If You Think “Fashion Watch” = “Crappy Watch”, Think Again
Main image source: www.montres-de-luxe.com
Note: I originally wrote this as an “Audicle” for The Real Time Show. If you have some time, please do check it out, as well as the growing catalog of episodes!
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“Fashion watch”.
In the watch community, this description means instant death for a model. In about a second, those two words convey the complete dismissal of, and contempt for, a watch that may have been years in the making.
The ease with which this term is lobbed around is but one of so, so many examples of reflexive “group-think” in our hobby, and the view that there are “fashion watches” and “non-fashion watches” is, to be direct, as misguided as the put-down.
Let’s start with something that Tim Mosso has said before: “Brands don’t love you back”.
Though we, as members of the watch community, like to think that our passion somehow gives our opinions more weight within brands, the hard truth is that money talks; enthusiasm is important, but let’s not forget that cash flow is what keeps the products coming.
Make no mistake, fashion watches have been - and still are - big business. Consider that:
MVMT made over $71MM in 2017, and was subsequently purchased by the Movado Group for $100MM in 2018
Over the first half of 2022 ended in June, Hermès’ Watches division posted 262 million euros in sales, an admittedly small part of the roughly 5.5 billion euro total, but quite impressive when you learn that this represented over 55% growth for the division (at constant exchange rates) from the same period of 2021
In short: if you dismiss “fashion watches” as trivial, you’re not taking into account the financial weight that this category has in the market.
Now, would I personally wear a Daniel Wellington, or MVMT watch?
No, but as a very successful salesman once told me, “Never let your inhibitions become those of the customer”. I can’t argue with millions of dollars’ worth of success, and if I were offered to run a brand with MVMT’s revenues, I think I could probably set my own preferences aside and do what I had to do.
But, I would absolutely wear a watch from the well-known, “legacy” luxury brands (Chanel, Montblanc, Louis Vuitton, among several others I’ll mention later). To put some structure around my arguments that, not only should you not dismiss such models as “fashion watches”, but also that we should stop using that term entirely in our community, I’ll speak to several aspects of a watch:
Its design
Its technical attributes
Its overall quality
The heritage of its brand
Design
To talk about the design of a fashion watch is to lay bare more of the numerous inconsistencies that play out in watch community debates.
When we dismiss a watch as a “fashion watch”, we’re making two criticisms at once. First, that the watch is designed to look good for a brief moment in time, in keeping with a trend, after which point it will no longer be needed. Second, because of the fleeting nature of the watch’s looks, it doesn’t have to be made well, so it must inherently be a cheap, disposable object.
The H08 is not a fashion watch, it’s a fantastic watch (Image source: www.hermes.com).
To call a watch a “fashion watch” is to deny it the quality of “timelessness” that, ironically, is so important when talking about mechanical timekeepers; this is in contrast to a “real” watch which supposedly looks good - and functions - in perpetuity.
When you think about it though, aren’t all watches “fashion watches”, bought for the purpose of looking a certain way? Do we not think of James Bond just a little bit before buying an Omega Seamaster 300M? Do we not imagine ourselves as rakish gentlemen when we’re at JLC trying on Reversos?
What about the Nautilus and the Royal Oak? Two watches from two thirds of the Holy Trinity, the highest echelon of watchmaking legitimacy, are nowadays more hyped-up fashion accessories to flex with than signifiers of horological appreciation.
Granted, those are much nicer watches than a Daniel Wellington, but the only insight there is that you get what you pay for.
I mean…
Yea, of course.
Also, the wave of vintage re-releases that has lasted over a decade now proves that, no matter how much watch enthusiasts love to complain about stale designs, that’s ultimately what they end up buying.
When a large luxury house enters the watch space, unless it is willing to take a giant gamble upfront on something like an in-house movement, what else does it have to offer besides its iconic designs and overall design DNA?
When you look at an Hermès Clipper, or a Slim, or an H08, if you know the brand’s design language at all, you don’t even need to see the name on the dial to know, without a doubt, that it’s from the French house.
Going back a few years, Ralph Lauren’s watch offerings were instantly derided by the watch community, but when I see the Sporting Watch with Elm Burlwood dial, I’m immediately transported mentally to the universe Mr. Lauren created. Speaking personally, Ralph Lauren watches look nothing - nothing - at all like other watches on the market, and the company deserves credit for that.
So, if you complain watch design is boring while dismissing new models from luxury houses as boring, I would gently suggest a bit more research, and I’ll say that for sheer fun, I’ll take a Clipper over a Black Bay any day of the week.
Technical attributes
Moving onto the technical attributes, luxury houses are denied credibility in watchmaking because supposedly all they do is charge premium prices for using their designs as wrapping for very run-of-the-mill movements.
