The Analog Boom – Watch Sales Surge to Start 2026 – Episode 87

This week we're proud to welcome Bamford London to the Collective line card. George Bamford is the OG of modern collaborative watchmaking, but it's his own designs — the D300 Ceramic Diver, the Monopushers, the GMTs — that pulled us in: pieces that read as instantly recognizable without ever aping the usual suspects, built from forged carbon, ceramic, and titanium, at a genuinely accessible price. They also slot perfectly into the decade-plus renaissance in English design and watchmaking. Then we get into the real subject of the episode, which is almost the opposite of Bamford's forward-looking material science: the rise of analog culture, and why it's quietly driving one of the strongest stretches the US watch market has ever seen.

US watch sales jumped nearly 30% in the first five months of 2026 — and that's sell-through reported by retailers, not sell-in. We felt it in our own business, posting our biggest sales month ever before June was even over. But the more interesting question is why, and we make the case that this moment is fundamentally different from the COVID boom. That run was narrow and speculative: a handful of steel sports references, mania, watches as assets to flip. What's happening now is broad-based and rooted in the intrinsics — design, handwork, the human connection between the person who cut the dial and the object on your wrist. The three segments leading the way tell the story: neo-vintage and vintage, independent brands, and the $50,000-and-up tier where handcraft lives.

We zoom out from there, because watches are riding a much bigger wave. Vinyl now outsells CDs, with most of Gen Z owning records — and plenty of buyers who don't even own a turntable, which tells you the object itself is the point. Film cameras are back in production, analog synths are having a moment, and a real backlash is building against a digital licensing economy where you rent your media instead of owning it. We get into what that physical, patient, you-actually-own-it impulse means for collecting, why automating the hunt drains the fun out of it, and where neo-vintage reissues might go in 2026 and 2027.

Openwork is a weekly podcast about how the watch industry actually works. An unfiltered look behind the scenes — no press releases, no hype, and no sponsored takes. Hosted by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, co-founders of Collective Horology. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. To get in touch with suggestions, feedback or questions, email podcast@collectivehorology.com.

How many times have we gotten a call from someone who's like,

hey, do you have this watch in stock?

And we're like, no, bro, it's sold out two years.

Oh, hang up, call the next team.

Do you have this one in stock?

It's like, maybe.

But this is the pot calling the kettle black.

You love buying in-stock watches.

This is Open Work, a look inside the watch industry,

a podcast from Collective Horology.

And I'm Gabe Reilly, co-founder of Collective.

And I'm Ash Harafkin, who has to sit across from you.

Collective Horology is an independent watch retailer

based in Ventura, California.

We carry a wide range of independent brands,

including Garrick, Fears, Bamford, London, and more.

To learn more about us and check out our available inventory,

visit collectivehorology.com.

See what I did there with the intro?

Yeah.

And I want to talk about Bamford for a second.

Well, no, what about Garrick and Fears?

They're all British.

I see what you did there.

Did you get that?

I want to talk about them.

Now you're playing coy.

You didn't get it, but OK, fine.

I enjoyed that.

I don't really pay attention to you.

This is why you have to read the script.

I do clever things like this.

So when we roll back the clock to 2021, 2020,

when Collective was focused very heavily

on making collaborative watches, there

were a few figures that really loomed large in that.

And one of those is what I would definitely

consider the OG of modern collaborative watches,

the one and only George Bamford.

And like anyone who gets started in a new space,

it can be very daunting because, of course,

you're trying to build something yourself,

but you have no credibility yet.

I had to say the least.

To be candid.

We had no credibility.

We had no credibility.

But George was one of the first folks

that I would say, no pun intended,

gave us the time of day.

And that was really exciting because it's

awesome when people who you admire,

who take creative risk, who make their own thing,

don't pull the ladder up behind them,

but instead welcome you into that space.

Now, George, in addition to making collaborative watches

as he's done with Girard Perreault, with Zenith,

with a multitude of other makers,

the G-Shock, of course, also has his own line of watches.

And we've kept our eyes on those over the years.

There have been a couple of pieces that I'd say

kind of spoke to us individually,

but it was about a year ago when we were in Geneva

and we got to meet with a member of the team.

And he showed us a couple of watches

that we just thought were, to put it mildly, really neat.

Not least of which being the D300 Ceramic Divers,

the watches which are now available on

CollectivePrology.com along with several other models

from Bamford.

And I think what I like about these pieces

and what I would encourage folks to take for them

is these are watches that both walk

a line of being incredibly recognizable.

They feel like what they are.

The Monopushers, the GMTs, of course, the Divers,

all feel like they walk a very well-trodden path.

You can recognize these as what they are.

Divers, as Monopusher tool watches.

You can recognize the unique materials, et cetera.

But the coverings-

But they also don't look derivative of other watches.

And that's the thing.

Take the D300, the Ceramic Diver.

You look at it and you're like, oh, that's a dive watch,

but it doesn't look like it's aping a Submariner.

That's exactly right.

So to all of that, to that point,

I think that Bamford watches offer

an incredible point of view

on some very, very well-known styles of watchmaking

at a profoundly accessible price

that also fits into this really excellent landscape

that's developing and has been developing

over the last decade plus in England

of English design and English watchmaking.

So we are extraordinarily proud to welcome Bamford London

to the collective line card,

and we encourage you to take a look yourself too.

