That idea clicked and soon DiMartini reconnected with an old friend, David Barnes (who is now Everest’s co-founder), who provided some seed money and business development skills for attempt number two.ĭiMartini was able to raise $15,000 on Kickstarter to get his venture off the ground. The owner of the furniture store encouraged him to raise funds on Kickstarter. Having sunk his first round of investment capital with a local company, he felt tremendous despair in his first attempt to chase his dream.ĭesperate to support his family somehow, DiMartini took a job selling furniture. With a well-funded company already on the market, Rubber B, DiMartini knew he had to offer something different and what he believed is a better product, namely in the area of comfort.īut the road to what is now Everest Horology, an online shop with partner retailers in various parts of the United States, was not so easy.ĭiMartini’s first prototype was “a piece of crap that I wouldn’t sell for $10 on eBay,” he recalled. His affinity for the Rolex esthetic led him to want to develop an aftermarket strap for Rolex sport watches.

“I saw all these beautiful people with beautiful watches, so my love for Rolex watches grew deeper.” “Everyone in Italy has a Rolex,” he recalled.

While his father was in medical school in Italy, young Michael began to really fall in love with the Rolex mystique. Growing up, DiMartini had always admired his father’s two-tone Datejust. That was the beginning of Everest Horology, a maker of aftermarket rubber and leather straps for Rolex watches. “I was thinking: Am I am going to be happy just as a cog in a company? Or am I going to risk it all to do something I really love,” said DiMartini in a phone interview from St. As an executive at a large real estate development firm, he made a good living, but his true love was watches, particularly Rolex watches. His wife Theresa had just given birth their first child, Luca.īut DiMartini had a nagging feeling in his gut. Until that is, a British watch retailer named Eddie Platts, decided to bring it back.It was a very happy time for Michael DiMartini in the beginning of 2012.

In the years that followed, however, Rolex would become the biggest name in the watch world, while Smiths would fall into obscurity. English watchmaker Smiths also provided a watch to Hillary and Norgay (and depending on who you believe, it may have been the only watch they actually carried to the summit). Rolex, however, wasn’t the only watch brand represented on that Everest expedition. That watch was the Rolex Explorer, and it’s been riding high on that adventurous legacy ever since. When mountaineers Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were prepping for their historic summit of Mount Everest in 1953, Rolex provided them with a prototype to wear on their expedition. Foremost among these was Rolex, whose Submariner and Explorer models earned the brand a reputation for extreme ruggedness and reliability they’ve been building on ever since. Let’s get into it, shall we?īack in the early 1950s, many of the big watch brands were working on watches that didn’t just tell time and look nice, but could tell time and look nice in some of the most extreme environments on the planet, from the deep sea to the Arctic tundra. It’s actually the product of three watch brands, two famous mountaineers, and one extremely hands-on retailer, which makes it more like horological fan fiction than a Canal Street knockoff.

With its 36mm case, “3-6-9” satin black dial and rugged stainless steel case, the Smiths Everest is a dead-ringer for the Rolex Explorer 1016-an iconic model produced from the 1960s through the 1980s that’s now worth up to six figures on the resale market-but it’s not merely a copy of a grail watch. In watches as in fashion, the line between imitation as the sincerest form of flattery and imitation as copyright infringement can get kind of blurry.

Everest horology products coupon