The Conversation: Opportunistic Loyalty

When it comes to the subject of collectors building relationships with brands, and vice versa, the editors of WOW Singapore and Thailand have plenty to say...

- Ashok Soman

As a watch enthusiast, you probably vicariously enjoy all sorts of watches; we know that is one of the reasons you read this magazine. As a collector, you narrow the field of timepieces down, first by deciding on a budget, then by matching that number to what watches you like enough to buy. It all sounds logical enough, given that we are trying to cultivate meaningful purchases, to be blunt. If we simply went around buying everything that strikes our fancy, we would leave such a trail of bad debt, bankruptcies and broken marriages that civilisation itself might collapse. Alright, that is a bit much, but you get the idea. It is precisely to avoid these pitfalls, while still managing to indulge in a fun hobby, that collectors decide to concentrate their efforts in specific kinds of watches, and sometimes even right down to the specific brands and creators.

Brands have long recognised this, from the days of Francois Constantin - the orginal business daddy of Vacheron Constantin - and probably even before. Creators and the firms they established invested a great deal of time (no pun intended) and incurred major expenses in courting customers. Once they made inroads into one city or territory, they often focussed their attention on existing customers, and expanded their circles of contacts from there. This only made sense of course, and it probably made everyone feel special. In the era of Abraham-Louis Breguet and Jean-Marc Vacheron, the hands and minds behind the creation of the watches meant far more to the aristocrats and royals who bought the watches. Later on, but probably by Breguet's time, the scientific community and governments also sought out works by certain masters, purely for the accuracy of these masters (Ulysse Nardin to use an existing brand name, for example). Whose watches were more reliable and accurate? Well, it helped if a watch bore the mark of its maker.