Mavericks Amongst Traditionalists

Fashion watch brands are finding their feet amidst century old watchmakers as their maverick approach sets them apart from the current landscape of watchmaking.

- Asaph Low

If you poll 100 individuals about watch brands they know, the chances of a fashion brand being mentioned will be low. That is no fault of those individuals. Fashion brands began moving into this fascinating realm perhaps slightly over four decades ago compared to the illustrious stalwarts of the Swiss watch industry, some of which have been in existence for more than a century.

Forty years is a long time, but in the eyes of an industry that measures and records time, those four decades are relatively speaking - child's play. The rise of fashion watch brands can be attributed to the demise of the Swiss mechanical watchmaking industry, even though they were not the main culprits. Ironic as it may seem, it mirrors the natural order of nature when one falls, another rises. Just as the Swiss mechanical watchmaking industry was about to draw its last breath due to the Quartz Crisis beginning in the early 1970s, one last hurrah led by Nicolas G. Hayek and his brainchild Swatch in 1983 (yes, those colourful watches) inadvertently changed the course of history.

Inexpensive Swatch watches infused with a healthy dose of pop culture took the world by storm and reached a fever pitch when collaborations with French artist Kiki Picasso in 1984 and Andy Warhol's protégé Keith Haring in 1986 were unveiled. The Swiss watchmaking industry was back in the minds of people once again, and coupled with other pivotal moments in the industry, recovery was on the horizon for the Swiss watchmaking industry as its rehabilitation phase was in full swing.