Challenging stereotypes, fostering women’s voices and not just going for the pretty watches
Women are making their presence felt in the world of horology, as it calls time on the concept of gendered watches and who should wear what and when.
Groucho Marx might have famously declared he’d never want to belong to a club that would have him as a member, but it may be a different story when it comes to watches.
It is believed that Caroline Murat, Queen of Naples and sister of Napoleon Bonaparte, commissioned the first wristwatch in 1810 from Abraham-Louis Breguet. Men tended to prefer a pocket watch until about World War I, yet the idea that women only needed something small, quartz operated, mother-of-pearl dialled and diamond-sprinkled in order to check the time discreetly when stuck with a bore at a dinner party held fast.
Suzanne Wong, editor-in-chief of the Geneva-based watch website WorldTempus, is part of a collective of women who want to challenge stereotypes and foster more women’s voices, inclusivity and diversity (not just in gender) within the watch world. In 2021, Wong, along with Laetitia Hirschy, a publicist, and Nathalie Veysset, a luxury entrepreneur, launched the not-for-profit member’s association Watch Femme. The platform runs watch enthusiast events on- and offline, and facilitates discussions on topics such as career and product development, and inclusiveness, within the industry. “My personal motivation for starting Watch Femme was the realisation, quite early on in my watch career, that the watch world had no real place for someone like me,” Wong says. “Very few of the watches I really liked fitted well on my wrist. Those that did were mostly uninteresting for someone into the mechanical side of watchmaking.
Both on the consumer and industry side, the watch world had an extremely limited approach to women.
“I started out in 2010 and there was just one watch brand led by a woman at the time. She’s now one of my closest friends and also a co-founder of Watch Femme. Both on the consumer and industry side, the watch world had an extremely limited approach to women.
“We focus specifically on bringing more women’s voices into the conversation, but we’re hoping of course that this helps pave the way towards more discussions about different aspects of diversity and inclusion.”
Breaking up the perceived “boy’s club” of watches is coming at the right, well, time. Because the world of watches is changing, including and not limited to the kinds of watches women are buying and wearing, how they hear about them, and that million- dollar question, what do women want? You could add here too, in 2022, what is a women’s watch anyway?
Wong says the response to Watch Femme has been “amazing”, and that social media has helped break down barriers to not just watch collection but watch appreciation.
A recent Watch Femme event had the group partner with Zoe Abelson, who runs the @watchgirloffduty Instagram account (12.9k followers), one of several female luxury watch dealers and collectors finding an audience online.
“The ‘boys only’ vibe of the watch world has definitely changed in the past few years, but not quickly enough for me,” says Wong. The barriers to entry used to be quite high, such as the lingering idea that watch appreciation is directly correlated to wealth and elitism. You don’t see that in the art world or the car world – people can be into art and cars without necessarily having shipping containers full of Basquiats and Bugattis.
“Watch collecting may be predicated on a certain level of disposable income, but watch appreciation certainly isn’t. Social media has helped a lot with this, as has information technology in general, because the most persistent and intimidating barrier to entry to the watch world is lack of knowledge, accompanied by social discomforts such as feeling like you don’t belong.”
One new voice breaking barriers in the watch community is Brynn Wallner. The 32-year-old New Yorker launched the Instagram account @dimepiece.co (23.8k followers) and website Dimepiece after spending time creating editorial content in the watch department of Sotheby’s auction house.
Wallner, who is now running Dimepiece full time, has established a following in the still niche world of watches for her approachable, fun and pop-culture and fashion-led take on watches. This might be contextualising the custom Rolex King Midas watch that music star and Fenty Beauty entrepreneur Rihanna wore in her famous pregnancy “bump reveal” paparazzi pictures, or coining terms such as the “It-girl watch” after all the zeitgeist-y celebrities were spotted wearing the gold Cartier Panthère. Her website offers “watches 101” reads, as well as profiles of interesting people talking about their “first Dime”. Her approach is resonating, she says, because it goes beyond the “starchy wrist shot” that has tended to be the domain of watch content in the past.
So far, says Wallner, she’s found a community that has been mostly welcoming and supportive. “I’ve heard stories about this not always being the case, as it pertains to acceptance of women in the community, but I think my timing was just right … launching the Instagram in the summer of 2020 definitely has to do with everyone’s openness,” she says. “People were ready and willing to hear new voices, and the feedback has been resoundingly positive (with the rare exception of nitpicky watch dudes correcting me on reference numbers). The best thing about this whole journey is realising that it’s never too late to learn something new and find success with it.”
For Wallner, who attended her first major watch fair earlier this year in Watches and Wonders in Geneva, (“like visiting Disney World”), meeting her community out in the wild has been one of the best parts of the experience.
“One time I was at a concert, and between songs, someone yelled out ‘I love Dimepiece!’ I turned around, and he gave me a big thumbs up. He was cute and normal, too. My audience ranges from people in their early twenties just getting into watches to old-school watch veterans who’ve seen it all,” says Wallner, adding that she’d still like to see more people of colour and LGBTQIA+ voices represented in the industry too. “I don’t think my presence in this world is at all radical … after all, I’m a straight white woman.”
In any case, the watch world is listening. So, what do women want in a watch? Well, it depends.
