TicTacTalks ForumPosted by YvesOdier
October 9, 2007 - 11:33AM cet
IP : 86.199.53.181
Email : yves.odier@wanadoo.fr
SINCE buying his first high-end watch nearly 20 years ago, a stainless steel Cartier Vendôme, Burt Minkoff had considered himself a watch enthusiast of restrained taste.
He liked white faces and average-size casings -- the kind that sit neatly atop the wrist without poking over the edge, the ones legible at arm's length, but not much farther. Mr. Minkoff, a 46-year-old Miami real estate developer, was so certain of his preference for understated timepieces that over the years he added five more Cartiers to his collection.
But on a trip to Milan last year, Mr. Minkoff saw something truly weird, a gigantic Italian watch that resembled a kitchen timer with a strap, the mother of jumbo watches: a Panerai Luminor.
''It was a big, huge monster-type thing,'' he said.
Back in the United States, Mr. Minkoff decided to buy one of those monster-type things. He dropped $3,600 on a Panerai. The decision was not without consequences. After a few days of wearing his new jumbo, the delicate Cartiers no longer cut it.
''Every time I think about putting one of the others on, they feel too small,'' Mr. Minkoff said. ''I used to shy away from big watches. I called them Quarter-Pounders. Now I'm wearing a double Whopper with cheese.''
What began in the 1990's as a trend toward incrementally larger watches has turned into a mad dash among watch companies to build the biggest timepiece and among consumers to strap it on. Inspired in part by the popularity of the upstart Panerai, traditional companies like Corum, Franck Muller and Roger Dubuis have come out with jumbos of their own. Even Patek Philippe, the Swiss watchmaker known for thin, elegant designs, recently came out with a 42-millimeter clunker. Stars like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger have worn them in films, and trade and collect them.
''If I have one he doesn't have,'' Mr. Schwarzenegger said of Mr. Stallone, ''I give it to him. And he does that for me.''
The jumbo watch craze has touched off a testy debate among watch connoisseurs. On Internet bulletin boards, large watches -- generally, those with diameters of more than 40 millimeters -- are derided as ''hockey pucks,'' ''dinner plates'' and ''Humvees for the wrists.'' Even some of those responsible for the trend are wondering aloud about what they've wrought.
''I think it's going too far,'' said François Henry Bennahmias, the president of Audemars Piguet, the Swiss company credited by some with creating the first jumbo, the Royal Oak Offshore. Audemars Piguet has produced jumbo watches for three of Mr. Schwarzenegger's films. Even so, a 50-millimeter watch, Mr. Bennahmias said, ''is beyond any possible acceptance from the wrist. You need two Arnolds to wear a watch like this.''
Watchmakers, though, show no signs of letting up. At the annual Salon International Haute Horlogerie in Geneva in early April, the International Watch Company plans to unveil a 46-millimeter watch. And at least one company has been formed specifically to capitalize on the big-watch phenomenon. In December, a Rodeo Drive jeweler named Ali Soltani, who calls himself the ''king of monster watches,'' presented Ritmo Mundo, a line whose rectangular Grand Data stretches 52 millimeters lug to lug.
According to Michael Friedberg, a lawyer and watch connoisseur who moderates Timezone.com, a watch aficionados' Web site, ''It's a question of how large can you go?''
Watches occupy a singular role in the pantheon of male vanity. As the only piece of jewelry a man is likely to wear every day, a watch provides his best opportunity to tell the world about himself without opening his mouth. A plastic Swatch says practicality. Wearing a monstrous scuba watch with a suit is a way of announcing that despite the duds, you're not square. The oft-repeated adage of watch salesmen is that you can drive a Ferrari to a restaurant and only the parking lot attendant will see it. A fine watch will be seen by everyone.
For decades, the trend was toward smaller watches. The thinner a watch casing, the thinking was, the finer the movement inside, and the more expensive the watch. But as makers of inexpensive watches learned to replicate and mass-produce intricate movements, it became difficult to discern fine watches from $19 knockoffs.
''You could wear a $20,000 Patek and there was a Seiko that looked just like it,'' said Steve Colky, the chief executive of a Los Angeles electronics company and a watch collector with two Panerais.
Enthusiasts looking for larger watches in the 1990's first turned to vintage military watches, which led to the rediscovery of Panerai, a small Florentine company that made watches for the Italian and Egyptian navies in the 1940's and 1950's. Faced with the problem of designing watches for divers to read underwater, the company had come up with a simple solution: it made its watches huge. The big vintage Panerais began to fetch large sums at auction. The company's profile was heightened, it says, when Mr. Stallone ordered 200 custom models -- ''Slytechs'' -- to give to friends.
In 1997, Panerai was bought by the Richemont Group, the luxury goods conglomerate that owns Dunhill, Cartier and Montblanc.
The company started making watches that resembled the Panerais of old. But perhaps more valuable even than the design, Richemont acquired the Panerai story and all the marketing opportunities it provided. The new Panerai has turned out glossy company histories, complete with reproductions of daguerreotypes showing the old family store.
