For Thompson’s Station resident and Church of the City Franklin Prayer Pastor Ashley Dasher, what began as a childhood fascination with watches, developed into a lifelong passion, and eventually became a business. This love of watches, combined with the desire to work with his wife Tabitha to build something as a family, led to creating Dasher Watch Co., which launches its first product this month.
“It probably goes back to when I was a kid. I’ve always liked watches,” he says. “I used to wear a Timex and my uncle always had on some sort of cool watch, like a dive watch. He lived in a different state than I did, and he would send me postcards. There’s a picture of him in one of them diving on a coral reef, so in my mind he always kind of had this sort of adventure aspect about what he got to do with his career and travel to other countries.“
As he got older, Dasher’s sense of childhood wonder and imagination always continued to connect his uncle’s adventurous life to the watches he wore. “That grew up with me over time and then I started noticing, whether it’s someone like Jacques Cousteau or the Apollo astronauts, who really started with some of the mechanical chronographs back in the ‘60s,” he explains. In his mind he always connected that “there was a tie to watches and people doing cool things.”
Prior to serving as a pastor, Dasher played guitar in a touring Christian band called Unhindered. During that time, he first explored his entrepreneurial spirit, creating and selling a pedalboard for guitar players called Dashboards, which he says was even used by two of the guitar players on Garth Brook’s tour. In 2022, he and his wife Tabitha rekindled the idea of reembarking on that entrepreneurial path in a new way.
“We were ready to get back in this product space and so we started dreaming. And because I always loved watches, we really started thinking, ‘What would it be like if we had a blank canvas and we designed our own watch? What would be the elements that we would want to have in it? What would the lines of the watch look like? What would the colors look like?’,” he remembers. “We’ve had the privilege of doing a few different things, but they all seem to connect to the next season in some way, whether it’s something we’ve learned or knowledge we’ve put in our back pocket. It’s kind of been cool to sort of see how each season served the next.”
When it came time to design the watch, creating just the right style was of utmost importance to Dasher. “We are creating modern watches with vintage roots,” he explains. “A watch that is made for the journey. Wherever life takes you. So when you first look at the watch, we hope you might wonder, ‘Is this a vintage watch or is this a new watch?’ and so I’m really glad that was captured in our first watch.
"It’s a 39 mm chronograph, which means you can time things with it. It’s got two registers on it. The cool thing about our watch too is it’s all mechanical,” he explains, meaning it’s not automatic, but rather it must be wound up typically every day and a half.
“I’ve been inspired by the role that watches have played over time,” says Dasher. "There is something romantic here in the 2020s about a mechanical watch that you need to wind each morning. Winding the watch and hearing the tick of the gears is a grounding experience first thing in the morning. It helps set the tone for the day. There is something special about using an analog tool in a digital world. Digital devices have become increasingly disposable, and we hope our watches will be something passed down. We even left the case back sterile so that it can be engraved, and we are working with a local Franklin jeweler to set up those services.”
The watch is named the Lindon Chronograph after his and Tabitha’s daughter, who is the youngest of their four children. “For me, whether it’s Sean Connery as James Bond, or Walt Cunningham and the Apollo astronauts, or divers who have explored the ocean’s deepest points, there are these cool watches that back in the day were fairly standard issue and we wanted to pay tribute to those watches, but in our own way,” he explains.
Dasher Watch Co.’s tagline, “Wind it up and live your life” echoes the sense of adventure that inspired the company, but the sentiment of time also goes deeper than that. “We all only have so much time and life is full of ups and downs and twists and turns. But to truly be mindful of how we spend it. I think that’s an interesting point of a watch that you wind every day. It’s just this kind of almost meditative reminder first thing in the morning that you only have so many moments in that day and let’s not waste it. Let’s make it count and really just be mindful. I hope that from our family to everyone that purchases a watch that they will just be mindful of how precious time really is and time together and time with the people that you really care about.” says Dasher.
Two hundred watches are available for this first edition watch and they are currently available on the company’s website with plans to expand to in-person sales within local stores in the Franklin area.
DasherWatchCo.com
Instagram @DasherWatchCo.