Instagram watch craze
Instagram posts of vintage and classic watches are turbocharging the collector's market
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On Thursday, it was a stylishly retro 1962 Bulova Super Compressor on @analogshift that won my heart. On Wednesday, it had been an elegantly understated 1970 Rolex Submariner, courtesy of @jasonheaton, that quickened the pulse. Tuesday had brought its own obsession, a vintage Heuer 3647 Carrera chronograph, regrammed on @hodinkee.
D***you, Instagram.
Daily, if not hourly, my social-media addiction causes flare-ups of a second, closely related, malady: vintage watch deficit disorder, a chronic form of watch envy that inspires thoughts of raiding my retirement savings.
I am hardly alone. Among watch obsessives, the impact of Instagram can hardly be overstated. Facebook's explosively popular photo-sharing app not only serves to unite members of this fusty, long-obscure subculture the world over, but it has also helped spread watch obsession among the digital generation, turbocharging the vintage market in the process, several prominent dealers said.
"Istagram is absolutely driving the enthusiasm for watches," said Mr Paul Altieri, who runs Bob's Watches, an online retailer of vintage Rolexes, in Huntington Beach, California, a company I have purchased from before.
"It's a major thrust in our business."
In the last three years, his company's Instagram following has surged to over 71,000, from fewer than 5,000. And business has boomed right along with it, with revenue up some 30 per cent this year.
To Mr Altieri, the twin spikes seem like more than a coincidence.
"We'll post a new green Rolex anniversary model Submariner from 2004, complete with box and papers, and, usually within minutes, people will message me and say: 'Hey, let me know the price."
It's a big change for a hobby long associated with panelled studies, elbow patches and discretion. Indeed, until recently, watch enthusiasts had few opportunities to show off prized pieces aside from dinner parties with friends or geeks-only online forums such as TimeZone or WatchUSeek.
Instagram, by contrast, is everything that traditional watch collecting was not: young, colourful, brazenly digital and populist. (The app has some 700 million users worldwide.)
And showing off? It is the lingua franca of the medium, a wellspring of covetousness that inspires FOMO (fear of missing out) and a gotta-have-it hunger among users regarding seemingly any and all Instagram subjects: travel, food, fashion and, lately, watches.
"Watch collecting is a very tactile hobby and if it can't be tactile, it is visual," said Mr James Lamdin, the 33-year-old founder of Analog/Shift, a high-end Manhattan vintage watch boutique with more than 72,000 Instagram followers.
Those visuals were once limited on old-school online forums, where "uploading images of watches basically required a degree in coding", he said.
Not so with Instagram, where lovingly styled "wrist shots" of vintage Omega Speedmasters or Heuer Autavias can be enhanced, sharpened and uploaded within seconds for all the world to see. Images of rare collector pieces on Instagram can create a feeding frenzy among collectors.
Last year, for example, after Hodinkee, the watch site with more than 378,000 Instagram followers, posted a photograph of the coveted 1969 Rolex "Paul Newman" Daytona reference 6241 available for sale on its online shop at around 9am one day, messages were pouring in within seconds. Five minutes later, a buyer in his 30s snapped up the treasured Rolex for US$175,000 (S$235,600), a record price for the site, said Ms Ashley Kinder, who manages Hodinkee's retail operation.
she added: "Before that, the buyer had only ordered with us once to purchase a $150 watch strap."
Certainly, marketing fine timepieces on Instagram has its limits. Because most use the app as a forum for sharing photos among friends, many users chafe at overt salesmanship by retailers, said Mr Yoni Ben-Yehuda of Material Good, a New York seller of luxury goods known for its salon-like retail space in SoHo.
That is why his company tends to emphasise arty photos celebrating the lifestyle associated with fine timepieces (say, street shots of fashionably dressed New Yorkers), rather than catalogue-style shots of specific timepieces for sale, he added.
But the landscape could change quickly.
Thousands of apparel, jewellery and beauty retailers, including the likes of Kate Spade, have begun to experiment with Instagram's recently introduced shoppable photo tag, which allows users to buy directly through the app without interrupting their scrolling.
