Jacob Arabo came to the United States from the former USSR with his family, trained in jewellery and built Jacob & Co. into a house of jewellery and complicated watches.
How it began
The family left Tashkent with little more than they could carry. At 13, Arabo had received a watch from his father, Nison. It showed two time zones on a map of the world, and it made him want to create his own watches one day.
That first summer in America, he worked as an apprentice to a watchmaker. A programme for immigrants then gave him jewellery training. He assembled jewellery in a factory and, after work, designed his own pieces in his bedroom. Soon he had a small booth in New York’s diamond district, and in 1986 he launched his own label, Jacob & Co.
“First I concentrated on jewelry, but watches were in the back of my mind,” he says.
Into watches
When Arabo went to Switzerland to find suppliers, he says, the vendors brushed him off. So he started with a simpler quartz watch, the Five Timezone, whose bezels and straps could be changed. A photo of Naomi Campbell wearing it put the company on the map for watches. Arabo dates that moment to 2002.
On a later trip to Switzerland he found a better welcome. With a boutique watchmaking firm he designed a vertical tourbillon with a 31-day power reserve, which the brand calls a world first. A client paid the deposit and gave it his name, the Quenttin.
The watches
Arabo then turned to serious complications. His staff told him not to back the designer Luca Soprana and his studio, Atelier 7h38, but he went ahead. The result was the Astronomia of 2015, which the brand calls a galaxy on the wrist. Its movement turns on itself. The first did a full rotation every 20 minutes. Later versions cut that to 10, then 5, and the 2023 Astronomia Revolution to 60 seconds. In 2025 a fourth axis was added to its tourbillon.
The tourbillon is the house signature. Jacob & Co. says it has the most extensive range of tourbillon movements in the industry, and the flying tourbillon is a speciality.
The father’s gift came full circle in The World Is Yours Dual Time Zone. Its 43mm rose gold case holds a domed dial showing the Earth, with two time zones and a wind rose as the small seconds.
The house today
Jacob & Co. calls itself New York-based and family-owned, and its historic flagship store is in New York. Arabo’s son, Benjamin Arabov, is chief executive and runs the company with his father. The house describes itself as joining the entrepreneurial spirit of America with the high watchmaking and jewellery making of Switzerland. It has worked with partners such as Bugatti and Lionel Messi.
Echoing the American naval hero John Paul Jones, Arabo says he has not yet begun to create.
At a glance
- Founded: 1986
- Founder: Jacob Arabo, founder and chairman
- Based in: New York, United States
- Known for: the Astronomia, tourbillons, high jewellery watches
- Independent: yes; family-owned, in the brand’s words
Sources: Jacob & Co.’s own website (About, Contact, and news articles on the Astronomia Revolution, the Four-Axis Tourbillon, the tourbillon, The World Is Yours Dual Time Zone and the company’s growth).