This does not take into account the current state of the largest maisons:
Hermès owns 25% of Vaucher Manufacture, which makes movements for Richard Mille and Parmigiani
Montblanc bought the Minerva manufacture outright in 2007
Chanel owns a minority stake in Kenissi movements, which supplies Tudor, and, for even more horological legitimacy, minority stakes in Bell & Ross, FP Journe & Romain Gauthier
Louis Vuitton owns La Fabrique du Temps
Even Ralph Lauren, which given its broad price points absolutely could have slapped a polo player on watches from Hong Kong, decided upfront to swing for the fences. Ralph Lauren, the man, is an avid watch collector and wanted to do the project correctly, so he had the company partner with the Richemont group for its initial watch offerings. More recently, the Vintage 67 is straight-up excellent.
To overlook these brands is to overlook the Chanel Monsieur, or Louis Vuitton’s Geneva Seal watches, and all that does is limit your horizons and, subsequently, your potential enjoyment of this hobby.
Do these brands also happen to make somewhat generic models and charge a premium for them?
Sure, but making otherwise anonymous goods and cranking up the profit margin with the application of a logo is par-for-the-course in the luxury game generally. And, let’s not pretend every model from a given Swiss watchmaker is absolute fire, or that something like a Rolex 3235, despite its reliability, is a complicated movement in the strict watchmaking sense.
Overall quality/heritage of the brand
This brings us to related pillars 3 and 4 of my arguments, the overall quality of a luxury house’s watches and their heritage as a watchmaking entity.
Despite the fact that luxury brands do have signature, interesting designs, and have signaled their intent to take watchmaking seriously by throwing millions of dollars into their capabilities, there’s still this stigma attached to them that because they haven’t been in the business as long as, say Patek Philippe, they aren’t to be taken seriously.
Not even less seriously, mind you, but not seriously at all.
Sure, like many brands, Montblanc makes some average watches. Montblanc also makes stuff like this though (Image source: www.montres-de-luxe.com)!
Here we see yet more frustrating examples of the contradictions and unfounded arguments that I come across so often in watch circles.
Do we really think that Hermès or Louis Vuitton, arguably the world’s two most illustrious and valuable luxury houses, have anything to gain at all by releasing cheap, low-quality watches, or cheap anything for that matter?
Perfumes are a great analogy here: though neither brand started as a perfumer, they put out top quality fragrances. This allows them to bring more people into the brand without cheapening it for customers of their higher-priced items.
Also, what’s with this concept of the age of a watchmaker - basically its heritage - being in any way representative of the quality of a watch?
Greubel-Forsey started in 2004, but Montblanc started selling in 1997.
I guess Greubel-Forsey must be less of a watchmaker than Montblanc then!
Philippe Dufour was born in 1948, but the very first Hermès watch dates back to 1928.
I guess the Simplicity’s not that big a deal, is it?
Yes, I’m being facetious, but it’s hard to rationalize the reality that Ming and Norqain are generally applauded for their watches (or at least not derided), whereas the Chanel Monsieur disappears from view immediately after its release.
With all due respect to the work that’s gone into both of those upstart watch companies, do we really think that companies like Chanel, Louis Vuitton, and Ralph Lauren, with their established design codes and massive, massive war chests, have less to offer?
Concluding thoughts: some glimmers of hope
In a positive instance of the watch community’s inconsistent thinking, the tides may be turning.
Cartier, frankly a maker of many, many fashion watches (it’s a jewelry maker wrapping mostly Richemont movements in their own designs, after all) is from what I can tell now seen as a “legitimate” watch company, and appears to have had quite a resurgence (I hope they’re sending Tyler, the Creator some large checks, or at least some more watches…).
Also, the investments that brands have made to be taken seriously appear to be paying off: Hermès made a huge impression with its H08, the jeweler Piaget continues to impress with its commitment to ultra-thin watches, and I gather that every iteration of Bulgari’s Octo Finissimo is well-received (and remember it bought that heritage by acquiring the Genta manufacture!).
I’ll say that I started to really have fun in this hobby when I let go of any preconceived notions I started with, and considered everything on the merits. That doesn’t mean that I love everything I come across, but it does mean that I’m free and delighted to get lost down any rabbit hole that appears in front of me on Chrono24.
In fact, I encourage you to run a search there for your currently most disliked maker of luxury fashion watches. You might surprise yourself, and because so many people share the same feelings, you can find some really fun, really well-made examples for fractions of what they would have cost new. Believe it or not, you might also find these are highly competitive with watches at similar price points from “legitimate” watch brands.
If you’ll trust me and commit to a few minutes of this simple exercise, you may come to have a new appreciation for an aspect of watchmaking you might have overlooked.
You might even find yourself re-evaluating some of the existing pieces in your collection!
Ultimately, the more we can encourage new products, the better. The more positivity we can spread when established companies take a risk, the more chances we have of getting products down the line that we do like. Plus, if someone who didn’t care for watches gets into the hobby because they originally loved Chanel’s perfumes, that’s a win for everyone, and if you repeat that enough times the hobby can and will grow meaningfully.
As for me, I’m going to keep getting lost in the “fashion watch” rabbit hole, and will report back once I’ve made a choice among the many, many options.
I hope that by that time, I will never have to hear those two words again.