If you like these, I highly recommend you check out Konnii Watch — Weng Yen started off by trying to make a unique watch for his wife, then friends, and it turned into a small business. Tiny hand painted figurines, very beautiful.

Malaysia Today Article

Paneristi! Gorgeous shots and watch!

I’m not salty 😤

😊

Solid choice, congrats to @Fieldwalker , well deserved!

Gorgeous! I have a soft spot for the brand 😊

I’m not sure I agree with that. Firstly, snobbery goes both ways and would apply to belittling more expensive brands and their owners just because.

Slight tangent: I believe that for some of us there’s a natural progression: you begin at one end of the scale and slowly progress along as you gain more of an appreciation for first the design, then technical, then workmanship, then the heritage (not necessarily in that order, but that’s what it was for me). Before getting into the luxury segment I began by buying what I could afford at the time: mostly Timex, Seiko, Casio, and I still love these watches. I then progressed to Guess, Fossil and Bulova. As my means increased and my appreciation for the heritage and quality of these things grew I moved on to luxury, but I’ve never lost my appreciation for the affordable end of the scale and still cherish a couple of those watches today. Affordable brands, fashion brands have their place in that journey almost always as the gateway, and it’s also quite alright if that journey stops at either point (mine almost stopped at Bulova and Seiko, there’s so much to love from both brands).

However I dislike _some_ fashion brands (like DW), not because they are fashion brands but because they mislead their customers and put down other established brands by lying about their business when they were simply drop shipping and rebranding £15 Ali-X watches. Same applies to other brands that profess to “cut out the middle man” like Vincerò. I wouldn’t class that dislike for their shady practices as snobbery.

Same goes with many Ali-X watches. I’ll use San Martin as an example: I’ve always encouraged people who’ve asked my opinion to look into and purchase their original work and also their true homages (not their knockoffs), especially after their CEO had a heartfelt Q&A on Watchuseek lamenting that people buy his copies over his own work. They are capable of and do produce some nice watches, but they also produce blatant copies that to me have no horological value or integrity (and before fans of these knockoffs come for me, the CEO of San Martin himself is on record for feeling the same about them). It’s not about the brand or price point, it’s about the ‘why’ and ‘how’ behind the specific watches, and as a designer myself this is a topic that’s important to me; I don’t class that as snobbery either — I would personally rather spend 100 — 500 bucks on a Casio or Seiko or other micro than spend the same money on a knockoff, no matter how “well built” it may or may not be, and that’s a legit reason.

So while I agree that there are snobs on both ends of the spectrum, I wouldn’t say that disliking a brand or class of watch automatically makes one a snob — you have to look at the underlying reasons why.

Owned a couple of Fossils a few years back and the same ‘accident’ happened with both, never my fault: random strangers bumping into my watch arm with jewelry on, end result: deep scratch on the mineral crystal. Acrylic can at least be polished out, but mineral…

Sapphire or bust.

Welcome buddy!