Yeah, and I'd say it's worth taking a look.

Everyone can kind of close their eyes

and imagine a George Bamford design.

What I am just floored by,

having taken these watches and added them all

to the website, photographed them,

done some video with them, is the use of materials.

So of course there are steel watches.

Titanium watches.

There's titanium, there's forged carbon, there's ceramic.

And so I think you get this really interesting melding

of not just watches that really feel comfortable

in their own skin from a design perspective

and are clearly marked by George's hands

in terms of design,

but are using really interesting and unusual materials

and having fun with all of it.

Having fun with design, having fun with color,

having fun with material.

There's just a lot on offer there

and we're thrilled to have them.

So check them out.

Bamford London watches at collectivehorology.com.

You know, and George has a very forward-looking way

of doing things, talking about things like forged carbon

and ceramic and his own kind of design language

and watches that don't look like anything else.

But that's almost kind of antithetical in some ways

to what's going on in not just the watch world

and in culture more generally,

which is what we're going to talk about today.

That's the rise of analog culture.

Now this has been documented pretty widely

as this cultural phenomenon that's happening now,

which is this idea, and it's really being pegged to Gen Z,

but I think it's much bigger than Gen Z,

but there's this sort of zeitgeist

and there's this moment where in culture more broadly,

we're moving from things that are digital in their nature

and looking for and seeking some refuge and solace

and showing interest again

in things that are inherently analog and physical.

And we'll talk about that in a second,

but watches are very much a part of that.

And just like the sales of other analog things are booming,

sales of watches in the US in particular

are booming now in this moment.

So there've been some headlines recently,

and it's like the blood in the streets

always makes the headlines.

There've been some headlines

about how exports from Switzerland to the US

have fallen and plummeted, dropped off a cliff,

but we've talked a lot about that.

There's this sort of bullwhip effect

happening with exports of watches from Switzerland to the US

driven by tariffs and trade policy

where a lot of the exports were pulled forward

in anticipation of higher tariffs

or maybe even delayed until some higher tariff rates

came off and a lower tariff rate went into effect.

So forget about the export data.

When you look at the retail sales numbers

is actually pretty staggering.

And so WatchPro reported on this pretty recently,

which is US sales, US watch sales jumped nearly 30%.

So 29.7% in the first five months of 2026.

So this is based on reported sales data

from retailers themselves.

So this is not sell-in,

this is sell-through data reported by watch retailers.

Interesting.

So needless to say, watches are booming

and we've talked a great deal

about what's booming in the market.

Some of the mid-range

and sort of more noted luxury brands

are doing particularly well.

Cartier, not surprising.

Breitling's also doing well.

IWC, Omega are doing well.

Watches over $59,000 are booming.

We've talked a great deal

about that $50,000 and up segment of the watch market,

which is really driving the profitability

of the market overall

and driving the growth overall of the market

that continues to happen.

So we're in this moment now where,

forget about exports from Switzerland to the US,

the watches that are actually being sold,

what's actually happening at retail.

And we are seeing this in our own business.

It's June of 2026 and we've already,

June isn't even over

and we've already had our biggest sales month ever.

Watches are doing extremely well in this climate.

And when you click out

and you look at the broader culture,

I think it makes a lot of sense.

Now we've seen strong periods of watch sales before

and COVID was certainly a great example of that.

But the drivers of that demand around COVID

were fundamentally different.

There's a lot of speculation.

There's a lot of focus on certain references in particular

in a certain kind of watch.

Here, what we're seeing is something more broad-based

and where there is strength,

it's focused on particular segments of the watch industry

that aren't the usual suspects.

We'll talk about that.

And it's happening in this broader context

where analog things,

and watches are very much an analog thing,

particularly the kinds of watches we're talking about here,

analog things are absolutely booming.

So vinyl records, let's take vinyl records as an example,

another anachronistic technology,

just like watches themselves.

Who needs vinyl records in the 21st century?

Well, vinyl record sales are at an all-time record

in the digital age.

So obviously more vinyl records were sold in the 1970s

and maybe even the 1980s

where vinyl was kind of the coin of the realm

when it came to audio and when it came to music.

But right now, vinyl, okay?

In 2025, vinyl is over a billion dollar industry

just in the United States.

The last time vinyl was a billion dollar industry

was in the 1980s.

Yeah, if we look at this from a business standpoint,

I kind of think about vinyl the same way

that I think about traditional paper books.

Also booming.

Part of the reason why is when there was this big push

around the time of the iPhone

and this digital revolution

where we were essentially downsizing

all of our physical artistic properties

like books and music and film and things like that

into digital files.

A thousand songs in your pocket.

That seemed great at the time.

It is great.

But I think what people began to realize over time

was that they were moving away

from this idea of owning something

and having that as an object that can be reused,

can be given, can be gifted, can be shared

and can carry its own story, right?

I mean, think about books that have been inscribed.

Like I have a book that I bought in

when I was 17 years old.

It was a 150-year-old copy of Shakespeare's sonnets

that's been inscribed three times

to various different people that owned it.

Like that's something that can only happen

in a physical format.

And I think over time we saw why that's problematic, right?

I mean, for those who are old enough to remember

when everyone got force-fed a U2 album by Apple

which was sort of innocuous but irritating

versus some of the more insidious stuff.

How is being force-fed anything from U2 irritating?

Well, I think people were just like,

I didn't buy this, it's on my devices.