Evidence of a shaking down of perceptions and desires can be found in the likes of brands such as Panerai, known for its big (44mm-plus, although there are 38mm models in the Luminor Due range), mechanical-only diving watches originally created for the Italian Navy, which has increased its female customer base to 20 per cent from 10 per cent four years ago. Meanwhile the likes of Hublot and Zenith have eliminated the distinction between men’s and women’s watches.
Panerai CEO Jean-Marc Pontroué says the brand realised that some women were not only borrowing their male partner’s watches, but that “there is growing interest from women in not only design watches but also mechanical watches with meaning in terms of complication”.
At Zenith, watches are organised according to size rather than gender.
“We do not feel like watches with diamonds should exclusively target women, or conversely, sports watches should only be worn by men,” says Zenith CEO Julien Tornare. “We cannot make this choice for our customer. However, we have seen a shift in women’s [purchasing] behaviour – they are now open to buying watches of different sizes, not necessarily with diamonds,”
Meanwhile Hublot, known for its chunky Big Bang timepieces, has Northern Irish chef Clare Smyth (who recently opened the fine dining establishment Oncore by Clare Smyth in Crown Sydney) as one of its ambassadors. And Italian super influencer Chiara Ferragni was appointed as the brand’s global ambassador in 2021.
“When we launched the Big Bang in 2005 it was seen as a more masculine timepiece, but these times are over,” says Hublot CEO Ricardo Guadalupe. “Today I can see many women wearing this exact same model. It is like wearing the boyfriend jeans of the boyfriend. Woman and man can exchange their accessories. There is [no] border anymore,”
That said, as in many things, size isn’t everything. A women’s watch was once considered anything 36mm and under. But as Brynn Wallner points out, this is being challenged for both men and women.
“I really hope to see a resurgence of small watches. It’s cool when women wear bigger watches, but I’ve noticed that most non-watch women are into the smaller, vintage pieces that aren’t made anymore,” she says.
In any case, some men like smaller watches, some women like bigger ones (and have been wearing them for many years), and vice versa. Probably what people really want is to not be prescribed something. As your grandmother might say, there’s a lid for every pot (or a bezel for every collector).
Leigh Zagoory, head of sales for Sotheby’s Important Watches auctions in New York, says as fashion continues to become more interchangeable for both genders, so too will watches. She has also noticed a swing back to smaller dials for some clients.
“I expect in the [near] future the term ‘women’s watch’ will fall out of our vocabulary,” Zagoory says.
“Watches that have been marketed solely for women are now marketed towards both genders, so lines are certainly more blurred.”
Cynthia Tabet, global product marketing director at Piaget, says not only are its female customers more interested in complex watches with automatic movements – something she says is particularly relevant in Asian markets but growing everywhere – but distinctions in decoration and aesthetic are blurring too.
“Across a growing number of industries, boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred, with less and less gender connotation. Today, we like to see that women are more and more interested in complications and men in jewellery,” she says, noting that the Piaget Polo or the Altiplano collections are worn by both men and women.
Many watches have of course always appealed to both genders. Think the Jaeger LeCoultre Reverso, the IWC Schaffhausen Portugieser Chronograph and the Cartier Tank. The elegantly pared-back Tank was first launched in 1917, has had several variations, and has been worn by everybody from Andy Warhol (who famously never wound his but declared it the only watch to wear) to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (who wears her late mother-in-law Princess Diana’s) and Saint Laurent creative director Anthony Vaccarello.
Pierre Rainero, director of image, style and heritage at Cartier, says gender was not a consideration with the Tank.
There’s no gender for beauty
“In fact, what was thought is there’s no gender for beauty … as soon as it was commercialised, the Tank was proposed, for instance, with jewellery versions, the very same month it was launched. In our archives, you see equally platinum yellow-gold models and platinum and diamond models, [which were] obviously interesting for women. So, the idea was not a discussion. It was really obvious in the Cartier way of thinking about creation that … the object could be for both men and women.”
“At the time it was not marketing, it was just pure design to create beautiful objects for both men and women.”
It is a similar story for Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Reverso. The Art Deco-era style was launched in 1931 (the reversible watch face was designed to protect polo players’ watches from rogue mallets) and as CEO Catherine Rénier, one of several top female executives in the watch world, notes, “Already at the beginning of the 20th century Jaeger-LeCoultre offered feminine pieces … the Reverso [was] invented in 1931 and right away offered in a women’s version.”
“More recently we launched the Rendez-Vous, around women’s watch incorporating watch complications and a jewellery signature,” she adds.
Rénier says the brand has seen recent success in engraved enamel decorated versions of the Reverso for both men and women.
Meanwhile, earlier this year one of the brand’s ambassadors, actor Amanda Seyfried, was spotted on a red carpet wearing a men’s Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Ultra Thin timepiece.
Ultimately, taste, ideas of beauty and identity are always up to the individual. What matters, really, is choice. As Pierre Rainero says, once a piece has been created, it is up to its wearer how to interpret it.
“What we do appreciate at Cartier is the inventiveness of our clients and that we are very much in favour of a total freedom for our objects to be worn the way our clients decide to wear them. Our mission is to create beautiful objects, but our mission also is not at all to constrain the lifestyle of our clients. On the contrary, it’s to open [up] and to provide more possibilities for our clients to express themselves.”
So what is a women’s watch in 2022? The answer is increasingly looking like: whatever she wants it to be.