Mr Altieri reckoned things will get interesting when watch retailers start using this technology.
"It's going to be like a tidal wave that hits the shore."
Alex Williams
NYTimes
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is tudor better than rolex?
click here to read the article.
first, tudor and rolex was targeted at different segment markets. hence there is no comparison.
in the article, i agree with the comment that tudor is value for money but i don't agree with author using specifications to compare.
- the power reserve is higher for a tudor compared to rolex hence value for money.
- the author then mentions about helium escape valve with 500m depth rating and compared it with submariner? yes depth rating with 500m for a tudor is deeper compared with submariner at 300m. it fails to mention that the submariner does not have a helium escape valve. if the author wants to compare pelagos with helium escape valve then it should be compared against the sea dweller (3900m)at the least as it has helium escape valve as well. but the depth rating between pelagos and sea dweller is a big gap of 3400m.
- it then mentions about adventurous spirit citing that tudor has a dive watch with chronograph. since tudor and rolex are under the same company, it makes no sense to have "duplicates". it then uses case material like PVD case and bronze as examples. there are PVD/DLC cases of rolex watches but what is the take up rate? did some of the other brands like panerai coming up with bronze cases become a mainstream? bronze cases are novelty. it last for awhile when everyone is interested. some are interested to get one bronze case watch but the stock availability is near zero in sg AD. by the time the AD has stock of the watch, are those interested to buy initially still have the interest?
- it then move on to combining old with new. did rolex not do something similar with the ever popular pepsi GMT? rolex introduced the ceramic pepsi dial on a different case material - white gold. look at what has happen to the resale value and cult status of panerai vintage models such as pam 2B after they start re-make their vintage?
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Will this kick-start a new trend of using another material for future watches?
Casio's G-Shock watch still hitting the big time after 35 years
Its enduring popularity a surprise even to its creator; new sapphire crystal model to be released next year
Its brand longevity has surprised even its creator, especially for a product made so durable it shouldn't need replacing. But with over 100 million watches shipped around the world, the demand for the Casio G-Shock is showing no signs of waning as it turns 35 next year.
Casio kicked off the brand's 35th anniversary celebration last Thursday in New York City - the venue was selected because it was in the United States where the G-Shock craze started - with a press conference followed by music from designer, DJ and founder of fashion label Off-White, Virgil Abloh, and performances by members of popular US hip-hop collective A$AP Mob.
Created in 1983 by Casio engineer Kikuo Ibe, the G-Shock watch is famed for its extreme sturdiness and toughness.
"Actually, I never imagined that it (G-Shock) could last this long. I am just grateful that it has sustained for so long," Mr Ibe told The Straits Times before the press conference.
This is especially so since a G-Shock watch can last so long that wearers do not really need to replace their watches.
"Generally speaking, for any product, we should develop products that can last at least 10 years," said Mr Ibe, adding that he was glad that Casio's management was not concerned about the longevity of the product.
"Whenever there are new models (of G-Shock), there are collectors who buy the new products even though their old watches are still working." And this has helped the G-Shock to thrive.
During the press conference, Mr Ibe announced a sapphire crystal G-Shock that he has been working on. Details of this watch are scarce at present. But it is said that its case is protected by sapphire crystal and will be almost unscratchable. The sapphire crystal G-Shock is scheduled for release some time next year.
Mr Kazuhiro Kashio, president and chief operating officer of Casio, recalled how a Casio commercial in the US 25 years ago - showing an ice hockey player using a G-Shock as a puck and how the watch still worked despite being hit - triggered interest in G-Shock watches.
"A US TV programme then tried to verify the commercial's claim and found the watch to be truly unbreakable," he said.
Sales surged and the G-Shock's popularity was then "imported" back to Japan and subsequently spread worldwide. Mr Kashio feels that Casio did "something unprecedented". And with users wearing G-Shock all the time because it is unbreakable, he feels that Casio is contributing to society in a way.
"The G-Shock is a watch. But at the same time, it is something beyond a watch," said Mr Kashio, pointing to how Casio has created a culture on its own.