Versus the more-

Remember David Byrne had some like music

that was like packaged up with like a Windows,

like one version of Windows.

I don't remember that,

but I bring this up to also say

that there's a dark side to that, right?

Where we've seen Amazon, for example,

edit books that you may already have.

And there's a real sort of big brother-y

horrifying component to that.

What do you mean?

Oh, well, if you buy a book from Amazon,

and you don't actually own it,

the DRM on it basically ensures that that belongs to Amazon

and you bought a license to it.

And they can update, so to speak, that content at any time.

Now, in fairness to them, this has happened once or twice.

This is not like a regular practice,

but the fact that it's happened at all

demonstrates, I think, a potential

for why a lot of folks feel nervous

about DRM-oriented content.

Without getting off on that though,

from a business standpoint,

I think what's fascinating about this

is that we're getting back to this idea of ownership.

And that's a lot of what analog culture kind of drives.

Yeah, I had been renting all my watches for years.

Now I finally own them.

Well, I think watches, in this particular case,

are the result of a larger trend,

not the core element of it.

Well, in a sense, you are renting your watch

if you own something like an Apple Watch

that has planned obsolescence.

It will literally only function

and be supported from a software standpoint

for a certain amount of time,

and you need to get good with that.

That's completely true.

So I bring all this up just to say that analog culture,

I think a lot of people kind of like,

and I'm sure this is true as well,

like if you've gone to a record store,

there is the image sometimes

of comic book store guy from The Simpsons,

and it's just like comics being another really good example.

Comics are also booming, baseball, basketball cars,

all sorts of collectibles are booming right now.

But I do think ownership is a really,

an ownership that doesn't require you

to constantly give up something of yourself

as digital rights management does.

And anyone who, for example, owns an Xbox

or a PlayStation or a Nintendo

that has been forced to log online

to reauthenticate the DRM of their games

probably also have some degree of nostalgia

for being able to just play Zelda

and not have to worry about it.

So your wife loves Zelda.

My wife does love Zelda.

So all of this together, I think, sets a stage

for why we might be seeing a significant pivot away

from what was the very high profit,

low consumer power stage of digital rights management

and digital media.

Yeah, you want some interesting facts on vinyl

that will sort of blow your mind.

And I think actually fit into a number of the things

you're talking about here.

So I'm gonna give you some of these statistics on vinyl.

So vinyl outsells CDs now.

I mean, that makes sense.

That makes sense, but let that land.

Okay, so according to this survey,

it was published in CNN,

nearly 60% of Gen Z says that they own vinyl,

which is insane.

76% of Gen Z vinyl fans,

okay, so people who would identify themselves

as like a regular buyer of vinyl,

they buy vinyl at least once a month.

80% own a turntable.

So 20% are buying it purely as a collectible.

Yeah, yeah, and that's just within Gen Z.

If we click out and we look at the populace more broadly,

40% of vinyl purchasers in the US,

so they could be of any demographic.

Sure.

40% do not own a turntable.

Yeah.

Which I think points to what you're saying

is like there's something to the physicality

and the totem of it.

You may be listening to it.

Like I have a lot of artists who I listen to on Spotify,

but I also own the vinyl.

I do listen to the actual.

Sure, but you probably listen to them on streaming

because it's more practical.

I probably listen to the streaming

in terms of like a ratio to vinyl.

Let's say an album that I love

that I have on both vinyl and I stream,

it's probably 100 to one.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

But that one time you want to go through

the ritualistic nature of listening to something on vinyl

is a whole other experience.

But there's also a thrill to,

and I have some watches like this.

There's also a thrill to just owning the vinyl,

owning the record.

It's an artist I love.

It's a moment in time.

It's something that I can physically have and hold.

There are watches in my collection that are like this.

There are a few watches that I rarely ever wear,

but over my dead body are they coming out of my collection?

Because even if I just pick them up and hold them,

you know, it sounds creepy,

but even if I just pick them up and hold them

and spend some time with them a few times a year,

I am so fulfilled by that and enriched by it.

And I hold these things and I love them

and I love keeping them and having them.

And I don't feel like I need to wear them,

which I do with most watches I own.

And I think a lot of this is in many ways

a reaction to how heavily the pendulum swung

over the last 20 years into digital culture,

digital communication, and digital connectivity.

It's absolutely a backlash.

Yeah, and it's interesting because these things are not,

they're not black and white, right?

I mean, when collective as a business

could not have started or grown

or could not even run today

without many of the scale digital products

and tools that exist.

So like, I want to be careful, you know,

as we look at this, like there are,

there's a movement that is reacting to an overcorrection

in the way that the economy and products at scale

have moved so aggressively

into a digital licensing model and structure

and away from physical ownership

that is causing a reaction, which has in many ways,

like a very positive connotation for watches,

but also I would argue for art in general.

Like, think about it like this,

what is peak DRM from an art standpoint?

Remember back in 2020 when everyone was buying like-

I can't with this stuff, or the NFTs.

Yeah, that garbage.

And like, that to me was like,

we finally reached peak nonsense.

And I think that was where people started to pull back

and be like, what am I doing here?

I did have a villa near Snoop Dogg's, you know.

I bet you did.

What was that digital world where like Snoop Dogg

had some like compounds?

Someone will track down some dumb presentation

I gave for Facebook on YouTube.

