Is there a place in your collection for fashion watches?

I don’t think most people hate fashion brands as a general rule. The fashion brands that seem to get hate seem to be the ones that try to shove themselves onto your wrist with questionable marketing techniques like Filipo Loretti and MVMT. Or the ones that people seem to feel rip of established brands. 

But most people don’t seem to mind fashion brands like Fossil and Skagen and I’ve just bought a Bering that’s quite nice. 

So I wouldn’t worry about it, and remember for those of us who don’t work with watches spend most of our time with non watch people who really don’t care. 

Fashion?!?! What foreign verbage do you speak😉 

The problem with these watches is usually not with the watch itself, but what you pay for the product. With Skagen and Fossil you know exactly what you get for the money. MVMT and some other brands got in trouble largely for their marketing, which was somewhat questionable, especially their influencer marketing.

If you like the watch and the design, just go ahead and enjoy wearing it.

Everything in moderation. The thing I like about fashion watches is that they (at least try to) look good, or at least interesting. I can't say the same about many alleged grail watches. Also, the fleeting nature of fashion leads to them eventually getting marked down to reasonable prices.

Besides, from the average viewing distance, an honest person will admit that they often look quite respectable, or at least convincing, and don't belie their economical nature.

An example of all this is the Walking Dead's Rick Grimes's watch. Tuns out it was some Kenneth Cole piece. Actually this Westood piece in OP is neat too, with the diagonally teaked dial and globus cruciger logo.

Agreed. Gucci in particular. 

This was a gift and I like to wear it now and then. Most people I know/work with wouldn't look twice anyway. 

Yeah I don't really worry! Wear it now and again as I like it. And it was a gift so remains special. 

Have a Skagen too, which I bought when I didn't know much and didn't have much. So that one has sentimental value too. 

In general, I don't tend to buy fashion brands. Having said that, I do have two sort of fashion brand watches that occupy prominent positions in my collection and my heart; my Relic skeleton watch and my Bering solar watch.

Both of these watches were gifts from my wife. As you can see, she has a thing for black and gold. 😀

Totally agree with you. Apart from those salesy brands, fashion watches should be acceptable even without sentimental value.

I have a Chaps (a Fossil sub-brand) with small seconds subdial and every watch or non-watch friend of mine love it.

Its a NO from me. Maybe i am just old school and unfashionable (well i am in my children's eyes) but i find 'fashion' watches just an extension of labels and for show. Another reason is i have yet to find or see in person any 'Fashion' watch with any kind of build quality or horological value and heritage. Plus if you can be bothered there are plenty of excellent micro brands that look way cooler which deserve attention and get overlooked. Each to their own tho, Wear what you like. Designer labels on watches do nothing for me.

For me, the dislike mostly stems from pricing, i.e. charging $500 for a quartz 3 hander because it has a designer name. Otherwise, I have zero issues with them.

I found an Emporio Armani quartz at a TJ Maxx that I got for $87. Sapphire domed crystal, GMT, date, Swiss made, applied indicies, genuine alligator strap, very nice case. At its list price of $595, it was everything I hate about fashion watches. At $87, it was a very nice watch.

John P watches YouTube video "Good Fashion Watches" uncovers some extremely high quality watches decorated as fashion watches.  Why can't all fashion watches use good parts?  

Invicta is a great example of a fashion brand that is licensed to use sports teams logos and super heros  on watches.  If they didn't try to sell their $50.00 watches for $1000.00 they would not have generated so much hate.

Agree, you could spend £300 on a quality piece from a microbrand, or even the likes of Seiko or Citizen. Rather than paying for a logo. 

i guess we gotta start somewhere at first. 4 years ago i didnt know anything about wristwatch. i used to wear fossil for a long time

Great shots!

On the flip side the fashion brand Bering has made an 8mm watch in titanium, with saphire crystal, 100m wr and a solar charging quartz batter and you can get it for under 100EUR. Much like with micros I think you just need to hunt around with the  fashion brands. 