Over the years, the G-Shock has found fans among military figures and famous adventurers. It has also transcended into a pop and fashion icon. Casio has done several collaborations with many artists, celebrities and designers, such as Eric Haze and Robert Geller.
Mr Haze, an American artist and designer, has worked with Casio for 20 years to create special editions of the watches. He also designed the G-Shock's 30th and 35th anniversary logos. He feels that unlike his own works, which might be limited in reach, working with Casio has allowed him to expand to more audiences around the world.
"The idea that my ideas and style go so far out into the world and are well-received is the most satisfying part," said Mr Haze.
- Trevor Tan
New York CityLeave a comment:
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best blue dial watches for men
click here to read what are some of the best blue dials watches for menLeave a comment:
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From the Straits Times, Life! (Nov 9, 2017)
A watch brand for and by millennials
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NEW YORK - Watch out for Mr Jake Kassan, 26, who likes to play a little game - ask other 20somethings for the time and see if they glance at their wrists or phones.
"More often than not, they reach for their phone," he said. This might seem like a problem, given that he and his business partner Kramer La-Plante, 26, run Mvmt, a watch company that targets millennials. But Mr Kassan couldn't care less.
"Watches have evolved," he said. "Our audience cares more about the style of a watch than its function."
Millennials are often thought to be the lost generation when it comes to watches, since they were raised with cellphones. They are often too busy struggling to carve out careers in an uncertain economy to fritter away money on their yuppie parents' status symbols, so goes the popular opinion.
Funny, then, that a Los Angeles-based watch start-up, founded by a couple of college dropouts in 2013, has become an industry player (the company said revenues were US$60 million, or S$81 million, last year) by selling old-school timepieces to people too young to remember rotary phones.
The business is built on a simple, if implicit, premise: Young adults, with their do-everything smartphones and tablets, may not need another device to help them navigate their daily existence. But they care deeply about any image enhancer that helps them pop up Instagram.
It seems to have worked. Company research shows that 88 per cent of its customers are under 34 years old and 45 per cent are under 24.
"The belief that traditional watches are relics of the past is false," Mr Kassan said. "Our consumers may not be the most formal in their attire, but they are very intentional. They think about what they wear, about what is... up-to-date. That may be ripped jeans and a T-shirt, but it's not a baggy T-shirt with stains on it."
The partners, who met in Santa Barbara, California, after leaving college, each had tried his hand at e-commerce and crowdfunding ventures, with middling success. While neither was what you would call watch-obsessive, both considered timepieces important fashion accessories, but had a hard time finding a brand to fit both their style sensibility and budget.
"You had Nixon which is very action-sports oriented - skater, surfer," Mr Kassan said. "You had Michael Kors which was too blingy." Many entry-level brands were priced at US$400 or US$500, a stretch "when you're barely able to make rent".
They sought to create the kind of watch that they would want to buy. In an era of H&M-style fast fashion, they sought to produce watches that were head-turning, but also inexpensive enough that you could buy four or five.
The strategy was to keep costs under US$200 by selling directly to consumers online, eliminating the standard retail mark-up and relying on social media for marketing.
As the company has grown, however, it has begun selling in stores such as Nordstrom, advertising on radio and television, and has also expanded into sunglasses. The original Mvmt line, which was introduced on the Indiegogo crowdfunding platform, was tastefully designed.
Watch geeks will draw obvious parallels to minimalist Swiss classics such as Movado Museum Dial series and the IWC Portofino, which are far more expensive. The Mvmt watches delivered sleek, hyper-minimalist design for prices that range from US$95 to US$180. They largely did away with numerals for hour markers or luminescent hands.
To set itself apart in a sea of under-US$200 fashion watches, Mvmt positioned itself as an Instagram-first watch company. Its Instagram feed for its men's line, for example, which has more than 855,000 followers, is a cornucopia of shots of stylish young lovelies cavorting in exotic locales and wearing cool watches.
While the company experimented with celebrity endorsers, including reality TV personality Kylie Jenner and basketball star Klay Thompson, it found its footing with a social media star known largely to other millennials: Sam Kolder.
The latter is a globe-trotting young videographer and thrill-seeker with more than 590,000 Instagram followers and great abs.