Fair enough.

But that was essentially like the core of it.

And I think now what we start seeing is,

look, if we want to be sobering here,

in 2024 Pew reported that 48% of US teens

like between the ages of 13 and 17

said social media's effects are mostly negative.

That's up from 32% the year prior.

And on a positive side, nearly half of those people,

have now reduced their smartphone usage.

And without getting into a whole separate topic,

there's a lot of evidence out there

that what we've seen from social media, et cetera,

is potentially quite damaging for young people.

And it is, I think, interesting and a great opportunity

from an artistic standpoint to start pulling people back

and away from that and into more analog experiences

like film and theater, like theater on stage,

like music on vinyl, like mechanical time pieces

that have a real human connection.

And interestingly, this also tends to fit

into that sort of 20 to 25 year nostalgia cycle

when we're both children of the 80s, right?

So like our nostalgia cycle was very much anchored

in the 60s and the 70s.

Yeah, that's true.

Like we grew up like thinking about the Beatles

and then punk music and like the summer of love

and Woodstock and like these were things

that like reigned very,

or these were big cultural moments historically

that like lived in our world, you know,

and inspired a lot of the music and culture

and content that came out of our generation.

Kids now are nostalgic for like the early 2000s, you know?

And-

In the 90s.

Just like the very end of the 90s

into the early 2000s,

like that's their like iconic moment in many ways.

And of course, what is so key to that,

well, it's case logic, right?

You know, it's to a degree vinyl.

Lord knows if cassettes will ever come back.

I never got rid of my CDs, still on my case log.

Do you really?

I have two case logics.

Yeah, and I bought a 2004 BMW 3 Series.

You're probably happy you have all the CDs now.

And I have a case logic in the back of the car

with all my CDs and I use the CD player

and I bust out the case logic

and I pull out all the albums I hadn't listened to

since I was like, you know, 20 years old.

It's awesome.

So what does this actually mean, right?

So this is interesting

from like a sociological standpoint,

definitely culturally,

but from a product standpoint, it's fascinating

because we're seeing several different industries

that were essentially busted start to come back.

Some of these are like dear to my heart,

like film cameras.

Film cameras are back in production.

They are.

Interestingly, you know-

My child owns a film camera.

No way, really?

Well, like a Instax camera, but that's-

Okay, yeah.

That's film and they have no interest

in a digital camera.

But when we start talking about-

They like the tangibility of it.

Yeah, and when we start thinking

about like 35 millimeter film cameras, for example,

there was this period of time,

there's this like extended period of time

where there simply were not any in production

unless you were buying like a Leica.

Oh yeah, dude.

I mean, mainstream stuff, Kodak is up.

Kodak's business, I wouldn't say it's booming,

but Kodak is a growing business again.

Yeah, and Fujifilm in particular is also leaning

into not necessarily film cameras,

but film-like experiences.

Yeah.

Disposable cameras are actually what's driving

most of the film consumption

and is kind of driving the growth of that category.

Well, and part of what I think,

and this is what I hear from other photographers,

part of what I think excites them about that

is the intentionality of it.

I mean, digital has given us the ability

to shoot everything all the time, always,

but 36 exposures.

You gotta slow down.

That's all you got.

And of course, you don't even know

what those are gonna look like for days or weeks,

unless you have your-

Yeah, there's some fun in that.

And I think that requires a level of presence.

And we see this too in other segments and other worlds.

Analog synths are starting to come back.

Are you familiar with a company called Teenage Engineering?

Yeah, no.

You should be,

because their product designs are incredible.

Even if you're not interested in synths

and things like that,

they make absolutely incredible tactically-driven

modern recording devices,

mixing consoles, and synths.

And-

There is this awesome DJ called The Tune Girl.

Okay.

She's a grandmother from Germany

who produces her own electronic and techno music

using synths and completely and entirely analog setup.

Yeah.

So I saw her stuff on a reel on Instagram,

but she's fascinating.

She's entered retirement age.

She's an empty nester.

Kids have left the house.

She was into synthesizers and electronic music in the 80s

and basically dusted off all her old gear,

got some new gear,

but it's all completely analog.

Yeah.

She's not using a computer for any of this.

And she's now this rising star of electronic music

and playing festivals.

It's so cool.

First of all, that's incredible.

That's amazing.

But to finish the thought on Teenage Engineering,

because I think this is an interesting thing,

this was a very small niche company

manufacturing extremely niche product that's not cheap.

And last year, publicly reported,

they broke $46 million in gross revenue.

Wow.

And we're talking niche product here.

So it's happening all around us.

It's happening everywhere.

And watches are not immune from it in any way,

which is a really, frankly, good thing.

I think it would be cynical to say like,

oh, here comes the next boom for watches.

It's driven by this cultural moment we're in.

It's a fad.

Just like the last one, this one won't last.

And you're right.

I mean, you started this all off

by saying the pendulum swings in both directions.

20 years ago, a thousand songs in your pocket

seems really cool.

20 years later, a collection of vinyl seems cool.

But here's the thing.

There's a big difference between this boom in watches

and the previous one.

There is.

And I would actually argue that the difference

isn't that the pendulum swings

at the complete expense of the other side.

It just has evolved into more choice.

So think about it, right?

In 1996 or 97, when you and I were gonna go see

like Blue Traveler at Summer Stage or something, right?

Guess where Blue Traveler's playing this summer?

