Nobody’s ever watched porn wearing a Rolex...
And more watch gold from the creators of HBO’s “Industry”
Ahhh mid-September in New York City… Fashion week released its tyrannical grip on Manhattan and has moved onto Milan. NYU students are rushing to their 9am classes. The Astor Place Wegman’s is now selling pumpkin stuff.
That’s all I got for an intro, so let’s get right to it.
THE INDUSTRY GUYS SPILL THE WATCH TEA!
A few weeks ago, my dear friend and writer Louis Cheslaw met up with Konrad Kay and Mickey Down, the creators of HBO’s Industry. They shared pints at Mickey’s go-to pub in Camden to unpack all their watch baggage for Dimepiece, revealing insider info like: if your TV show is new and unknown, the big brands won’t lend watches to your costume department. So, you gotta settle for replicas or lesser timepieces – much to the detriment of a show taking place in the finance world, which is notoriously obsessed with the status-signaling capacity of a high-end watch. For example, in season one, fan fav and mid-level Pierpoint trader Rishi (played by Sagar Radia) wore “something horrendous on his arm”; but as the show (and Rishi) became more established, he finally got his due by season three and was styled in a Rolex… WITHIN LIMITS, THAT IS.
“We always wanted Rishi to have a Rolex Submariner, and if you watch episode four very closely, there are some great hero shots where you can see that watch, and it really adds a lot of production value,” says Konrad Kay, in the Dimepiece interview. “But anytime he's watching pornography or doing cocaine, if you're very eagle-eyed, you’ll notice it just evaporates from his wrist,” he continues, expanding upon the built-in restraints and liabilities of featuring big-name watches in compromising scenes. “It was actually quite a big thing for the costume department to make sure that they were never fucking that up, because it becomes quite an expensive mistake to have to digitally remove the watch.”
“So Rolex was happy for Rishi to wear a Sub, but not while gambling or taking drugs?” asks Louis Cheslaw.
“Exactly,” says Mickey Down, with a sly look in his eye. “Because no one who has ever worn a Rolex has done any of that.”
To read the full interview, visit Dimepiece <3 photos by Marcus Patrick Brown.
BUY BUY! SELL SELL! DIMEPIECE DROPS NEW WATCHES WITH FOUNDWELL!
Some of you may know that I sell a carefully curated collection of vintage watches with my friend Alan Bedwell, aka Foundwell, who’s been dealing antiques and watches for 20+ years (he ran the Ralph Lauren watch program for a decade and currently provides watches to Todd Snyder, Dover Street Market – avec moi – and other retailers). He sources the watches and authenticates them with his expert eye. We partnered together in 2021 because he wanted to sell more under-valued, obscure, often labeled “ladies” watches… Like a gorgeous Cartier Baignoire, which, if you can believe it, was not obsessed over then as it is now. So the two of us coming together was a match made in watch heaven! He has the goods, I have the audience.
Some exciting news is that, via our Dover Street Market partnership, we just sold a 3rd watch to one of my all-time fav celeb watch collectors, Bad Bunny, who really kicked off the “dudes wearing ladies watches” trend when he appeared courtside at a Laker’s game wearing an obscure vintage gem-set Patek from the ‘90s. Earlier this year, he bought a vintage TTRO (a teeny tiny Royal Oak, for those unfamiliar with the Dimepiece jargon), then went onto buy a “Domino’s Pizza” Rolex Air-King, and as of last week, bought a stunning, sapphire and diamond-set Cartier Ellipse (pictured above). While I’m name dropping, we also sold 5 watches to Charli XCX, which she gave as gifts to her hardworking team that helped make “brat” a household name.
Between these two, our inventory is not as robust as we’d planned it to be, but we have some remaining watches that deserve good homes, like a Tiffany Stamped TTTTDJ (teeny tiny two-tone Datejust) and a beautiful Vacheron Constantin dress watch. Check them out HERE and hit me if you have any questions.
ARE COCKTAIL WATCHES BACK?!
Let’s conclude with a little trend reporting… Celeb watch spotting has been giving, thanks to the red carpets of TIFF (the Toronto International Film Festival) and the Emmys – and what I’m seeing is a lot of old-Hollywood glam cocktail watches designed for mixing and mingling at, well, cocktail parties, circa 1950-1970s. It feels like these watches have been sitting in the shadows, until quite recently…
At the Emmys, there was the diamond studded Vacheron Constantin Heure Discréte watch worn by Elizabeth Debicki, as she collected her best supporting actress award for her portrayal of Princess Diana in Netflix's The Crown. Then there was Quinta Brunson (the genius behind Abbott Elementary) stunting in a white gold, diamond Tiffany & Co. Blue Book Botanica watch from 2002. Great Emmys watch-spotting recap via Wristcheck here. Up north in Toronto, Kaia Gerber recreated her mother Cindy Crawford’s ‘90s look to a tee – including a throwback Hervé Léger bandage dress and her mom’s own vintage, diamond and sapphire-set Omega cocktail watch (both are brand ambassadors). Let the record state that red carpet watches are either loaned by the brands (some pay to play) or a part of a larger ambassador deal, but the styling still speaks for itself in terms of what’s en vogue at the moment.
Meanwhile, in the non-celeb sphere, people have been driving the trend on planet earth! My friend and Style News Editor at Town & Country, Isiah Magsino, showed up to the Tibi runway show wearing a vintage ladies Waltham dress watch he picked up at a vintage shop in Las Vegas. And backstage at the Todd Snyder show, I spoke with model and artist Gordon Winarick about his vintage, dressy Hamilton watch on a bracelet that belonged to his grandfather. What’s cool is that both of these guys have great personal style, effectively reimagining pieces like this and proving that they can feel more casual and everyday – not just reserved for classy old ladies or movie stars in ball gowns and tuxedos. I’ve also gotten exciting DMs from Dimepiece followers sharing their own cocktail watch stories… Someone named Samantha Erin sent me photos of her gorgeous 1950s Longines that she inherited from her family. “The fact that it was my great-grandmother’s and fits my wrist perfectly makes me feel like I’m carrying her with me always! I feel like I am wearing history.”
I LOVE stories like this, when old-timey watches (equipped with diamonds and safety chains and, often, long-dead movements that need servicing) are brought out of the safe and into the wild. So next time you’re at the consignment shop and you see a watch like this (most likely undervalued and overlooked)... or you remember that one family piece collecting dust at your parent’s house… consider the possibilities and break it out!
CIAO FOR NOW!
Suuuuper interesting about the cocktail watches!