Designer Watches

Horology forums will periodically occasion a thread (and not always generated by a newcomer to the hobby, either) asking what, exactly, makes for designer watches. Is it just the famous label on the watch face? Do designer watches simply come down to brand names? Or should there be more involved – and what?

Thus even seasoned watch collectors wonder amongst themselves every now and then. What if a watch were to include a camera, music player, radio, and cell phone as well? Would it even be a watch at all, though it is worn on the wrist? It is interesting to note that while such watches do exist for sale (and are, indeed, marketed as watches, first and foremost), no famous designer has yet graced such timepieces with their brand name.

This fact suggests that so-called designer watches are still, as popular prejudice among horologists would predict, about looks first and foremost, even if not exclusively so. Indeed, there are many much more quirky designs which bear no famous designer label, such as those from manufacturer TokyoFlash, like their Nekura Scramble or their Twelve 5-9. Designer watches tend to look fairly similar, unfortunately. And it makes sense, after all: they are trying to capture as much market share as possible, appealing to all by selling the aura of exclusivity.

Horologists – watch fanatics and collectors – love a designer watch for its inner mechanism as much as, if not actually more than, for its outer appearance. Watches, for such people, do more than just tell time – they bring intellectual enjoyment of the sort pleasing any connoisseur, except in the case of a designer timepiece it is necessarily more cerebral. The emotional aspects of owning a particular brand or model of watch is secondary, whereas, for the vast majority of non-horologists that likely make up most of the designer watches market, intellectual considerations are what rank second (a distant second, it might even be sniffed).

Indeed, it is of some consternation to some collectors and hobbyists that the world is awash in perfunctory timepieces bearing the cachet of “designer watches.” Yet many other watch fanatics defend this class of watches as being watches all the same, sometimes rivaling, if never actually equaling, the more revered and less famous makes. And where does that leave most of us who do not have thousands – and tens of thousands – to spend on a single watch?

Of course, finances determine everything, and a five hundred dollar Burberry Heritage is just as useful for everyday needs as is a nearly four thousand dollar Breitling Aeromarine Avenger Seawolf Chronograph – not to mention a twenty dollar Timex!