Summer Stage.

Summer Stage.

They've never been more popular.

No way.

Yeah, so I'm-

I'm looking at the Hollywood Bowl lineup for this year.

Blue Traveler's playing at the Hollywood Bowl.

They've never headlined a show at the Hollywood Bowl.

Are they really headlining?

They're headlining show at the Hollywood Bowl this summer.

Are they playing with the Spin Doctors or something?

They're playing with Jin Blossoms.

Okay, same difference.

But this is my point.

It's happening, it's broad based.

Yes.

It's not just Gen Z.

There is a difference.

When we were seeing those shows in the 90s,

we would line up to get tickets from Ticketmaster, right?

And we would go-

You'd have to go to the place of the good Ticketmaster.

Exactly.

You'd have to go and buy a copy of like, you know,

whatever record was coming out.

Like that was the thing.

And you had no other choice.

Like that was it.

And now there is choice.

Your point about like,

well, I want to own the physical media,

but I also want to have the ability to stream it

at my leisure wherever I am.

And the difference is not feeling shackled

to one or the other.

Oh, yeah.

Okay, fair enough.

So like in 20 years, might that change?

Of course it will.

But I think what we are starting to see as a response is,

but in 2011, 2012, like, you know, 2013,

digital music was like, that was it.

And vinyl was like super niche, super niche.

And vinyl is dead.

It was only, it was like a newspaper.

It was only a matter of time before it would die.

If you asked me 20 years ago,

will vinyl be around in 20 years?

I'd say, no, it's going to just die a long, slow death.

And eventually you won't be able to buy records.

I never would have guessed.

Remember, remember, you know, exactly.

Remember mini disc and dat?

But some things just don't go away.

Like think about a pair of Vans

or Converse All-Stars or whatever.

Now they go through cycles.

Yeah, exactly.

But they're always around.

They may be more popular or in style

at one moment or another, but they're always around.

I think vinyl, like Blues Traveler,

has proven it's the same thing.

It will always be around.

It will be a choice.

And there may be moments in time

where that choice is more appealing or in vogue

or whatever, but it will endure.

Watches have proven the same thing.

Absolutely.

What's interesting to me too about this

is like analog culture requires patience.

And patience is not something that culturally

we have grown accustomed to anymore.

Mm-hmm.

Right?

There's an immediacy that we've seen in our culture

and also in the watch industry that's expected, right?

How many times have we gotten a call

from someone who's like,

hey, do you have this watch in stock?

And we're like, no, bro.

Like, it's like, that's two, it's sold out two years.

Oh, hang up, call the next dealer.

Do you have this one in stock?

It's like, maybe.

This is the pot calling the kettle black.

You love buying in stock watches.

I do.

Yeah.

Because immediacy is a major part of watch collection.

But some things you're willing to wait for.

Some things you have to wait for is my point.

Yeah.

And that's because in order to make what we see

in our side on Indies, you know,

at any meaningful scale requires patience and time.

That's true about the high end of watches.

That's true about independence large,

generally speaking.

And then there's this other side of it too,

which is just constrained demand,

which are things like Neo vintage watches,

which are evocative of the era that is, you know,

a lot like these sort of late nineties, early two thousands,

you know, culture.

It's the booming segment in vintage right now.

So. Surprise, surprise.

What's fascinating to me here is how people

are going to adapt to this, which is, you know,

increased pricing and limited demand on the Neo vintage side

and the requirement of funding and patience,

which, you know, old school, like long in the tooth,

Indie collectors are like, yeah, sure.

Like, obviously, you know, I'm going to,

I'm going to get my, my Roger Smith about 15 years

after I die, like I'm aware of that, you know,

but most people are still getting into that space right now

and they're still wrapping their head around it.

And patience is such an integral component

of analog culture, you know,

it's like, if you ever go back and you start watching

or listening to the history of like analog synths,

like you're really into these analog synths.

The funny thing is like, I'm not really big into like,

synth, like synthesized music,

but I'm fascinated by the artists that,

that pioneered that space, you know,

in like the late seventies and the early eighties.

Craft work.

There's so many people that would like go down this road

and it's like this was,

and they were really trying to figure out

how to squeeze music out of electronics

that were not designed for or intended for this purpose.

Check out Tune Girl, so cool.

But, you know, but a lot of effort led to

some really excellent music.

And then of course the foundation to what led to

other genres of music down the road,

which again is what we're seeing now

when you have a watchmaker like Josh Shapiro,

who is a co, you know, is in our cohort and,

you know, yes, there's CNC machines in his workshop,

but where does he love to be?

Behind an engine, behind a Rose engine, you know?

And that is a real connection to a watchmaker.

And the reason why a lot of people buy his watches

because they feel that human connection

between the person who cut the dial

and the object on their wrist.

And I find that to be really interesting

from a growth standpoint in this industry.

So let me play the role of the cynic

and the pragmatist here.

Because you're all roses when it comes to this stuff.

I do think someone could be listening to this

and saying to themselves,

guys, like I said, we've seen this movie before.

Things come in and out of fashion.

And yes, you know, vinyl may always be around

or Converse All-Stars may always be around,

or I don't know, George Clinton will always be on tour,

whoever it might be.

But things go in and out of vogue, you know?

Like they just do.

And this is a moment in which,

yes, there's this cultural moment,

and yes, watches are part of it and are participating in it.

