Becoming a Civilian

Learning to love watches again

This past year I’ve felt more disengaged than ever from the watch industry, for a number of reasons. Of course, the pandemic has meant that everyone is learning to make do from a distance. Shows are cancelled, we don’t travel, and even the big brands have adapted to unveil new watches through video presentations, some painfully awkward, others quite innovative. There was no SIHH, no Baselworld, and last week’s “big” Watches and Wonders was all done virtually. 

Pulling back professionally also contributed to my increasing distance from the watch world. Throughout most of 2020 and into early 2021, I focused on writing a novel, getting this Substack up and running, and recording episodes of The Grey NATO podcast with James Stacey. TGN helped me keep a foot in the door of the gilded halls of watchdom, but I didn’t get hands-on time with many new watches, and my inbox is getting fewer and fewer press releases in it. Do I miss the press trips, the buzz of handling all those new watches, and running from meeting to meeting in the gargantuan, overheated conference halls of Switzerland? Not really. The irony of all this is, my love of watches is actually starting to grow again.

Don’t look back.

There was a sweet spot in my freelance career that came about two or three years after I started writing about watches, in which my still fresh interest in the subject matter converged with access to watches, brand personalities, and experiences. Those were the halcyon days when a brand would invite me to Portugal to go sailing, or to Tenerife to dive, or Iceland to drive a Land Rover over a glacier, all as part of a launch of a new timepiece. I was staying in five-star hotels, eating in incredible restaurants, meeting astronauts and actors, and seeing parts of the world I normally wouldn’t have. I’m incredibly grateful for those experiences. I’m actually not sure the industry will ever go back to that, not only due to our year of lockdowns, but also the changing face of watch media and brand marketing.

But after a while, disillusionment crept in. I can’t put my finger on exactly when it happened. I think the rise of “sponsored content,” the endless cycle of new, new, new, replete with hyperbolic marketing, and a too cozy relationship between brands and editors led to my general discontentment. A couple of real world reviews of watches I wrote drew the ire of brands who didn’t appreciate any flaws being pointed out, and one even wanted to review an article of mine before it was published. I attended Baselworld on behalf of one publication who asked me to act as salesperson for advertising and gave me a list of brands with whom to schedule appointments, some of which were of no interest to me, and definitely not good fits for the magazine’s audience. The thrill was, if not gone, fading fast.

In the early days of my watch interest, I was a daily visitor to the online enthusiast forums. I was one of many, a fairly anonymous participant, a civilian who’d not yet seen behind the wizard’s curtain or asked to praise the emperor’s new clothes. Early on in my forum days, I wrote a naïve post in which I put forth that a Seiko SKX was objectively better than an Omega Planet Ocean as a dive watch (if you read my “Building the Perfect Dive Watch,” you can see my thinking hasn’t changed much). It drew spirited debate. A while later, I wrote my own gushing review of the Omega Ploprof, a watch I bought with my own hard earned money and with which I was utterly smitten. This was joyful, impassioned writing to share with a few others, and I equally enjoyed learning from, and interacting with, others who shared the same strange fetish for obsolete, expensive mechanical objects.

 Simply due to workload and product overload, I drifted away from those often friendly, often contentious, messy but charming communities. Now when I peek in, they seem like quieter but familiar places—fierce debates, real world reviews, strong opinions. Will I venture back into the forums now that I’m not writing about watches professionally much anymore? I doubt it. The landscape has changed. Social media seems to have taken over for much of what the forums used to do. Also, with innocence lost, you really can’t go back, can you? Anyway, I feel like this Substack has the same community vibe and I’d love to see more watch focused ones pop up, or at least some of the other personalities from the watch business start their own newsletters.

I remember when Ben Clymer began dabbling in car collecting years ago, he told me how refreshing it was, “to be a civilian” again. I can relate: that innocence of a new hobby when you soak up as much as you can about film processing, Land Rover repair, model building, or gardening, when you can ask dumb questions and be a humble, anonymous novice in a field of experts. The same thing started happening with diving for me. Every dive trip became a watch photo shoot, every dive gear purchase a business expense, so that I wasn’t enjoying our vacations as much anymore. When we went to Jamaica without dive gear and spent lazy days just snorkeling over a reef, it was pure, innocent joy. I was a civilian again, a holiday snorkeler.

I may never get back to the same wide eyed innocent who signed up for WatchUSeek back in 2007, but lately, observing the new releases at Watches and Wonders with everyone else, on social media and the watch blogs, and without the advantage of embargoed press releases, I’ve been able to appreciate the surprise, the initial gut reaction of love or hate, and the freedom to obsess over the less “important” stuff. I am quite taken with the Tudor Black Bay Chrono releases, love the silver cased Black Bay diver, and, though I’m not a gold guy myself, take no umbrage at the two-tone Rolex Explorer. I also find the Audemars Piguet Marvel Comics release utterly hideous and downright laughable, and was floored by the SolarBeat Cartier Tank Must, a watch that a dyed-in-the-neoprene dive watch guy like me simply should not care about. 

Meanwhile, one of the coolest watches to be released last week had nothing to do with Watches and Wonders: the Baltic Aquascaphe Dual-Crown. The brand’s founder, Etienne, captured a favorite vintage vibe with just the right amount of freshness and restraint, and launched it with an incredibly well produced, evocative marketing launch video. I personally think the most exciting things happening in watches these days are from the smaller brands, where the focus is less on heightening prestige (and price) through exotic materials and in-house movements, and more on making compelling, irresistible, well-built, affordable and, most importantly, fun, watches. Maybe this is because as I step away from mainstream watch writing, I am more able to look beyond the big brands who buy the ads and host the press junkets. But it’s also due to more mental breathing room and less pressure to care about what’s “important” in watches. 

Do I still like Rolex, Omega, and Seiko? Of course, and I have watches from all of those brands in my own collection. But what I find myself pulling out to wear and enjoy more than anything else are my CWC, my Aquastar, my Bremont, my Ianos, and my anOrdain. I’ve been following, and connecting, through social media, Bangalore Watch Company, MKII, Wolbrook, and Vertex, and I can honestly say I’ve made some new friends along the way, with no strings attached. It’s starting to feel a little like it used to, where I am enjoying exploring the nooks and crannies of the watch business and being pleasantly surprised with what I find. I’m being a little more honest with what I like and dislike, both publicly, and to myself. It’s funny, as I care less about watches, I find I am actually enjoying them more. And it’s so good to be back.