For a few years, you could have been forgiven for thinking there was only one watch brand on planet Earth that mattered. Daniel Wellington. The Swedish brand had taken the world (and seemingly not just the watchmaking world) by storm.
The brand was everywhere. It dominated high street windows. It had the sap of entire forests on its hands, thanks to the reams and reams of print.mes dia advertisements spewed out on a monthly basis. It was a juggernaut traveling at full speed. There seemed no chance it would ever leave the tip of our shared consciousness and then, almost as quickly as the affordable quartz “every-watch” brand appeared, it seemed almost to vanish overnight.
Of course, it didn’t. Its real-world presence hasn’t even diminished that much. The brand just stopped pushing because it had achieved its goal. It had saturated the market with accessible generic products that even hard-boiled watch vets like me had to shrug and say, “well, you could do worse, I suppose. At least it's vaguely inoffensive.”
“Vaguely inoffensive.” What a thing to say, as a compliment, no less. It speaks volumes of what matters in the entry-entry-level price point that being vaguely inoffensive could be construed as a good thing. And yet, that’s exactly the case.
Luminor 1950 3 Day Chrono Flyback Regatta Black Dial Men's Watch PAM00526
Panerai
You see, most people don’t care about watches. I know, I know: It’s hard for people like us to understand, but it’s true. These days, it’s probably even fair to say most people don’t wear watches designed for telling the t.mes only. Even a quartz watch is an anachronistic curio that must seem to teenagers these days like a relic from a bygone era and the sort of artifact their grandfather might wax lyrical about.
But the one really exciting thing about the advent of Smart Watches, as referenced by industry megastar Jean-Claude Biver on more than one occasion (himself an owner of ten Apple Watches), is that this interest in wearable technology is inspiring the younger generation to wear something on their wrists for possibly the first t.mes in their lives. That, he avers, can only be a good thing. In t.mes , these neophyte fans of “wrist-bound wearables” will graduate to the realms of luxury horology. Rather than the Smart Watch being the slayer of the mechanical arm of the industry it was once feared to be (just as quartz watches were feared to be before it), it will, according to Biver, function as a gateway drug.
And, so far, he seems to be right…
More and more, we are noticing younger watch buyers enter the fray via this route. Many of them had never worn a watch until they bought an Apple Watch. Many of them, intrigued by the quaint charm of t.mes -only pieces, experimented with a cheap watch before stepping up their wrist game to the luxury realm.
And, surprise, surprise, which watch brand was often the brand of choice for the first foray into t.mes -only t.mes pieces? That’s right, Daniel Wellington. With its invasive marketing strategies and aggressive distribution policy, DW provided a perfect stepping stone for a generation testing new waters. For that, I think, we, as established watch lovers, should be thankful for it.
Better still, DW offers experienced watch buyers a very affordable option for gifting a watch to our less horologically-inclined friends. I know many a “watch guy” who has bought his partner a DW to share their love of horology with the love of their life. And somet.mes s, it has the same affect on the gifted party! It doesn’t take a huge leap to imagine someone that likes wearing a simple DW quartz watch might one day seek to upgrade to a beautiful, German-made watch from NOMOS Glashütte, like the NOMOS Orion, for example.
While those of us very deep into the hobby of collects ing wristwatches already might sneer at brands like Daniel Wellington, we should never close our minds to the positive effect they can have on inspiring the next generation to take those first steps into our world. Without them, of course, there is no future, and if there is one thing I think most of us collects ors value more than everything else, is that this wonderful hobby, like the watches that comprise it, continues to run and run, long after we are gone.