But, you know, at some point,

attention will move away from this

and culture will enter a new era

and maybe we'll rediscover digital things.

Or rather than collectibles, it will be about experiences

or like things are always changing and evolving.

What I do think though is different

about this moment for watches

versus the last sort of moment for watches,

which was around COVID,

is the narrative around COVID

was really about a couple of things.

One, it was very focused on a few references

you just couldn't get your hands on,

and like a style of watches,

stainless steel sports watches.

And did all boats rise together

because there was so much demand

for those in-demand watches

that sort of lifted everything with it?

Yes, that was one thing.

It was very focused on a particular kind of watch.

Number two, it was very much driven, let's be honest,

by speculation, investment, mania,

and a focus on the watches themselves

as this kind of speculative asset.

And that's a very different thing

than what we're seeing now,

which is a reawakening of and a renewed interest

in things that are physical, that are tangible,

that are old school, that are analog,

that are, in this case, are handmade.

To me, the drivers of this resurgence

and this interest in watches,

and this boom in watches, at least in the US,

there's a purity to it,

and it's focused on the intrinsics of the asset,

or not the asset,

it's focused on the intrinsic of the watches themselves.

What makes them interesting from a design standpoint?

What makes them analog?

What makes them handmade?

And to me, that is a much more sustainable

way of viewing watches

than looking at them as something to try to collect

and get the hardest one that no one else can have

that you can make money on.

It's funny that you say this.

It's a more sustainable groundswell.

I've heard a few people say to me over the last few months

that they've vibe coded a platform,

some variant of this,

that scrapes some data source or some people's websites

to find, quote, the best deals on a reference

or hunt down a reference,

or in one way or another,

automate the process of being a collector.

That's really what it is.

And different collectors have different motivations.

Some people are price conscious,

some people are rarity conscious,

some people fall in some categories.

I really want this thing.

I don't want to miss out on it.

Yeah, I mean, there's lots of personality types

in collecting, obviously.

But essentially, in one way or another,

that's what these people are doing as a cohort.

They're automating the experience of collecting.

To me, that poses a really fascinating

rhetorical question, right?

I'll give an example to me.

I don't do.

Maybe you do, and you could tell me

if you think I'm right or wrong.

I don't play fantasy football or any of that,

but I've always kind of gotten the impression

that part of what's so much fun about fantasy football

is being so ensconced in that season.

Oh, this is why a lot of people like sports betting.

It gives real stakes to a game.

You're more dialed in.

Yeah, exactly.

You have to be so present and aware of what's happening

that when you build your team

and you go with your friends into this fantasy league,

you're really invested and you're using your own gut

and obviously a healthy dose of luck to win the season.

Now, you could vibe code a platform

that will do all of that for you,

but where's the fun in that?

All the fantasy platforms will automate your team

if you don't stay active and participate.

Yeah, I know, but if you don't stay active

and participate, who cares?

Yeah, exactly.

So my point is, but if you're invested as a collector

and you're automating the experience of collecting,

I can see- Oh, yeah, yeah.

See what I'm saying?

Yeah, it's like letting your fantasy league

run on autopilot.

Right, which I think goes back to this other idea

of individual discovery and the physical nature of it.

Think about, Open House is a good example of this, right?

Every watch at Open House you could see on Instagram,

essentially, but hundreds of people came

to go hands-on with them because that matters, right?

That's true about Geneva Watch Days.

That's true about Watch Time New York or Wind Up

or any of those awesome events.

And I do think that as business continues to grow

and evolve and move with the pendulum of culture,

that tactile patient nature is actually something

that we're going to see not only take some degree

of dominance as it is now, but be folded into the next trend

in the same way that you enjoy vinyl and streamed audio

because you want the choice of it,

as opposed to feeling like you're being dominated

by one pathway that you have to choose.

All right, so let's look at it this way.

We've talked about how much all of this stuff

has benefited watches.

We've talked about how the kind of the three segments

that are really booming right now in watches

are neo-vintage and vintage, independent brands,

and then watches in the $50,000 and up price point.

One, that's just a general commentary on economics

that we don't need to get into and the accrual of wealth

by the wealthiest and all that kind of stuff.

But within that 50,000 and up segment,

generally you have more kind of like handwork

and things like that.

So it makes sense as well.

Are there segments of the industry

that you think suffer in this era?

And then this focus on analog culture writ large.

Is this, I don't know, is this bad for Apple watches?

Is it bad for calculator watches?

I guess calculator watches have a retro cool

to them as well.

Is this just out of hand good for watches?

Or I guess maybe the question I'm asking is,

does this put certain kinds of watches

in favor and others maybe out of favor?

I don't know.

That's an interesting question.

I mean, I don't wanna like make assumptions

or predict on that sense.

I'm really kind of still wrapping my head around

what these changes mean culturally

and also from an experience standpoint.

I mean, this is why like I get turned off

when I feel like I'm being,

well, let me rephrase.

This is why the idea of AI agents, for example,

in a sales setting seem absurd and very off-putting to me

because I don't wanna be sold to by a computer

that's trying to figure out the best possible way

to get me to its outcome.

I wanna interact with an individual

that's gonna listen to what I want and help me get there.

And those two things may sometimes align, but not always.

