Fashion Watches – Sinners or Saints

My first watch – that I wore on a regular basis at least – was a Fashion Watch (gasps, screams), yep its true; I was going to say,”I am not proud of it but it happened”, but you know what I am.

Its true that I would never call my fashion watch a “good” watch, a Seiko of a similar price probably would of been a better start however what has to be acknowledged is this is a new generation of watch fans, not all of them are going to be lucky enough to of been handed a “proper” watch as their first watch, in my case I am glad I wasn’t given a highly valuable – both emotionally and financially because to be honest – I would of been scared to wear it.

I really would of been terrified, with good reason really looking at my Armani Exchange`s little scratches to the crystal and case. My point is, at least I think it is, that there has to be a lot of new watch fans with the same or similar story to me.

And this is important it truly is , we really should not ostracize watch enthusiasts for the start of their watch journey – personally i wouldn’t hold it against someone if their interest in horology was sparked by a broken Daniel Wellington which had been sold to them for twice the retail price with a franken dial (I mean maybe I would a little). It fundamentally doesn’t matter it is a journey after all, I need to point out this isn’t me standing on a soapbox ranting about an issue in the watch community because I am guilty of doing this on a personal level, in the past when i have thought or looked at my first watch and felt a feeling close to embarrassment, not quite embarrassment but it certainly resembled it, perhaps it was embarrassment`s second cousin Peter.

I feel though that experiencing this feeling of “Peter” (yes I made a sad joke and I am going to keep drawing it out), was more to do with my personal growth as a watch collector. I think the best way of putting it is this, when you find an old photograph you are probably a young teenager in it, maybe its what you were wearing or what you were doing but it makes you want to put your head in your hands and laugh and cry all at the same time. But are you ashamed that this photo exists ? Do you wish it never happened ? For me at least the answer is no because without that would I be the same person with their head in their hands. I think this is the best way I can summarize how i feel about my fashion watch.