Buying A Luxury Watch:  Understanding Luxury By Branding and Luxury by Design
by Ken Grazi

What is a luxury watch?  Well, it depends on who you ask.   Some say Rolex is top of the line luxury, while others insist nothing exudes luxury more than a Piaget, Breguet or even a Clerc.   A $1,000 Movado may be considered luxury by some, while a $13,000 Jacob & Co watch with diamond bezel may be chosen over a $6,500 Jaeger LeCoultre with an alarm complication.   But price should never be the only criteria to determine a luxury watch.  There are diamond encrusted watches priced in the tens of thousands of dollars, and then there are $400,000 stainless steel watches without any precious metals or stones that are so complicated a master watchmaker must be consulted on how to set the time.  Given these various scenarios, I choose to describe a luxury watch through two distinct criteria:  how the watch is made and how the company is branded. 

Rolex by far is the most recognizable name in the industry.  They'€™ve done a superb job with branding, to the point where if two people were stuck in a foreign country and needed cash urgently, with one wearing a $5,000 Rolex and the other wearing a $25,000 Ulysse Nardin, the one with the Rolex would immediately be able to sell his watch. Companies that invest significantly in their branding, whether through extensive advertising campaigns and celebrity endorsement or packaging that involves leather boxes with soft suede interiors, are often perceived as luxury because they'€™re constantly reinforcing this message to the masses.

True watch connoisseurs, however, would argue that watches such as Rolex or Omega can’t be considered luxury because they are mass produced.  Instead, smaller companies that are known only by an enlightened few should qualify as luxury.  When you consider a watch such as a Ulysse Nardin, a Girard-Perregaux or a Dubey & Schaldenbrand, you'€™re looking at meticulously hand-made quality, with hand painted dials, hand-assembled and sometimes hand-engraved movements.  Smaller watch companies focus on complications, which often justify high pricing for stainless steel watches without precious stones. A watch may have a moon phase indicator, which tells the current phase of the moon; an alarm function loud enough to wake the dead; or a minute repeater, which can best be illustrated as putting the gong feature of a grandfather clock into a wristwatch. The time and effort that goes into creating these complicated timepieces, especially without using batteries to make them function, makes it impossible to produce more than a few hundred pieces annually; whereas Rolex, which stays away from complications, produces thousands of watches every year.  Smaller companies such as Dubey, GP and Ulysse Nardin would rather sacrifice quantity for quality, focusing on creating masterpieces with refined finishing and less traditional materials €”such as Dubey'€™s use of the Galuchat Royal Stingray band on their rose gold limited edition timepieces.

And yet, I recently read an article about an Asian businessman who owns over 2,000 of the most exclusive watches in the world.  His favorites include Patek Philippe, Dubey & Schaldenbrand and A Lange & Sohne.  When he meets with other businessmen, however, he always wears his less favorite Rolex Presidential.  Why? Because of Rolex's strategic branding of its products, the Rolex Presidential is viewed by the average person as the epitome of status and respect.  Collectors such as this Asian businessman understand the perception and use it advantageously.  Despite painstaking efforts of smaller companies to craft beautifully complicated timepieces, branding unfortunately has a tremendous role in the public perception of what is a luxury watch.

If I were to choose three luxury watches I'€™d like to receive as gifts this holiday, they would be the Odyssey by Clerc, which has various complications that a watch lover such as myself enjoys showing off; the Edition George Dubey by Dubey & Schaldenbrand, a watch that, in addition to using vintage movements from the 50s and 60s, is limited to 50 pieces in rose gold and 150 in stainless steel---making me one of only 200 people in the entire world to own this watch; and the Typhoon by Volna.  The Typhoon makes my list not just because only 150 of its 500 annual production will be available in the US, but also because it’s a great looking watch that fits perfectly with current trends of watches getting bigger.

My recommendation on buying luxury watches:  Buy what you love.  Don'€™t pay attention to price or advertising when choosing your luxury watch. Look instead at the company history, the amount of detail that goes into creating the timepiece, and how many are produced each year.  The more limited quantity a company offers, the more you can be assured the true value of your purchase---and then you evolve from being a watch buyer to a watch collector. 

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For questions about this article or on buying and owning luxury watches please contact Ken Grazi at [email protected].