And I think when we start thinking about

like how people are gonna buy

or what they're gonna buy or things of that nature,

like the real key element is the human component

of trying to understand like where that cultural shift

is taking someone and where their interests

fundamentally lie, as opposed to assuming like,

well, ultimately, we wanna be available 24 seven.

So we're gonna create a bot to be able to sell watches

to whoever wants to talk at 2 a.m.

All right, I don't know that's gonna lead anywhere great.

Sorry, AI watch sales bot IPO folk.

But like, I think that this is something

that we as a platform need to be aware of,

we as collectors need to be aware of,

and as an industry needs to be aware of

as a key behavioral shift.

Remember how like four or five years ago,

where everyone was all obsessed

with using augmented reality

to show you what a watch look like on your wrist

and how nobody did it?

Like-

Yes, no one does that anymore.

Well, it's not even like nobody does it anymore.

It's like part of the reason nobody does it anymore

is because no users use it.

Cause everyone's like, this is stupid.

And it's one of those things where, you know.

It's one thing to try a pair of glasses on

through augmented reality

and get a general sense of what it will look on your face.

But I think what people seek in watches

is much more nuanced than,

what does this look like on my wrist

in a very crude render?

Cause it fails to capture things

that people love about watches,

like finishing details, ergonomics, all sorts of,

I mean, obviously we obsess over the details

and you just don't get that

when you have some 32 bit watch on your wrist.

Yeah, so it doesn't work.

Although I've discovered these glasses

through augmented reality.

I think one of the things that I find interesting

is we were entering this moment

where there's this trend in watches,

certainly among watch enthusiasts,

where what we were starting to see

were watches that were kind of thoroughly modern,

taking center stage and people saying,

we were among those people,

people have been saying,

that neo-vintage or sorry,

vintage inspired watches were sort of falling out of favor.

And what was falling into favor

were things that were much more modern in their design,

much more clean design, less fotino or gilt,

things that were more monochromatic,

things that were using more interesting materials,

whether it was titanium or ceramic,

some of the things we talked about at the bottom of the show.

And this was so exciting

because finally we had reached this point of fatigue

with these nostalgia driven watch designs.

And what this was encouraging

was watchmakers to take more risk

and to try things that felt more contemporary and modern

and didn't as strongly reference

or worst case facsimile vintage watches.

And what an exciting time to be a watch collector.

They're experimenting with all this stuff.

Now that we're entering this,

what is in part very much a nostalgia cycle,

because yes, this is driven, you're right,

a large, to a large extent by Gen Z saying like,

hey, we're taking stock of how we use digital media

and we also like these other things

and we want things that are more physical.

Like the Gen Z thing is part of it.

And of course the young generation

always defined the cultural zeitgeist.

That's always been the case.

But at the same time, what's also happening

is you have their parents, Gen X,

entering a phase where they have

more and more disposable income

and are also becoming nostalgic for their own youth.

The same way the boomers went out and all bought Corvettes,

you have Gen X now living as empty nesters

with disposable income

and they're buying things like watches,

they're buying things like vinyl

and they're participating in this moment.

So you have these two waves cresting

where you have Gen Z looking kind of

for things that are analog,

you have Gen X looking toward nostalgia

and both of these trends are aligning

and creating this mega trend.

Is this bad news for watches

that are contemporary in design?

Is the watch market going to be out of sync

with a culture that's looking for nostalgia?

No, and I want to be-

There's still enough nostalgia-driven watches out there?

Well, I want to be very careful

because what we're describing is a trend,

not an uber reality.

And there are many people that feel this way

and many people that don't.

So just like when we were,

again, going back to like our youth,

when we were thinking about the 60s

or the 70s,

there were plenty of people who could not care less.

It's true, it's true.

Like bell-bottoms were in for a while,

but then there were plenty of people

who were wearing JNCO jeans.

Yeah, so my point being,

I want to, again, be very careful.

JNCO jeans are back.

I didn't know that.

Did you think those were ever coming back?

No.

No, it's horrifying.

But, wow.

But putting that aside for a sec,

there are going to be people who are like,

I mean, why would I buy books anymore?

Kindle's perfectly fine.

Why would I want vinyl?

Like it's finicky and expensive and blah, blah, blah.

Which is true, by the way.

Like in order to listen to vinyl,

it is significantly more expensive

to listen to music on vinyl

and to maintain a vinyl collection

than it is to pay whatever Spotify costs annually.

I guess if we're going to do like vintage...

So if like the 2010s was defined

by watches that reinterpreted essentially

like the 1950s and 60s,

like think about the Black Bay.

That's sort of the poster child watch

for that era of watchmaking and watch design.

Like that was the sort of vintage reissue watch,

the throwback and nostalgia watch.

Are we entering a phase now

where maybe the nostalgia watch is like those,

remember those Tag Heuer Link watches?

Oh, of course.

Of course.

I mean, I guess Neo Vintage is back.

Are we going to start to see like,

how cool would it be to see some like Neo Vintage

re-releases?

Like what if Tag Heuer brings back the Link?

I guess they did bring back-

Well, they just brought back the Formula One.

Yeah, exactly.

Like Breitling, I would love to see

bring back some of those watches.

I would love, obviously IWC,

they have explored a lot of the watches

from that Gunter Blum line era,

but like continuing to do that,

there's probably more of a moment for that now.

Like, man, would I love to see some Neo Vintage reissues.

Is that the next trend in watches?

I do not think culture is a monoblock.

