For our latest interview, we sat down with clothier and watch collector Mark Cho - a gentleman with impeccable sartorial taste and a collector of all things vintage, independent and special. We wanted to find out a little more about founding and growing the Armoury, how he approaches watch-collecting and the acquisition of Drake's.

 

Tell us a little about where you grew up…

I grew up here in London but I travelled a lot when I was a kid because my dad worked quite internationally. After being born here, I spent a few years in Hong Kong, a few years in LA, and a little time in South Africa too.

 

Oh, wow… 

Then I came back to London after that and remained here from middle-school, until I left for university in the United States. After University, I worked in New York for a bit, then came back to work in London, then on to China to work there for a while.

 

And what were you doing in China?

I used to work for a fund which dealt with distressed real-estate assets, which basically means that the project will have a serious problem with it, like the developers did a runner or the building’s title had legal issues around it. Basically, it’s anything that has a big question mark surrounding the viability of the project.

 

Right, so you assess the risk and decide if it’s something you might be able to turn around?

Yeah, exactly, so I would do the financial modelling and the feasibility assessment.

 

Was that sort of thing ever an ambition of yours to become involved with?

No, although my parents did work in real-estate too, so they pushed me to go into the business. I found it quite interesting and certainly very challenging, because distressed real-estate is very much on the edge with a lot of associated risk. The kinds of people you wind-up dealing with aren’t particularly pleasant, and the situations you are dealing with aren’t pleasant either. That ultimately put me off working in that industry