iW Magazine iW Summer 2018 | Page 8

FROM THE EDITORS Letters + Events The new Franck Muller Vanguard World Timer TELLING TIMES H information platforms. Not all that long ago it was a much bigger challenge to establish the value of any watch. You would have to buy printed price guides, consult with uman nature tends to invest more emotional stock and importance on our experts, scour retailers and attend specialist events in most recent experiences. The seem so much more poignant and important order to find what a watch was really worth. Today anyone in the moment than they will with the benefit of time and hindsight. Take for instance the relatively new onslaught of “smart” watches. While some see the Apple watch and its ilk as the death knell for traditional timepieces, others (like me) look at the trend as a gateway to the minds and wrists of future generations. There is no doubt that a percentage of the millions of consumers indoctrinated by taking a bite at Apple’s own wristwear will at some point decide to move on to a watch that fits can invest five minutes on line and have a hard value on almost any timepiece. This, along with the direct on line sales channels, has placed leverage in the consumer’s hands while annihilating the status quo. While major brands struggle to hide or disperse excess inventory, online discounting runs rampant and undermines any brand’s legacy pricing. Most historic watch houses have yet to take the medicine and realign their own developing sense of style. As the current socio-economic group of twenty production to match demand. These brands will continue and thirty year olds mature, I know we can count on a good percentage of them to suffer the effects of category commoditization thanks embracing individuality and looking to the wristwatch as an expression of their own sense of style. Time will tell if I’m right, but the historical precedent of evolution and recovery has already happened in the watch world. to market saturation. A few brands are starting to see the light, but the Swiss are typically slow to embrace change and seemingly never want to slow production. That might have flown twenty years ago, but faced with the new reality and transparency of the digital world, how long can they ignore platforms that show their watches at sixty ITS NOT TOO FAR A STRETCH TO COMPARE the recent tech watch trend to the quartz revolution of the 1970s and 1980s. Just with a much faster life cycle. Don’t believe me? For proof of the ephemeral nature of tech wear check out the Pebble Smart Watch website. In 2012, this tech watch was a darling favorite on Kickstarter. They quickly secured more than TEN MILLION dollars in funding from almost 69,000 backers. Five years later, they cease to exist. Granted, I don’t believe that the Apple watch will disappear, but I do believe there percent off - new in box? To quote Chef Bob Stanley of Longfellow’s Wayside Inn: “feed them, don’t stuff them.” Keep Watching! will be a balance between initial enthusiasm, market capacities and an almost endless array of competition. And with so many competitors offering similar functionality at prices as low as $49, this category is currently racing to the bottom – just like quartz watches did in the 1970s and 1980s. Another major shift in the consumer watch world giving agita to the establishment is the on-line sales and 8 | INTERNATIONAL WATCH | SUMMER 2018 Gary George Girdvainis Publisher | [email protected] iWMAGAZINE .COM