Swatch’s longevity is due in large part to its watches' affordability and collectibility.
A few months ago, at a dinner put on by a Swiss watchmaker, I was seated next to an avid watch collector. His collection included a robust assortment of Rolexes, Omegas and Patek Philippes and numbered, he said, in the hundreds of pieces. Needless to say, he was quite wealthy.
Despite all efforts to curb this inclination in myself, I too am a watch collector, but one of decidedly less liquidity. What this means is a lot of pining, a lot of coveting and a lot of mental jiu-jitsu as I attempt to justify spending a month's income on something that, essentially, serves no purpose other than looking quite nice. Watch collecting, I'm convinced, is dumb. But I am helplessly in its thrall.
Like most collectors, I started from the bottom. My first watch was a Swatch, brought home from a business trip by my dad in the mid-1990s. Its colour scheme was red, lime green and purple and it was illustrated variously with playing cards, a black-and-white checkerboard pattern, Dali-esque melting shapes, a man with a pinkie ring and Fido Dido. It was, in other words, the most 1990s thing imaginable. I have no idea what happened to that watch, but I remember it as vividly as my first kiss.
During one of my regular internet watch-ogling sessions recently, I decided to track down my old Swatch. It didn't take me long to find one for sale online, and even less time to fall headfirst down the rabbit hole of vintage Swatch designs. In my obsession with high-end mechanical Swiss watches I will likely never own, I had forgotten about a whole world of watches that are designed to be both affordable and collectible. I was immediately consumed by desire.
"The idea to have a Swiss-made watch made of plastic was something that some people could not even imagine," says Carlo Giordanetti, Swatch's creative director, a soft-spoken Italian who is as jolly and approachable as the timepieces he designs.
In the early 1980s, the Swiss watch industry was in the throes of the so-called "quartz crisis," an unprecedented disruption by cheap, reliable, battery-powered watches from Japan. Swiss watch exports took a nosedive, watchmakers were out of work by the thousands and the future of the country's stalwart mechanical watch brands was in peril.
Instead of fighting the tide of inexpensive quartz watches, Swatch founder Nicolas Hayek decided to bring Swiss watchmaking to bear on the problem, creating a line of watches that were stylish, modern, affordable and well made. In 1983, Swatch was born. Defined by bright colours, bold patterns and abundant use of plastic and silicone, it was unlike anything else on the market. Arguably, it still is.
"Every single watch has a different personality and a different soul," says Giordanetti, who like me, received his first Swatch as a gift from his father. While the brand releases some 300 original watch designs each year, some of its most memorable were conceived during its first decade in the 1980s. Among these were the Jelly Fish (1983), a see-through watch with primary-coloured hands and a transparent silicone strap; the White Memphis (1984), an homage to the namesake Italian design group's love for white space and oddly placed geometric shapes; and a 1985 collection emblazoned with the childlike drawings of then-up-and-coming artist Keith Haring.
"At that time, basically everything we presented was new," Giordanetti says. "Every project was unprecedented."
Over the past four decades, Swatch has evolved alongside fashion, offering affordable accessories to fit the aesthetics of the moment. Unlike mechanical watches, for which the change of an hour indicator or the addition of a word on the watch face is cause for a frenzy, Swatch reinvents its entire collection twice a year. "One of the things that's fantastic about Swatch is that there should be no limit and no unexplored territory," Giordanetti says. "Whatever comes to mind we have the freedom and also the responsibility to pursue."
A short while later, I'm eyeing an original Keith Haring in flawless condition priced at $850 on Etsy. Yes, it's a lot of money for a plastic watch, but not that much in the world of watch collecting, and certainly a steal for a piece of pop art. And that's on the high side for a Swatch.
The same store is asking $450 for a pristine 1984 12 Flags model, a simple navy-blue strap and white face emblazoned with nautical flags instead of hours. I hover over the "buy" button on a Vasily, a 1986 tribute to abstract expressionist Vasily Kandinsky in primary-coloured lines and black dots. I finally settle on an Aqua Club from 1989, a steal at $80. With a pale pink case, aqua-blue strap, canary-yellow hour hand and cheerful sans serif numerals, it's both a beautiful piece of modern design and a cheerful bit of childhood nostalgia.
"I'll give it to my girlfriend for Christmas," I think to myself as I enter my credit-card details, knowing full well even then that it's a lie.