Cristiano Ronaldo, Jay-Z, Kanye West, and David Beckham have all been photographed wearing Jacob & Co.’s now-iconic Five Time Zone watch. The brand’s name has also long been intertwined with A-listers, with a language of diamonds, gold and “bling”. But before Jacob & Co. became a name associated with elaborate timepieces, its founder Jacob Arabo was a teenager in Tashkent who had become fascinated by a watch his father gave him.He was 13 when his father, Nison, gifted him a dual-time watch. The boy was captivated by the mechanism and the idea of displaying different time zones. That childhood fascination would return decades later, when Arabo created the Five Time Zone watch. “I was fascinated by it. I think this is what led me to develop the Five Time Zone watch, that really started our watchmaking journey,” Arabo recalled in an interview with WorldTempus.
From Tashkent to New York
A watch gifted by his father at 13 sparked Arabo’s lifelong fascination with timepieces.
Born in 1965 in Tashkent, then part of the Soviet Union, Arabo grew up in a Bukharian Jewish family. His father had been involved in manufacturing and distributing liquor, but after the family moved to the US in 1979, he struggled to find work and support the family.Arabo eventually left high school at 17 to help his family financially. “My father was an educated man… But at the time under the Soviet regime, there weren’t many opportunities to have a better life. So, in 1979, he decided to bring our family (from Tashkent, Uzbekistan) to America,” Arabo told Revolution Watch. “He found that his prospects were a lot more limited. He tried really hard to find work. But he really had trouble making ends meet, and so, at 17, I dropped out of high school to help support my family.”The teenager then enrolled in a jewellery-making course. It was meant to last six months; he completed it in four. He went on to work in a jewellery factory, but the repetitive nature of the job soon pushed him towards designing his own pieces.“I was always curious about design,” he said, explaining that he wondered why two objects made from the same materials could look so different. He also became interested in photography and the role of perspective, detail and lighting in making something beautiful.Then came a small opportunity that changed the direction of his life. At the factory, Arabo noticed leftover gold tubing being discarded as scrap. He turned it into a bracelet- and it sold well. “I soon realized that to really support my family, I had to stop being a workman and start being a jeweler myself,” he said.Still only 17, he opened his own factory near New York’s Diamond District. He would spend four days working on designs and the remaining three visiting department stores to sell them. By 1986, at 21, he had opened his own jewellery shop on Sixth Avenue.
How Jacob became ‘Jacob the Jeweler’
Arabo built his name in jewellery before turning Jacob & Co. into a luxury watch brand.
It took years before Arabo developed a following among New York’s hip-hop community.His jewellery was different from the conventional designs of the time: larger, more conspicuous and created around the tastes of a new generation of artists who were beginning to command both cultural and financial influence.The late rapper The Notorious B.I.G. eventually gave him the name that would stick- “Jacob the Jeweler”. Arabo’s work and name then began appearing in hip-hop culture, including references in songs by Jay-Z, 50 Cent, Beyoncé, Big Sean, Rick Ross, A$AP Ferg and Kanye West.Arabo had a simple explanation for why artists kept coming back. “The reason I think they all came to me was, firstly, I always treated them with respect. As a young person, I genuinely admired what they did. I admired their success,” he said. He also wanted to create what they wanted, but with the best craftsmanship and stones he could provide. That relationship between Arabo and the music world would eventually help take Jacob & Co. far beyond New York’s Diamond District.
The watch that changed Jacob & Co.
From scrap gold and jewellery to elaborate timepieces, Arabo built a global luxury name.
In 2002, Arabo launched the Five Time Zone watch- a design that combined the bold, gem-set aesthetic associated with his jewellery with multiple time displays.The watch quickly became a fixture in celebrity and hip-hop culture. Jay-Z, Kanye West, Busta Rhymes, Nigo, Pharrell Williams, Bono, David Beckham and Leonardo DiCaprio were among those photographed wearing it, according to Revolution Watch. Later, A$AP Rocky, A$AP Ferg, Romeo Beckham and Drake were also spotted wearing versions of the watch.But there was an interesting contradiction at the heart of its success: the original Five Time Zone was quartz-driven. For Arabo, the popularity of the watch was not the end of his watchmaking ambitions. It was the beginning.“When I get interested in a subject, I love to do research, I love to learn,” he said. He began studying traditional complications and high watchmaking and spent increasing amounts of time in Switzerland.
From bling to high watchmaking
Arabo’s creations have been worn by stars including Ronaldo, Jay-Z and David Beckham.
In 2007, Arabo introduced the Quenttin, his first major venture into high watchmaking. The watch featured seven mainspring barrels and a vertical tourbillon. Its design reflected Arabo’s growing interest in making watches that were not simply decorative, but technically ambitious.The Quenttin also taught him what he wanted from future creations. “I wanted to make these kinds of super complications but in a way that was personally meaningful to me,” he said. “Even if I was to work with the best high complications specialists, the movements had to be exclusive to me.”That ambition led to the Epic SF24 in 2013, inspired partly by the split-flap information boards Arabo remembered seeing at airports and railway stations as a child. The watch displayed 24 cities and their corresponding time zones. But the watch that most clearly announced Arabo’s new direction was the Astronomia, unveiled in 2014.
The Astronomia moment
Arabo wanted the Astronomia to look unlike a conventional watch. He imagined something connected to space, three-dimensional and open enough for the wearer to see the movement from different angles.“I knew that watches were evolving, and I wanted to create something that was totally unique. I wanted something related to space, something that was completely three-dimensional and something with a case that was totally open so that you could see the movement from every angle,” he said.The resulting Astronomia featured a rotating four-arm carriage, a triple-axis tourbillon, a floating time display, a 288-facet diamond and a miniature globe. Arabo described the experience of wearing it as “visual poetry”.It represented a striking shift: the man who had become famous for creating the watches and jewellery loved by hip-hop stars was now pursuing increasingly complex mechanical watchmaking.And yet, the two sides of his career were not as disconnected as they might appear.Arabo has said that he wanted Jacob & Co. to create watches that were visually spectacular while retaining authenticity in their watchmaking. “While I wanted to make the wildest, most ambitious watches possible,” he said, “it was important to me that from a watchmaking perspective, we always retained our authenticity in our approach.”
A family story at its heart
For all the celebrity names associated with Jacob & Co., Arabo’s own story keeps returning to family. His son Benjamin Arabov became CEO of Jacob & Co. in 2021. In an interview with Revolution Watch, Benjamin recalled his father as someone who made time for his sons and spoke enthusiastically about watches at home.Arabo, too, has spoken about family as one of his greatest rewards. “To me, this is the greatest reward in life- to have a family that still enjoys spending time together so much,” he said.There is, then, a quiet symmetry to Arabo’s journey. The story that began with a teenage boy studying the watch his father had given him eventually became one of the world’s most recognisable luxury watch and jewellery names.
What aspect of a watch do you value the most?
3k+ users shared opinion today
5k+ users already voted today
3k+ users shared opinion today
The celebrities may have helped put Jacob & Co. on the global stage. But long before the red carpets, music videos and elaborate mechanical creations, there was a young immigrant in New York trying to support his family- and a boy in Tashkent who simply wanted to understand what made a watch tick.
