Ask a 2023 30 Under 30(ish) Honoree: Q&A Grab Bag!

The future of watchmaking is fueled by passion. We need young enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, and artisans to keep the drive alive! While assembling and interviewing our class of 30 Under 30(ish) honorees for 2023, we discovered that the fresh and diverse next-gen perspectives have also rekindled our curiosity about timepieces.

Last time, we asked our honorees which watch changed the game and set them on their current path in the watch world. Today, we ask:

What are your thoughts on the changes you’ve witnessed in the watch community, the current state of the industry or collector community, and who or what in the industry inspires you?

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Industry Inspirations

“[Who inspires me?] I think I will say Danièla Dufour first because she’s an inspiration. I met her, and it was really cool. She has a good ‘Savoir Faire’ and the best ‘établi’ in the world.

“Laetitia Hirschy is a very important person for me. She made me try my first Bulgari watch, and she is a co-founder of Watch Femme, which is also an inspiration for me. They are all stunning and make me discover something every day. I love all of them. So much so that whenever I see a photo on Watch Femme’s Instagram story, I follow that woman!
 

“I think Max Büsser is changing the way people see watchmaking. He makes fantastic, genius, innovative, almost magic [watches]. I don’t have the English vocabulary to find all the words that describe his work, but I can say he’s a genius!”
 

Changes in the Community

“The two biggest changes I’ve seen since I began my career involve the sheer number of people in this space, as well as the increase in the availability of resources to learn about watches and watch collecting.

“I started working in the watch world in 2015 when I was only 20 years old and a junior at NYU. It was rare, at that time, to come across any other watch collectors or people interested in watches in their late teens or early 20s. That changed somewhere along the way; I feel like I meet undergraduate watch lovers all the time these days.
 

“A big reason why, I think, is how easy it is now to enter watch enthusiasm as a hobby as the primary medium for online discourse has moved away from insider-only forums and onto more accessible platforms and channels such as Instagram, YouTube, and – obviously – Watchonista. It’s easier than ever to fall down a new horological rabbit hole or to find your specific niche in watch collecting.”
 

State of the Industry

“Watches are fundamentally expressions of culture. You can always relate a timepiece back to a bigger-picture narrative, whether it’s a certain epoch in fashion or a moment in music culture. And there’s obviously a growing appetite for watch content outside of the traditional enthusiast community.

“The way I see it, watches and fashion are far more interconnected than most people realize. It’s all identity politics: The clothes and watches we wear are expressions of ourselves.”
 

Encouraging Trends

“I’m more into vintage, so I don’t really follow the modern industry very closely, but my impression is that there has been an attempt at sizing down. More smaller releases and more choices. For people like me with smaller wrists, [it’s a] really important shift in the industry!”