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Why are my 20-year-old daughter and her friends suddenly interested in fancy Swiss watches?
Eleven years ago, shortly after the launch of the Apple Watch, I interviewed Jean-Claude Biver who, at the time, was president of LVMH’s watchmaking division. Asked if he thought smartwatches would spell the end of the Swiss watch industry, Biver dismissed the idea. Smartwatches, he argued, would actually prove the ultimate recruitment tool that would “bring the attention of a new generation back to the wrist”.
Walking down Melbourne’s Collins Street in May, I recalled Biver’s words when I saw a line of bedraggled twenty-somethings queuing outside the Swatch store overnight in the hope of securing one of the brand’s collaborative “Royal Pop” pocket watches with Audemars Piguet. The scene highlighted how, despite the fact that no one really needs a watch any more and they’re often ludicrously expensive, the popularity of this arcane form of technology endures.
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It’s tempting to argue that Gen Z’s horological interest is a reaction to the digital ephemerality of modern life, a yearning for the reassurance of analogue products and age-old craftsmanship in a world of “AI slop”. But a bigger influence, I suspect, is social media and celebrity culture in general.
When Taylor Swift released her engagement photos on Instagram last year, eagle-eyed watch spotters noticed she was wearing a Cartier Santos Demoiselle. Secondary market prices promptly rocketed for the discontinued model, fuelling demand for Cartier’s broader wares. It’s symptomatic of how, today, the watches of any big-name star from David Beckham to Mark Wahlberg are quickly identified and circulated online whenever they reveal an inch of their wrists. Capitalising on this awareness, watches have consolidated their place in popular culture to become more desirable than ever. It may be an unlikely survival story, but the mechanical wristwatch is still alive and ticking.
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