less than two minutes into the interview, both of the gentlemen were on the edges of their seats. Their collected energy resembled a toddler’s reaction upon seeing their mother as she entered the house in the evening after a long workday. “This could be a future business opportunity for the two of us!”
These two were making my job easy. I didn’t have to do anything at any point during our hour and fifty-eight-minute interview to keep them engaged and excited. Hassan and Matt love talking about watches and their work. This was the first glimpse into the duo’s working chemistry and Mr. Madras’s personal drive.
This interview was conducted simply because Mr. Madras and his watch company are special. The problem is that truly special humans tend to be modest and quiet. They walk into every room and leave it far better off than they entered without anyone noticing. As the interview progressed, I became more gratified with my decision to get Mr. Madras’ story out there for the public to read.
The Right Man for the Job: Hassan Madras
The watch industry is flooded with new and established brands that contort their entire brand identity toward a military lifestyle. Some are downright creepy and exploitative, while others were founded by veterans who are doing their best to help their community.
The founder of Prevail Watches falls into the latter category, and his company’s practice of donating 10% of every sale to the Heart and Armor Foundation is not just a marketing ploy. Hassaan Madras joined the military after completing his studies and practicing as a lawyer. Mr. Madras did this because he considers himself a patriot and genuinely loves to serve. Currently, he maintains his active status as a reserve for the Air Force.
The decision to enter the military as an older applicant is not common, nor a decision to be taken lightly. “Going in as an older person gives you the benefit of making better decisions in grey areas. You do add value… for me, it’s been a real honour to do it.” So is the decision to make the commitment to remain in service as a lawyer.
“I’m a lawyer in the Air Force. I had to go through a nine-week military legal course. My commitment was for two years, which saw me through officer training and military law training, and I could have dropped out after that. I’ve been in for a decade now,” Mr. Madras looked away as he paused, smiled, and reengaged eye contact before continuing.
“Actually, today is my tenth anniversary! February 18th, 2015. It feels like I am halfway through a marathon. To get to my 20th, I have ten more years ahead of me.”
His devotion to serving has informed the direction of Prevail. On the caseback of every watch, the phrase The Courage to Continue can be found.
“The courage to continue comes from a quote which is often and falsely attributed to Winston Churchill:
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
When we first saw it, we thought it was cool that it was attached to Churchill, but it fits with the brand. This quote was something we pulled up very early.”
Given that the Prevail Onward would be sold to veterans and civilians, Mr. Madras and Mr. Smith-Johnson do not beat this point home or glorify the ongoing struggles of those who are currently serving or have served.
“We were thinking about charities and what it means to have been in a dangerous area. When you come back, whether it means that you have a mental illness, substance abuse, whether it’s PTSD, or any issue that you may bring back, part of dealing with it is recognizing that you have it, addressing it, and moving forward.”
“I had a great uncle who was completely traumatized after serving in Korea,” began Mr. Smith-Johnson. “He got gunned down, and they thought he was dead; he was not. I won’t get into details, but he had severe PTSD, and it ruled the rest of his life… people who don’t consider the person walking after.” This duo works so well together because they seem to always be on the same wavelength and are both complete people who draw from a full life of experiences.
Now, knowing his intentions and goals for his watch brand, the question of why he decided to start Prevail came naturally. For that, we were fortunate to go into Mr. Madras’ childhood, and the many influences along the way which brought us all together.
Hassan Madras' Relationship with Watches
Like many of us, Hassan’s first memories of watches as a child reside with digital Casio watches. “The one I think of might have been a Casio Calculator watch,” said Mr. Madras before continuing. “It was a cool let’s throw tech onto a watch. We’re going to do something advanced on here, a calculator, which is why I found it cool. It was such a cool watch to have from that perspective.” Though he would go on later to say that his early childhood fascination with watches had little to no impact on the watches that he would bring to the market as an adult, this function-forward mentality would eventually become the core tenant of his brand, Prevail. “I was at my parents’ house recently, and I was looking at pictures of me when I was younger, kind of in the nine to twelve timeframes, and in three pictures, I am wearing three different watches. So, I was clearly into watches when I was younger.”
However, the first watch of significance was and is still his father’s. Starting one’s life over is never an easy task, but this is precisely what every family decides to do when they immigrate to a new country. When his father, an engineer, was about to turn forty, Hassan’s mom, a physician, bought him a gold Rolex Day-Date to celebrate. They were marking the milestone of his birthday and the fact that they had succeeded in making a new life for their young family.
When asked about his father’s watch, Mr. Madras’ eyes softened, yet his posture became firmer as he spoke with pride. “He gifted it to me a few years ago after having stopped wearing it, and it is stunning. It’s yellow gold, but it has patina’d into a bronze gold at this point. He wore it every day. That was his watch, every single day,” while speaking, he swivelled in his chair to see if the watch was within reach; alas, it wasn’t.