For what It’s worth, I still have my Movados in my watch box (didn’t say I wear them) mainly because they started me on my watch journey. So yea, file that under sentimental. 

I wish this thread had been around a day earlier. I was in Macy’s yesterday, and they had a sign that dread “Fashion Watches”. So I guess even department stores look down on the kind of watches they sell. 

thx 🙏🏻

I feel like fashion watches are all department stores sell!

To be fair, they had a few Casios that wouldn’t get you kicked out of here. But yeah, mostly just cheap ripoffs if watches that actual people spent actual time crafting. 

The sentimentality point is spot on. I have friends who received fashion watches from partners and family; they cherish them as much as one might a "real" timepiece. 

I bought two Jacques Lemans watches from the big shop here in Moscow. Assembled in Austria (so practically Swiss!). The Miyota quartz in one gives my G - Shocks a run for their money in terms of accuracy; the NH35 in the other is not super accurate, but makes a great dress piece. Cost around £250 for the pair, which is not unreasonable to my mind. 

That's my two- penn'orth. Have a great Sunday, everyone. Cheers 🍻!  

I don't like when the marketing is full of lies about the watch quality and the company.  As someone who wears Timex watches, saying there is not a place in my collection for a fashion brand would not make sense.  Timex makes quite a few watches for many fashion brands including Versace, Versus, Salvatore Ferragamo, CT Scuderia, Missoni, Nautica, Guess, GC, Ted Baker, Furla, so maybe I'm kidding myself and Timex is really a fashion brand, but I don't look at them that way because of the heritage behind the company.  I don't even like to look at a watch as a fashion accessory.

Simple answer for me, No. I'm not a hater, so don't get me wrong, there just not for me. 

Yes. I have Rolex and Omega in the same box as childhood/early adult Fossil and Skagen. The Fossil and Skagen were less expensive, are more accurate, and have required no service in 2-3 decades. They have great memories attached to them.

It’s my collection of watches meaningful to me. If some rando on the Internet gets worked up about it, it just makes me wonder who hurt them. It doesn’t change what’s in my box. 

You all have hit it. I haven’t bought a fashion watch in over 10 years, but keep a number in my collection, either as a remembrance of my watch collecting journey or because they were gifts. They all get fresh batteries when needed. Nice memories 

I had this given to me as a 40th birthday gift. It has run perfectly without issue ever since (except the necessary battery changes of course). It's a perfectly decent little watch.

It's already been said above but I think there are fashion watches and there are fashion watches. 

The fashion brands I find irritating are those which sell themselves as "high quality" but keep costs low by "cutting out the middle man". Ben at @benswatchclub is worth a look if you want to see how these brands really operate.

I personally wouldn't call Skagen a fashion brand. It's a watch brand. And they make nice looking, dependable watches, at a really reasonable price. For me, it's brands who make primarily other things (like clothes) but branch out into watches and charge a premium for a cheap watch because it has their logo on it.

For me the issue is the marketing lie by implying that because they make decent quality clothing, they’ll make a decent watch. Some fashion watches may be well made, but that’s generally by accident. Almost all of them I’ve seen are just cheap trash dressed up and overpriced. I don’t have an interest in fashion; on any given day, you’ll find me in a hoodie and jeans, so take what I say with a huge pinch of salt. 😆

Depends on your definition of “fasion watch”. For instance are you talking about a branded offering, like a Michael Kors, Vince Cammuto, Burberry or Coach vs a fashionable brand, like Movado? In any case, there are watches in my collection that match both descriptions. In fact I just bought a Movado Bold the other day at substantial discount and wore it yesterday. Don’t need to wear a 4 figure/5 figure watch all the time.

BTW, is Swatch a fashion brand? Got plenty of those also. 😁

I have a few from Vincero. One is a mixed bag, another is built just fine, though I wish the specs were a tad better. This one in particular happens to be a favorite of mine. Model is the Reserve Automatic. Yeah, I own better models, but this one is fairly solid for a fashion watch.