Abingdon Co. to open luxury watch showroom in Las Vegas

Nineteen years ago, Abingdon Mullin had her big idea: to make watches for women with active lifestyles.

After growing her business, Abingdon Co., to several million dollars in sales since its inception, Mullin is preparing to open a flagship store in downtown Las Vegas.

Her entrepreneurial journey began as many do: by identifying a problem and a gap in the market.

After getting her private pilot license in 2006, Mullin wanted to reward herself with a pilot’s watch. The problem: they didn’t fit; nobody made pilot’s watches for women.

Three months later, Mullin attended a dinner event with a group of female pilots, and they concurred: They had always wanted a pilot’s watch too.

But they knew the market was too small. In 2007, only 6.17 percent of U.S. commercial pilots were women, according to the FAA. That meant there were likely less than 10,000 American women potentially in the market for pilot’s watches.

Mullin set a goal for herself: By her birthday, November 3, 2007, she would make herself a pilot’s watch. And she did.

Her big idea was Abingdon Co., Mullin’s brand of luxury timepieces for adventurous women such as pilots and ship captains. With her Hong Kong-based manufacturers at her side, Mullin manufactured her first 500 watches at age 22.

“Imagine a Cartier and a Swiss Army Knife together. That’s kind of what we make,” Mullin said. “If you want something that just looks nice, and you can wear it into a board meeting, or you could wear it on a nice date, or a gala or something like that, we have that watch. If you want to go take it on the track or go diving with it, we’ve got the same watch.”

Almost two decades later, Mullin is a successful entrepreneur — she pitched on Shark Tank in 2014 and sells her watches online and in 11 retailers, according to the company’s website.

This November, Abingdon Co. will take its next big step. The brand will open its first showroom at 353 E. Bonneville Ave. in Las Vegas on Nov. 3.

California-born, Vegas-raised

Mullin learned how to fly planes at the Santa Monica Airport. When she moved to Las Vegas in 2010, she brought the company with her.

Even then, however, Mullin still wanted to be an airline pilot. For the first few years, she sold her watches online and at trade shows for the jobs of the active women she catered to — aviators, divers, race car drivers, ship captains.

“I’ve been doing watch shows now since 2022,” Mullin said. “They’re not my best shows. The funny thing is, I do way better when I go to an air show or a car show or a boat show than a watch show.”

In 2014, Mullin took the big leap: She put her aviation career on hold to dedicate more time to Abingdon Co. That same year, she received the good news: She would be on Shark Tank.

It took her four years of applications to get on the show, followed by several months of preparing her pitch. After achieving roughly $500,000 in cumulative sales, she asked the “sharks” for several hundred thousand dollars to expand from aviation watches to diving watches, she said.

When Mullin appeared before the panel — Mark Cuban, Daymond John, Lori Greiner, Robert Herjavec and Kevin O’Leary — she had her pitch memorized, she said. But none of them invested, and the segment never aired. The experience wasn’t lost on Mullin, though.

“The whole interaction prepared me to pitch to real investors because it’s more about the entertainment on that show than it is actual investing,” Mullin said.

After Mullin launched her line of diving watches, she got into tactical fields, developing a line of military watches. Then, when Formula One came to town in 2023, Mullin debuted a line of racing watches, catering to her customers’ requests and responding to their feedback along the way.

Mullin’s unique understanding of her customer base is at the center of Abingdon Co.’s ethos. In a male-dominated watch industry, Mullin said, women are often neglected as individual consumers. Walk into any watch store with a man, she said, and the sales representative will speak to the man, even if the woman is the one buying the watch.

“They want to be treated just as well as the men who are going into these watch events and in these watch stores,” Mullin said. “When they come here, they will be.”

The grand opening

Despite her success, Mullin never imagined opening a dedicated showroom for Abingdon Co. It wasn’t until she found a good price, at a location near her home, that she considered the possibility of a store.

“To have the first flagship store in the middle of downtown Vegas, I am super-excited about it, even though it was not planned at all,” Mullin said.

In late 2023, Mullin purchased several floors of space at 353 E. Bonneville Ave for $485,000, according to public records. Upstairs, the company houses its offices — complete with eight full-time employees. Downstairs, Mullin has already begun hosting private showings for her customers as she finishes renovating the showroom.

When she purchased it, the showroom space was essentially a “concrete shell.” Mullin added shelves for the watches, a large island to do minor repairs and some plants on the ceiling, among other upgrades.

Ashley Betancourt, a consulting company owner and investor in Abingdon Co. since 2019, said she was excited for the showroom because it would expand the brand’s visibility.

Betancourt used to own a flight training company, and she first met Mullin at an air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. They became fast friends, and Betancourt soon purchased a collection of Abingdon watches.

“She’s been working hard and growing it, and I know what it takes to start a company and to grow it,” Betancourt said. “I just wanted to help and be part of that journey because it’s not something that everyone gets a chance to do.”

Attending Abingdon Co. events with Mullin, Betancourt realized just how tight-knit Abingdon Co.’s community of adventurous women was.

Mullin said most watch stores were “old-fashioned,” which she did not want for her customers. Instead, she plans to focus on hosting private showings, providing experiences for customers, creating an environment for customers to ask questions and ensuring the showroom doesn’t feel too pretentious.

On Nov. 3, Las Vegas Mayor Shelley Berkley will cut the ribbon at Abingdon Co.’s downtown showroom. That will kick off a “week of watches,” with the company hosting several public openings and events at the new location.

“When people come from Las Vegas into our space, I want them to feel welcome, comfortable and engaged,” Mullin said. “They’re not here for a transaction. They’re here for an experience, and they should leave feeling like they got a really good experience.”

‘You’re part of our crew’

Given the company’s size and Mullin’s commitment to catering to women underserved by the watch industry, Abingdon Co. has a unique relationship with its customers, who it calls “crew members.”

“When you wear a watch, you’re part of our crew,” Mullin said.

Any time the company interacts with its customers in person, it offers free battery replacement and watch cleaning for life. Mullin personally takes at least one customer service call each week.

One story about a customer’s experience with the brand particularly stood out to Mullin.

It was May 3, nearly two months ago, at a trade show in San Francisco. A young woman approached Mullin and said she had just bought her first watch — not an Abingdon watch, but a competitor.

The woman told Mullin she wanted to get into watches but didn’t know where to start. For 45 minutes, Mullin answered all her questions — a watch enthusiast sharing her excitement with someone else.

“By the end of it, she was like, ‘You’re the first person that’s actually made me feel comfortable asking these kinds of questions. And I just didn’t know that much, and I didn’t know how to find out the answers, and you made this really easy for me to learn,’” Mullin said. “If I can replicate that experience times 1,000 with my team and I here, then we’re doing it right.”

Contact Isaiah Steinberg at isteinberg@reviewjournal.com. Follow @IsaiahStei27 on X.