“It's a great watch for a 40th birthday where you realize that you are of a certain age and you’re starting to get successful. What I really like about it is that it is a watch for that time,” we would revisit this point multiple times during the interview, and this watch’s place within the cultural norms of the time foreshadowed Hassan’s own decision when it came time for his first luxury timepiece. “That time, in the 80s, the watch to get if you made it, was the Rolex Day-Date. That was the watch for Wall Street financiers, that’s the watch for Middle Eastern potentates, that is the, Hey, I made it watch.”
“I associate it with my dad, and I love wearing it, but I wear it so rarely. It’s solid yellow gold; there’s no way I am wearing a solid yellow gold watch every day,” he emphasised before continuing. “For him, it was so appropriate. You have to have a certain gravitas to wear all that gold on your wrist. It’s a serious watch. He’s just a serious guy. He’s closing in on 80 and wears an Apple Watch now.”
Fast forward twenty-five or so years, and the watch of the time was to become the Rolex Submariner. Around 2013, this was before the days of manufactured waitlists, when it came time for Mr. Madras to reward himself, he did so in the footsteps of his father.
“My first nice watch, which was about 12 years ago, was a Rolex Submariner,” he said, leaning back in his chair as he recalled the details of that day. “I was living in Saudi Arabia at the time, working for an oil company. It was with the larger case and the first model with the ceramic bezel.” As his enthusiasm grew, Matt and I could feel the desert heat from twelve years ago on our faces as he expanded on that day. “I bought it in Bahrain at a 15% discount, and that kicked off the search for what else is out there that’s nice, which I then got into vintage watches.” Mr. Madras paused as his eyes returned to the present and the two Canadians on his computer screen. “That was where my modern interest in watches came from.”
Over the many years, I have written about watches and conducted several interviews with the founders of various companies. When asked about his relationship with watches, Mr. Madras gave a very refreshing and genuine answer. “I went a long chunk of time not wearing a watch. Maybe in high school, I stopped wearing them all the way through college and into my early thirties.” Usually, this is where a brand owner attempts to weave in a narrative, signifying a greater relevance for watches in their lives than those around them.
“There are so many days I don’t wear a watch because I go to the gym, and I do not want my watch to be sitting in the office.” When he gets to wear a watch, his distinct and unexpected taste shines through.
“For newer watches, I am wearing a 34mm Rolex Oyster Perpetual, which was available for only two years, I want to say, in a white dial. Depending on the light, it looks like a silver dial or eggshell white.” One would typically think a veteran who is proud to still be on the active reserves would wear large tool-watches, but not Hassan. “I really like vintage dress watches. (There is my) vintage Heuer, which I believe is called a Date-Master, which was released in the 60s. It has funky asymmetric arrowhead markers on it. I have a gold Cartier Santos from the 80s, which is on a leather strap. I like these small dress watches.”
This is where it gets interesting, however. The watches that he would eventually bring to market are very distinct, and there are two watches in his collection that share its identifiable fixed-lug feature. The first that he would mention was released after the designs of the Prevail Onward were finalized.
“I’ve got a couple of fixed lug watches like the Tudor FXD, which is a great casual watch. I also got a vintage IWC MK 11 issued in 1948 to the RAF, which also has fixed lugs. It might be my coolest watch, and though I do not know the story behind it, it certainly has one,” once again, Mr. Madras sat up and forward as his enthusiasm started to build. Interestingly, his manners were perfectly mirrored by Mr. Smith-Johnson. Having worked together for more than a year, the two were in perfect sync and could tell when the other was about to go on a roll.
“It’s issued by a government. It has a date on it. It was issued at a time when they still had radium dials on them, but it’s got a tritium dial, which means that it was in service long enough for them to swap the dial out. This means multiple pilots wore this watch on duty. That, to me, is extremely cool. It was just a tool to do a job. They had a time-hack in their mission briefing, and everyone set their watches.”
Enter Prevail
This love for watches that were used as tools by officers resonates strongly with Mr. Madras. He also pointed out the disconnect between what is being offered on the market as military watches and what is being used by those in service while in the field.
“This brand began with the modern military watch. Every military watch that comes out is some historical thing. The Tudor FXD started with the historic heritage of Tudor and the Marine Nationale. The one I have is with the Navy Seals. Those guys are not wearing those watches out there. Not a single one of these historic military watches is being worn by someone in the field, maybe out to dinner. The watch that they are wearing is maybe a Marathon up in Canada, here (in America), they’re wearing a G-Shock.”
“That’s the real modern military watch. Modern military watches are quartz watches. These are the watches worn in the field. That’s the watch I would love to make.” Yet, making a watch just for those who have either served or who are in service was not the goal from the outset.
“We are not a brand that looks backward at warfare. We are a brand that focuses on what you are accomplishing now after you have served in the military. If you didn’t serve, what are your goals? This is the tool which is going to help you achieve those goals.”
One of the defining features as to why Prevail has garnered so much critical acclaim and has sold out most of its first models is that Mr. Madras brought in an expert in Matt Smith-Johnson. An unknown fact for consumers is that most of the new brands which pop up in this space have all of their designs either drawn up entirely or finalized by a company which partners with their manufacturer overseas. This leaves no room to make a genuine product that aligns with the market one is trying to serve and simply results in a brand that can be easily confused with many others. This was one of my early discussions with Mainspring Magazine’s founder, Vincent Deschamps, last year. We will revisit this in the final section of this article.