"Our whole thing is, 'Dress with intent, live with purpose'," Mr Kassan said. "He scales buildings and scuba-dives with sharks. But he's not going to five-star resorts. He's just doing something everyone can do."
And wearing a watch that everyone can wear.
- NYTIMESLeave a comment:
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Dun waste your time... you know paul?No dis-respect but never hear of him until ppl keep writing paul's daytonna... Elvis maybe but not paul who past away less than two decade. The west like to hype themselves up. Hope is not another omega-mania in the making at this auction...Originally posted by Oceanklassik View PostLeave a comment:
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1) Shilla is NOT a preown watch shop. hence, is the article reporting the truth or is it otherwise. sometimes one has to read articles from any sources with a discerning mind. this was taught to be when i was doing my A level.
2) refer to point 1. sometimes one has to see the BIGGER picture.
3) some watch retailers do accept watches on customers' behalf to be sent to the respective service centre for service/repair. if a watch retailer accept on customer's behalf, there is usually a written down a service form where customer will get one copy for reference.
4) refer to point 1. in an event where the new watch requires service, would you as a walk-in customer know? most watches are checked periodically before it is put on display.
5) there are some protocols that these watch retailers adopt to monitor stock level. some protocols have loopholes where it can be exploited by any level of management. if you want to know more, you can contact me to know it offline.
Originally posted by Oceanklassik View PostLeave a comment:
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Some questions came to my mind in relation to the above article:
1. Is Shilla Travel Retail a pre-owned watch shop?
2. If not, how come their (new) watches need to be serviced or repaired?
3. Does it mean they accept customers' watches to be sent for repair/service?
4. If they even had to send their new watches for repair/service, what does it say about those
brands mentioned?
5. And if this is standard practice across watch retailers in Singapore, would it mean that
watch companies like The Hour Glass, Cortina, Sincere, Watches of Switzerland, etc, had to
monitor and regularly send their watches to service, when they are left unsold for a specific
period of time?Leave a comment:
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Straits Times, Home - Oct 10, 2017 (Tuesday)
Supervisor at airport shop jailed for taking watches worth $1.3m
A senior supervisor with Changi Airport's duty-free shop misappropriated $1.3 million worth of luxury watches and pawned them for about $490,000, a district court heard yesterday. To cover his tracks, Tan Wei Shen, 32, would indicate in the shop's stock-count list that the watches had been sent out to the service centre for repairs.
He was sentenced to five years and eight months behind bars yesterday for criminal breach of trust of 46 watches, and six charges of disposing of the items by pawning them at pawnshops. Tan stole the watches between December 2015 and June last year when he was working for Shilla Travel Retail at a Maison de Chronus shop in Changi Airport's Terminal 3.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Vikneswaran Kumaran said Tan misappropriated the 46 watches - comprising one Chopard, 16 Jaeger-LeCoultre, six IWC, three Piaget, 12 Breguet and eight Blancpain models - over the six-month period. He pawned them at two pawnshops.
Investigations showed that some time in May last year, Tan handed a stolen Jaeger-LeCoultre watch to a representative of Bedok Pawnshop and received $25,000 for it. Shilla Travel Retail discovered a shortfall of watches during its stock checks in December 2015 and April last year. But the company trusted his account when he lied that the watches had been sent for servicing.
In June last year, a retail manager of the shop became suspicious when he discovered a shortfall of Breguet watches. He checked the stock list, which indicated that Tan had sent the watches for servicing. But he found out from the service centre that it did not have the watches. When he confronted Tan on June 17 the same year, Tan admitted to misappropriating the watches and was arrested.
He claimed that he spent most of the money on gambling. Forty-five watches were recovered. Tan's lawyer, Mr K. Jayakumar Naidu, said in mitigation that his client had initially misplaced some watches which he was supposed to send out for repair. In order not to let the management know, counsel said, Tan borrowed from friends and his father took loans from loan sharks.
He said his client continued to take watches from the shop, and used the money he received to redeem them every month. Thirty-two similar charges under the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act were taken into consideration.
