Sentimental Watch Replacement for a Friend

I'll put the TL;DR up front; My buddy ordered a watch for his girlfriend to replace a watch her Dad gifted to her in her teens. Feels good to be able to help non-watch people reconnect with things and people in a meaningful way.

This past weekend I was helping my friends (a couple) with their new house. They just bought a house closer to me to move out of the city to a more rural town. I'm just helping with easy stuff like painting, hanging curtain rods, moving furniture, etc. They know I'm a watch enthusiast and while I do try to keep my EDC hobby to myself, you can't help sometimes but show stuff off you're excited for so I showed them the new Seiko I just acquired. Expecting them to do the usual "oh neat looks nice" polite chit chat thing and then move on, I was surprised when the female half of this couple started talking about this Fossil watch that her Dad gifted her when she was 15 or 16. She was actually engaged by a little bit of watch talk so I was happy to indulge. She said she absolutely loved it and wore it all the time. But when it stopped working after a couple of years, she took it to a jeweler to have it fixed, thinking it was just a battery. However the jeweler told her the quartz movement had failed and replacing it was not going to be worth it. So she tossed it with every intention of replacing it. But time wore on and it was forgotten about. Immediately the wheels started turning in my head - older Fossil models would likely have sparse info but maybe I could get a few leads and see what I could dig up. She said she kept the original tin box all these years, although having just moved homes, she couldn't remember where it was. Nevertheless she went looking for it, encouraged at my suggestion that I might be able to find a replacement if I could get info off the tag. While she could not find the tin, her memory was good enough to eventually identify this piece as the one she had all those years ago.

So this gave me a general framework around which to look for a replacement. I figured the good budget brands like Casio, Seiko, Timex, etc would all have options for a blue dial diver with some fashion watch flair to them. What I didn't know is if I could get something in a size that would wear well on her. This Fossil was either 38 or 37mm depending on which old listing you look at.

It didn't take me long to come up with a couple of ballpark suggestions, which I then sent over to my buddy - suggesting that he keep this idea in his back pocket for a future birthday gift or something on down the road. Although she has also been juggling job interviews during this move and she just landed a new position, so that could also be a good event to gift a watch. Intending them to be mere suggestions to show him what was out there and that we would do more looking when he was ready to get one for her (if indeed he wanted to) - lo and behold he messaged me later that day and said he ordered the Casio I suggested! And here is that piece - a Casio Edifice EF106D-2AV.

A 37mm quartz blue dial sort-of-kind-of-diver with a date complication and a long life battery. Being an Edifice it's my hope it lasts longer than the Fossil from years ago that didn't make it very far. When describing the Fossil, she remarked especially about the sunburst blue and turquoise dial and how she loved  it so much. While this image of the Edifice doesn't show it well, videos show the dial does have a shiny sunburst to it so I think that will evoke that same style. I thought it was uncanny how it also has similar bezel dimples and a similar contour to the bracelet. I didn't want to directly replace that same watch, since it's sentimental to her Dad, but I think this is a close facsimile with a bit of a better pedigree (no disrespect meant to Fossil).

I did see that the bracelet for this piece is probably pretty bad, and it's also integrated so it is what it is - hopefully that doesn't ruin the whole thing. She has little to no arm hairs to worry about and I'll size it for them when it comes in.

Anyways, how'd we do, WatchCrunch? Are there some models I'm overlooking that you think would do well as an ode to this old Fossil?