“One of the questions Matt presented to me was, how does this appeal to normal consumers? Because there are a lot of people who are not in the military, how will this appeal to them? There are a lot of (shared) values that will appeal to those whether they served or not.”
Furthermore, having a seasoned watch designer on board immediately saves on research and development for a new product, for their experience immediately plugs in any knowledge gaps and forgoes a fair deal of testing.
“When we were at WindUp, Matt was explaining the watch (to the many attendees). It’s obviously a fixed-lug watch. On the top and bottom, you have the strap to keep it stable, but what keeps the watch stable from left to right? So, when you think about someone who is mountain biking with this, the case shape is wider, so it is more stable on the wrist.” Mr. Smith-Johnson himself is an avid cyclist, and every year, he participates in Princess Margaret’s Ride to Conquer Cancer.
While at the aforementioned watch trade show in New York last year, the feedback for the Prevail Onward proved that the unique design paid off.
“The reception on the watch, which has been really great, has been from people within the industry. People who write about it, those who are involved in the industry, other brand owners who were coming to WindUp and buying it, and the guys who were running the event. Those guys love it because they see the same thing over and over again, and this looks fresh and like someone who has done something creative here and has not taken the conventional path to make something. At the end of the day we still have to sell this to the public, and they are not in the watch industry, who are not used to seeing all of these watches on a regular basis,” here, Mr. Madras started to give the first hint as to his ultimate long-term goal with Prevail watches.
“How do we change their mindset from different and weird to funky and cool? The longer something is around, the more that notion goes away. No one says that G-Shocks are different, and everyone is numb to how wild they are; they think of them as a conventional watch. It becomes a matter of normalizing it for people so they can enjoy it.”
Mr. Johnson agreed and added, “When people would say, ‘I got an actual mission, and I’m going to put on the G-Shock because I’ve had one for a while.’ In ten years, I am hoping that someone can say the same thing about Prevail. A watch that has proven itself is the watch I want to make in ten years. It’s just going to take time and continuing to innovate.”
“I remember the reactions being that it’s really weird,” replied Mr. Madras. “But having something around long enough so that it is part of the zeitgeist.”
This aligns with the brand’s initial mission and sets the company's path forward. The importance of being honest and proud of where these watches were conceived also contributed to their unique design.
“The original idea behind the brand was a lot of people who are veterans or parts of communities like EDC communities, and they’re wearing G-Shocks. At the end of the day, (Casio) is a Japanese multinational corporation. So, these guys are walking around with an American flag on their shirt, and they got the gear, and we can come up with something that is a tough-wearing watch that also appeals to a certain community that better fits their lifestyle from the perspective of their values.”
In Closing
Having written about the watch industry for nearly a decade, I have a genuine issue with the field. Modern advances in manufacturing have made it easy for anyone with an income that comfortably sits in the upper-middle class to start a watch brand. One has a vague idea of what they would like to sell, and the rest is taken care of by partners of manufacturers abroad. Unfortunately, this has flooded the field with watches that copy designs from established incumbents. While they offer nothing new in design, their quality is decent enough to convey a level of effort that the brand’s founders did not make. This leaves consumers scratching their heads when trying to discern which watch they want, for they all look the same, and the companies’ “About Us” sections on their websites are purposefully nebulous.
What Hassan and Matt have done with Prevail is special and relatively unique in their immediate field. For every microbrand an enthusiast or writer can name off the top of their heads, three dozen others fall into the camp of the paragraph directly above. It is also comforting that Prevail is in the hands of bright minds who have a clear vision of how they would like to proceed in the near and distant future.
“A great lesson has been exactly what Matt has been talking about when it comes to cohesiveness, both in creative terms and from my perspective as a business owner,” said Mr. Madaras as we were bringing the interview to a close. “You can’t have a mixed message. Is the message the same from nose to tail? There’s a brand message that we have that we think is very cohesive that ties in with the design language, and Matt’s done a great job of doing that. The design language fits the purpose of the watch, which is it’s an activewear watch. It also fits the brand idea, which is it’s not something that calls to your mind warfare, it’s something that calls to your mind, hey this is a tool for me to get to my next goal and get me through to what I am trying to achieve. That’s the purpose of this.”
That is the spirit of Prevail Watches. Just as Mr. Madras’ treasured vintage IWC MK 11 was to pilots in the RAF, his watches are made to be your companion as you go about your life. Prevail’s timepieces are designed and engineered to be a seamless part of your daily activities. They get out of the way and allow you to accomplish your goals while providing an aesthetically pleasing watch that you would be proud to wear.
In this, Prevail has succeeded immensely with its initial release, the Onward. We at Mainspring eagerly await to hear about their new timepiece, which is currently in the works.
We would like to thank Hassan Madras for taking the time for this interview, Matt Smith-Johnson for opening his studio doors for us, and the shop dog, Ichabod, for keeping us company throughout the nearly two-hour interview.