I think they do, to an extent - but their western customers mostly buy homages. For example, Sugess makes a pretty dress watch with a moonphase and a big date, but I haven't seen anyone here having one and there is no youtube review on it either. One of their $500 tourbillion models was reviewed by watchfinder, but these ain't big sellers on AliExpress.

Dress watches are not among big sellers overall, I guess. And thus it is strange that doing great clomages they don't come up with easier sport style watches

Some are more different than others. I am eying up the Pagani Design 1729 a lot right now, because while it very much is an Omega Planet Ocean homage, it has a day-date complication, which is something I want on a watch and do not have. By the same token, my 1667 is obviously a Seamaster homage, but at the same time, doesn’t have the things I didn’t like on the watch it is homaging, and does have a date complication and more visible hands. (And until recently, the watch it is closest to wasn’t made in stainless steel.)

I think the more the homages change those little details the better — not just to prevent watch snobbery (which applies far stronger to the newer Chinese brands than it does to other micro brands etc.) and the like — but also because it gives people choice within a style and design language they like from the luxury brands. Even if a luxury brand is within reach, maybe you want something similar to wear in places you can’t safely wear four-figures on your wrist, or maybe you want some aspects of older models as well as new. In which case, the not-quite-copy homages are the way to go.

Unfortunately, and bizarrely for such a details orientated hobby, some people don’t focus on those differences in a positive way. For one bunch of customers, they are “mistakes” or “things they got wrong” when they want a straight visual clone with a different price tag and badge on the front (or sterile…) and for another, they are just a sign that the watch is silly or cheap, because they couldn’t even “get it right“
 

The shelves have been filled with things with the Submariners design DNA for half a century, but as long as that has the right name on the front (or at the very least, not the wrong names) then it gets a pass. It is a little odd.

And one of the reasons I like this place — it is intentionally devoid of much of that craziness. Me and my Pagani-wearing-brethren post our wrist shots next to the guy or gal with the Rolex, the Omega, and it’s all just about the watch, the shot. 

And it can really highlight those differences that are such a matter of taste, or should be.

Watchcrunch is kinda cool that way. 

Love this reply and while I've never been ashamed to wear a clomage or a homage, I'm going to take a little more pride in wearing one when they do something different than the inspiration piece that I don't like on the OG. 

Especially since most watches & brands copy from each other even at the highest echelons. 

It’s something I have been thinking about a lot since getting interested in watches, and when I bought my Pagani after seeing it on YouTube. 
I left a similar comment on the MadWatchCollector channel, when he talked about reviewing some. He grew up with Argos catalogue (like me, and TGV, and most of Britain) and knows how many of us started out looking at watches. And a slightly more pointed similar comment on The Gentleman’s Gazzette channel, where they completely insulted part of their audience, and managed to come over as blindly hypocritical at the same time. As a broader company they literally sell homages to other peoples designs, even their logo is ‘in the style of’.

I always think of leather jackets. Loads of people have those right? All there in our Biker jackets, because it’s become a fashion staple, attached to sub-cultures etc. But… most of us wearing them don’t even ride motorbikes. Which makes its very similar to dive watches. 
How many of those biker jackets are made by Schotts?

None of mine ever have been.

My current one is quite nice, but I guess it’s an H&M homage biker jacket, because the breast pocket is more vertical, and there’s two of them… maybe they got their design wrong. ;) 

Well, I suppose many sports watches have their genre constraints, and the people who buy want these constraints matched, especially when it comes to divers or fliegers. Sugess is barely into dive matches, they make mostly chronos and dress watches. I was actually surprised when I saw the name on your watch's dial, especially since Seestern makes divers, and that appears to be a sister brand to Sugess..

Myself, I buy mostly dress watches from Ali (round about 15 last year), and the majority of models on offer in that category appear original. Not that I have counted them, but I feel less compelled to buy a homage when shopping in that category.

I decided to pull a trigger on the most clone type of homages to actually fight my prejudice to homages. It's working.

Only so many ways to interpret watch design that isn't too insane. 

This statement is how you know I'm not a watch designer. Lol