Tan could have been jailed for up to 15 years and fined for criminal breach of trust as a servant; and fined up to $500,000 and/or jailed for up to 10 years for each of the other offences.
- Elena ChongLeave a comment:
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Straits Times, life (Thursday, September 21, 2017)
Cartier Tank a style statement
Cartier Tank played a major role in making wristwatches popular in an era when pocket watches were the mainstay
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When it made its debut 100 years ago, the Cartier Tank watch immediately became a style statement. Rudolph Valentino, the original Latin Lover of Hollywood, apparently loved it so much that he insisted on wearing it every day when he was shooting his last movie, The Son Of The Sheikh (1926).
Andy Warhol famously described the Tank as a "state of mind". "I don't really wear it to tell the time. Actually, I never even wind it. I wear a Tank because it's the watch to wear," said the leading figure of the pop art movement who died in 1987. Time has not diminished its appeal.
Its legion of famous fans over the last century include playwright Truman Capote, matinee idols Cary Grant and Gary Cooper, Princess Diana, actresses Angelina Jolie and Catherine Deneuve, former United States First Lady Michelle Obama and fashion designer Tom Ford.
Entire books have been written about the watch including Cartier: The Tank Watch by Franco Cologni. The writer and historian describes the timepiece as a VIO (Very Important Object) and equates its status to "the most famous of human VIPs".
The watch was designed by Louis Cartier and inspired by the Renault FT 17 tanks used during World War I. The prototype was reportedly given to Captain John Pershing, leader of the American Expeditionary Force in Europe during the war, and to several of his officers.
In an era when pocket watches were the mainstay, the Tank played a major role in making wristwatches popular for men. The shape of the case, both a square and a rectangle, was a radical breakaway from the traditional round ones. The strap, meanwhile, is seamlessly integrated into vertical sidebars called "brancards" which look like the parallel treads of a tank.
The simple rectilinear lines were a deliberate departure from the curves and fussy details of the then-prevalent Art Nouveau style, which Louis Cartier abhorred. Instead, he took inspiration from Art Deco and other movements such as cubism. It is rare for any watch model to be produced over such a long period. But the Tank has many things going for it besides its aesthetic appeal. It is gender-neutral, sitting well on the wrists of both men and women.
The other defining Tank features that have enduring appeal include the Roman numerals, the blue steel hands, the blue sapphire mounted on the crown, the brancards and the chemin de fer. The latter refers to the double line, reminiscent of railroad tracks, on the dial of every Tank.
Over the years, Cartier has released different variations of the Tank. It has adopted sizes big and small, been bejeweled and fashioned out of different materials. The first Tank that was produced was called the Normale. Other iterations over the last century include Tank Cintree, Tank Chinoise, Tank Americaine and Tank Francoise.
In June this year, Jackie Onassis' Cartier Tank Ordinaire was auctioned by Christie's for nearly US$380,000 (S$510,600). The buyer was rumored to be reality television star Kim Kardashian. Investment banker Tim Yong, 33, has half a dozen vintage Tanks, which he bought from flea markets, dealers and auctions. "I started collecting them in the early 2000s when I was living in New York," says the Singaporean, adding that he is drawn to the watch's iconic case design. "I think it is one of the best value-for-money classic watches."
One of his more unusual pieces is the Bamboo Tank Coussin from the 1970s, with a yellow bamboo-style case he got from a dealer in Hong Kong. Another is a limited-edition Tank Asymmetric, inspired by, some say, Salvador Dali's melting clock.
Dr Serene Lim, a paediatric anaesthetist, has two Cartier Tanks, one of which is a Tank Louis Cartier and the other, a Tank Basculante with a blue grey dial. First introduced in 1933, the Basculante has a foldover case which makes it unique. It has often been compared with Jaeger-LeCoultre's Reverso. But unlike the Reverso, which has a case that moves from left to right on a horizontal axis, the Basculante flips upside-down in a swinging frame.
Mr Yong says: "The Tank today is like a crocodile. It hasn't changed over the decades. That makes it comforting, timeless and tasteful."
- Wong Kim HohLast edited by Oceanklassik; 21-09-17, 10:56 AM.Leave a comment:
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