The watch quickly caught on in Europe. Then, in 2001, Ralph Lauren wore a Panerai in full-page ads that ran in American magazines.
''I liked the design, the heritage,'' Mr. Lauren said. ''I wouldn't be wearing a watch just because it was big. The companies that knock it off are copying the size, but not the history of why it was that size.''
The appearance of the Panerai in the Ralph Lauren ads exposed the gargantuan watches to the masses in the United States.
''Customers were calling and saying, 'I would like the watch Ralph Lauren was wearing,' '' Philippe Bonay, the head of Panerai's North American operation, said.
Since then, Panerai's chief marketing trick has been to tell people they can't have one. Production is limited and each watch is numbered, like a lithograph. As the company is quick to tell, even its own dealers are agitating for more product.
''If you come to Rodeo Drive, you'll see an empty Panerai case,'' said Jonas Grunberg, an executive at Princess Jewels Collection, a Panerai dealer in Beverly Hills. Mr. Grunberg has a few Panerais in the safe. ''But unless you are 'the man,' '' he said, ''I'm not going to pull them for you.''
While the strategy may have preserved Panerai's cachet, it opened doors for other watchmakers to capitalize on the phenomenon.
''Two years ago a slew of watches started to appear that were larger than 40 millimeters,'' said Joe Thompson, who writes about the industry for WatchTime magazine and who coined the term Panerai syndrome to describe the obsession with jumbo watches. ''Then last year, the 50-millimeter barrier was broken.''
While some men say they like large watches because they are easy to read, most, if pressed, will admit that the real kick comes from all the attention the hubcaps with hands generate.
''It's like when you're a kid and someone came to school with a new Hot Wheels,'' said Chi McBride, who plays the principal on ''Boston Public'' and is the owner of four Panerais. ''Everyone stands around looking at it, waiting for it to do something. Guys get all gushy about a big watch. It's a manly man thing.''
For the archetypal manly man, big watches were a natural. ''I am always interested in big things,'' Mr. Schwarzenegger said. ''Big motorcycles like Harley-Davidson, big furniture, big cars.'' When the jumbos took off, he wasn't surprised. ''There is a huge amount of people out there who dig big stuff,'' he said.
To wear a big watch, though, certain logistical hurdles have to be cleared. ''Sometimes it's hard to get your shirt cuff over the watch,'' said Stephen Jacoby, a Manhattan publishing executive who owns a Panerai. At a recent fashion show in Milan, Ralph Lauren wore his Panerai over the sleeve of a leather jacket.
''It wasn't ridiculous,'' Mr. Lauren said.
But the idea of a watch so big that it has to be strapped over clothing sends some traditionalists into fits.
''It becomes grotesque,'' said Thomas Mao, a collector who runs a connoisseurs' Web site, thePurists .com. ''If the ends of the lug extend beyond the edges of the wrist, that's the limit of aesthetic taste.''
Within the watch community, few think the trend will end anytime soon.
''Each generation gets bigger and wealthier and lives longer, and that forecasts larger wrists, weaker eyes and more money,'' Mr. Thompson said. ''The jumbo trend has legs.''
Posted by W
October 10, 2007 - 01:09AM cet
IP : 206.116.196.39
Email : cadthis@hotmail.com
Posted by Asi
October 10, 2007 - 08:42AM cet
IP : 62.219.163.36
Email : asimut@gmail.com
Cheers,
~Asi~
Posted by W
October 10, 2007 - 07:09PM cet
IP : 206.116.196.39
Email : cadthis@hotmail.com
How are you doing my friend?
Hope all is well :-)
Posted by YvesOdier
October 19, 2007 - 08:00AM cet
IP : 81.48.137.154
Email : yves.odier@wanadoo.fr
Posted by amanico
October 10, 2007 - 12:47PM cet
IP : 88.166.185.226
Email : amarillifondaneche@yahoo.fr
I'm quite ok with what was said by someone in your report, Yavez.
Of course, it depends of your own wrist...
You can't wear a watch, with lugs going out each side of your wrist.
The answer is more difficult when you put it this way:
You can wear a big and a little watch....Which one will you keep, which one will you re sell?
Personaly, I don't have any problem with the size of the watch, as I consider the beauty of the watch.
A Patek 5110P " World time" can be worn as well as a Panerai Pre V Logo....
Idem for a 5196P, as well as an Amvox II.
In general, I think that both of the "little" or the "big" watches have place in the future, it will more depend of the style and the purity of the watch.
Posted by Mark in California
October 12, 2007 - 07:24PM cet
IP : 76.200.142.143
Email : markjakey@yahoo.com
Trend or not.
I see it as a "part" of an overall collection or need..
no size fits every need or use being asthetic or practical..
Clearly the big watch is here to stay but it's not the "only" way to go.
As in all collecting, one will tire of what they have and make changes...there are some and I would say a small part of the watch wearing world that are die hard to a brand or a size or even a specific model but even they tend to make changes up and down the spectrum...
Size matters...in all directions..
Just my own opinion of course...
Mark in California