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The point of these is to signal you have money and are enough of an insider to know the high-status brands - or at least high-status enough for that particular
by TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
The point of these is to signal you have money and are enough of an insider to know the high-status brands - or at least high-status enough for that particular social group, who use them to reassure each other they're not in the vulgar Rolex set.
They serve the same function as a designer handbag - although you can at least put things inside a handbag and carry them around.
- petesergeant 2y ago> They serve the same function as a designer handbag Keeping EU trade imbalances from getting too far out of whack?
- __loam 2y agoSwitzerland is not part of the EU lol
- CydeWeys 2y agoThis is overly cynical. The target demographic for a really complicated Vacheron Constantin is a rich person who is a HUGE nerd about watches. Think about people who get into really high levels of nerd hobbies and acquire super expensive gear. It's not primarily about showing off.
- mlyle 2y agoI'm not sure buying the super fancy handbag is primarily about showing off, either, and I think people who consume a lot of these goods have a lot of brand knowledge. I mean, I think you're right in that watch nerds usually have more domain knowledge, but I don't think it's inherently dissimilar.
- ehnto 2y agoNot that I am wealthy enough to participate, but you see the same thing in cars and the same issue too. Sometimes status signalling and taste end up in the same product, and people who don't care about cars end up with the finest of the cars, almost coincidentally.
- euroderf 2y agoWhat's "hobby" about it? Is the owner going to open the watch and make modifications as a weekend avocation?
- Y-bar 2y agoJust like those collecting stamps, figurines, comic magazines, paintings and so on the watch hobbyist pretty much _never_ makes modifications to their items. Why do you consider it a requirement for it to be a hobby?
- TheOtherHobbes 2y agoIf it was about the nerdery the watches wouldn't be sold with huge margins through a rarefied dealer network located in exclusive shopping locations. This is an item of jewellery, not a high-end custom PC.
- KaiserPro 2y agoFor a rolex, yeah. For virtually any other watch, not so much as to the normal person they are just a watch