I think if we continue to go with the logic

that we've been exploring in this conversation,

it's that trends add new layers of choice to experience.

You're saying the Link is coming back.

What I'm saying is that the Link can come back

and exist next to like the modern Skipper

or any of the like, you know, more modern,

that's probably a bad example,

because it is a throwback,

but like trying to think of,

I don't know that much about Tag Heuer,

but like one of the more modern pieces.

Like what's the Dive Watch?

The Aquaracer.

Aquaracer, yeah.

It's modern.

But my point is,

I think what we will see is more choice

that caters to different corners of that.

Just like to your point about dumb phones and smartphones,

I would not be surprised if in the next five to 10 years,

we see a significantly slimmed down phone

coming from Samsung or from Apple

that offers a lot less in the way of apps

and the rest of that,

and then find some other,

and then probably costs a lot more

because it diminishes their ability to monetize.

Oh, good point.

But if you want to pay for that in the same way

that like you can pay for Netflix without advertisers.

The dumb phone is the premium product.

I mean, kind of, right?

Because that's essentially what you're saying,

which is like, I don't want all this other crap.

I just want a phone with maps and like texting,

and I want the Apple ecosystem,

but I don't want all of that.

Well, then Apple's probably gonna say,

okay, fine, but that's gonna cost you three times as much,

which is a premium model

that we've seen explored for decades.

Yeah, you don't want Amazon Prime with ads,

you pay a little more.

Yeah, exactly.

So I think to go back to your earlier point,

it will be about adding choice.

And there is a sort of interesting question

for the watch industry about like,

well, what does that look like?

Now let's assume that Ilaria Resta hadn't just woken up

and decided that she was an expert at stepping on rakes.

Another way that she could explore this concept

of the Royal Pop would be one of these

is extruded and immediate.

This other one is positioned as high-end and deliberate.

Oh, interesting.

And there's a kind of an interesting thought there

about like-

Swatch makes one of the Royal Pops,

AP makes the other one.

Well, yeah, but one of them is immediate

and one of them is not, right?

And I think that, so it's like,

if what we're saying is like,

analog culture is great,

but you don't really have the patience for it.

Okay.

Here's a plastic talisman

that gets you half of the way there.

Yeah.

You know?

I don't know that the Royal Pop fits into this trend.

It feels to me more like a cynical cash grab.

Yeah, I don't wanna go back down that path.

But my point is being like,

if you were to apply logic

to a somewhat illogical strategy like that,

I could see something like that.

How could you execute it to better meet that?

I mean, that happened with the Moon Swatch, right?

I mean, after the initial push of the Moon Swatch

being difficult to get,

now that everyone who wanted to play with it

has played with it, the immediacy is there.

You can have that watch tomorrow,

that watch right now.

And a Moonwatch, you probably can too,

but may depend on the funds that you have,

what variant of it you're looking for,

like any number of things

that the Moonwatch can deliver on,

Moon Swatch, excuse me,

can deliver on with immediacy that the other one can't.

So my point being that answers like the level,

like the access to something immediate

versus the thing that waits

is a response to what we saw seven or eight years ago

with, you know, at the beginning of COVID

when nothing was available, immediacy was impossible.

So now we may start seeing a response to people

with analog culture saying,

okay, here are a lot of pieces and things

that require patience and time and effort and whatever.

And if you don't like that, that's fine.

Here's another option for you.

Yeah, and I think people are gonna say,

guys, we already have this.

You've been talking about it for years.

Like we've been talking about how smaller watches,

shaped watches, gem set watches, stone dial watches,

and things like that were this growing segment

within the industry.

And that's true.

And I do think that they're part of this moment,

but they're at the bleeding edge.

Those watches, both in their time,

in like the 80s and early 90s,

and now we're driven by sort of the tastemakers,

the people out on the bleeding edge of culture.

Just like you pointed out,

like there's something for everyone.

Your average punter wasn't walking around

wearing like a stone dial oddly shaped watch in the 1990s.

They were probably wearing something

like a Tag Heuer Formula One or a Link watch

or something like that.

And so now I think the question is,

the industry cracked the door open

with shaped watches, small watches,

dress watches, and things like that.

You know, like the early adopters,

the people on the bleeding edge of fashion

and culture and watch collecting were there,

and the industry has seen success with that.

Now, as this nostalgia phase and this analog phase,

this in culture takes shape and gathers steam,

how's the industry going to respond to it?

They can't just keep making stone dial watches.

Now they need to, I think, open the aperture a little bit

and start to look at what does, like I said,

what does a vintage reissue watch look like

in 2026 and 2027?

And I'm very curious to see how it takes shape

because the early answer was stone dial watches.

I think frankly, at the end of that phase,

I don't know how many more legs that really has.

So it'll be interesting to see how we move

into maybe a more broad-based relook

at neo-vintage watches through the industry

in present day.

I don't know where that's going to take us,

but I'm excited for it.

I'm here for it.

There are a lot of watches from that era

that I'd love to revisit

with modern construction and materials.

Shall we leave it there?

Let's leave it there.

Well, thank you for listening.

This of course is Openwork,

a production of Collective Horology.

You can find us online at collectivehorology.com.

And if you want to get in touch with your suggestions,

we want suggestions for neo-vintage reissues,

show topics, questions, whatever it might be,

just email us at podcast at collectivehorology.com.

Okay.