The Watch Community and the Disconnect
The watch community is an interesting place and group of people. It is diverse. You have people from all races, religions, sexual preferences, financial situations, and everything in between. It is part of what makes the community great.
Recently, someone I call a buddy, Derek from @sixtyclicksavant on Instagram, traded off his Rolex Submariner for a Rolex Explorer II. This is a move I supported, as I am not a huge Rolex Sub guy. Derek, doing as one does, has been posting the watch a lot, and it is cool as hell to see. Derek is a good dude. Father, blue-collar worker, wears and uses his watches as tools like they are meant to be.
One of the posts he made in a few groups on Facebook was asking, “What do you prefer, NATO or bracelet?” with a picture of the Explorer II on a NATO and one with it on the factory bracelet. This is where a shit show in the comments started.
Two of the most common responses I saw were, “I do not like nylon straps; they make a watch look cheap,” or, “Why would you put a luxury watch on a NATO or nylon strap?”
This made me start laughing as I was reading it, but it also made me realize that in today’s watch hobby there is a disconnect between people who understand that some watches are tool watches and people who look at those same watches primarily as luxury objects. It also made me realize that I have a disconnect with some parts of the hobby.
These Watches Were Built as Tools
My disconnect comes from the fact that I treat watches as tools, especially if the design was made to be a tool. For the ones around us who do not understand the styles of watches that are tool watches, the ones I always point to are the following: dive watches, pilot’s watches, GMTs, field watches, chronographs, and digital tool watches. These are watches that were originally designed to serve a purpose and be treated as tools.
The Rolex Submariner was launched as a professional diving watch, with a rotating bezel that allowed a diver to monitor time underwater. The Rolex Explorer II was built around a 24-hour display that lets someone operating underground or in other environments without a normal day/night cycle tell day from night. The GMT-Master was designed as a navigation aid for professionals crossing multiple time zones and became closely associated with Pan Am pilots. The Daytona was designed as a timing instrument for racing drivers, using its chronograph and tachymeter to measure elapsed time and average speed. The Explorer came out of Rolex’s connection with mountaineering and exploration. Flieger-style watches trace their design language back to military aviation, where immediate legibility and timing mattered. G-Shocks were designed around surviving shock and abuse, which turned out to be exactly what a lot of modern military, law-enforcement, trades, outdoor, and everyday users needed.
That history matters because somewhere along the way a lot of people started treating the word “luxury” like it cancels out the word “tool.” It doesn’t. A company can make an expensive tool. A watch can be beautifully finished, expensive, collectible, and still be designed around a functional purpose. Those things are not mutually exclusive.
If I Own It, I’m Going to Use It
For me personally, I have never been one who babies any tool that I use. I also do not care about the price tag of an item. If I own it, it damn sure better be able to take whatever beating and abuse I am going to need it to. If I am spending $10,000 on a watch, that motherfucker better handle my daily life or I just shoved a lot of money up a hog’s ass for something that is actually going to impede my life by having to treat it like it is precious.
There is also a huge disconnect with people forgetting that certain watches were designed specifically to survive abusive environments. That does not mean you have to intentionally destroy your shit just to prove a point. There is a difference between using something and abusing it for no reason. But normal scratches, strap changes, sweat, water, dirt, work, travel, and actually living while wearing the watch should not be treated like some kind of tragedy.
The NATO Strap Argument
My counterpoint to someone saying that “a watch looks cheaper on a NATO or nylon strap” starts with this: who said anyone has to be on this stupid-ass train of caring about resale value?
There is also something funny about acting like a nylon strap is somehow historically beneath a tool watch. Military-style pass-through straps exist because they are simple, light, easy to replace, easy to clean, and practical. A pass-through design can also keep the watch attached to the wrist if one spring bar fails. That is not jewelry logic. That is tool logic. Whether someone thinks it looks as expensive as a bracelet is almost completely beside the point.
This obsession with resale value is a cancer that has creeped its way into the hobby, which I hate, and it isn’t only in this hobby. The “resellers” in everything are normally a bunch of chodes. Everyone thinks they are a dealer now and tries to make everyone think that they have to look at a watch as an investment to make money off of.
Here is a reality check. You aren’t a watch dealer. There are a few out there who truly are and make money doing this, but the odds are you aren’t. Secondly, the overwhelming majority of watches are never going to go up in value. You will likely lose money on any watch you buy. That is fine. Watches are allowed to cost you money. So are cars, boots, cameras, fishing gear, tools, and almost every other thing people buy because they enjoy using it.
Going back to my hot takes from August: not wearing a watch to preserve resale value is like not fucking your wife or girlfriend to keep her tight for the next guy. It makes zero sense and takes away from the joy and pleasure you are supposed to be getting. Stop trying to push your shitty resale-value obsession onto others.
Finally on this point, I would tell you that if you think a NATO makes a watch look cheap, what does a beat-up, scratched-to-hell bracelet make a watch look like? What about one with a worn-out shit leather strap? Should someone worry about polishing their bracelet every month or two because it got scratched while they were wearing their watch as a tool? At what point are you wearing the watch, and at what point is the watch wearing you?
Luxury Does Not Dictate the Strap
Another point I am going to talk about is the people saying that just because a watch is made by a “luxury” brand, you shouldn’t put it on anything other than what it came from the factory with. This is a thought that will never make sense to me.
Why does a watch having a crown, shield, or some other logo on it make it any different? The price? Who cares. Price doesn’t mean anything and doesn’t change the fact that a watch is a tool watch. If anything, changing straps is one of the easiest ways to make a watch better fit the environment you are actually using it in. Bracelet for one situation. Nylon for another. Rubber around water. Leather when you want it cleaned up. The watch did not suddenly lose its identity because you removed four spring bars’ worth of factory-approved jewelry.
And this is where I think some people confuse respecting a watch with preserving it. I can respect the engineering, history, design, and money that went into a watch while still using the hell out of it. In my mind, using a tool for the purpose it was built for shows more respect for the design than locking it away because you are scared of a scratch.
Wear Your Watch
My argument is that at the end of the day, if someone chooses to wear a watch how they want or on whatever strap they want, that is their choice. If you are paying for their watches, paying their bills, and supporting them financially, you might get a little bit of a say. If you aren’t, shut the fuck up.
I always say: wear what you want, how you want, when you want. The hobby is already diverse enough that there is room for the guy keeping his watch pristine in a safe, the guy wearing a Rolex on a $20 nylon strap, the person beating the shit out of a G-Shock at work, and the person wearing a cheap watch because it simply makes them happy. None of those people need permission from the others.
If you are judging someone solely off of their watch, you are a moron and not realistic. A watch isn’t going to make you richer, isn’t going to get you laid more, and isn’t going to make your 2-inch worm between your legs bigger. Stop being a judgmental prick.
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