MURRAY, Utah — In your shopping adventures this season, you may have passed a mall kiosk that is the realization of a longtime dream, and a multigenerational family business that continues to live on.
It’s a family affair at Fashion Watch and Clock, located in Fashion Place Mall in Murray.
19-year-old Jasmine Sandivar was born in Virginia but lived with her grandparents in South America before they made the move to Utah — and fulfilled a lifelong dream here in America.
"I feel very honored," Jasmine said. "I saw [my grandfather] doing this growing up because I lived with him. He had his own little office in his house in Bolivia. I started learning from then on."
Her grandfather Marcelo Sandivar was the youngest of nine children in Cochabamba, Bolivia — and the one who took over his father’s trade of watchmaking.
"It’s been in the family probably like 50 years," Sandivar said.
They help shoppers by fixing priceless family heirlooms and adding personal engravings. It's a trade that’s been in their family for generations, and here in Utah for four years.
They started at the mall in 2019 with a cart they’d roll in. They recently upgraded to a larger, more permanent kiosk right outside Kay Jewelers, which refers a number of customers to them for on-site personalized engraving and watch repair.
The craft was passed down, along with many of the actual tools
"A lot of our instruments are from all the way back then," Jasmine said.
Now, she and her grandmother Yunis are putting to work filling orders in these busy days before Christmas.
"Very few are being replaced as time goes on," Jasmine said.
While not always a bustling business, they’ve survived the pandemic and the shift in consumer habits that followed with a surge in online shopping that left many malls struggling.
"It definitely was a little scary, but we kept going," Jasmine said.
There was a time when they thought the business might just go under, but Jasmine has since taken it over. And now with the busyness of this holiday season, they say this might just continue for more generations.
"It’s very rewarding — I guess that would be the word — because I can give back to them through that, even if it’s not my own personal money but with my labor, I guess I can do that for them, so it’s nice," Jasmine said.
