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