There are certain words that really should be banned from usage in the watch industry: one is the word ‘passion’ – totally overused by absolutely everyone - and the second is ‘fashion’. There is nothing wrong with the word ‘fashion’, as such; it is a perfectly good word when associated with the clothes industry, but combine it with watches and it conjures up an image of something cheap and plastic.
Looking back through the Europa Star archives, the term ‘fashion watch’ first started making an appearance in the 1970s when the first couture houses started to launch their own watches. But, unfortunately this term now seems to be used to group everything that isn’t a Swiss mechanical watch or a haute joaillerie piece. More and more clothes designers are bringing out their own watch collections, the watches are, for the most part, perfectly in line with the brand’s luxury image and the ‘fashion’ label really does them a disservice. So look out for our Passion for fashion watch gallery with a selection of watches posted each day next week that prove that this growing segment of the watch industry is neither ‘cheap’ nor ‘plastic’. After all, ‘passion’, whoops, I mean ‘devotion’, can be found at every level of the horological pyramid!


Source: Europa Star December-Januar 2008 Magazine Issue