Opinion: Why Vintage Watches Have Never Gone Out of Style

A full decade later, we are now once again in an era where the concept of age has noble associations, evinced by the monochromatic deluge of silver-haired models in fashion spreads, the number of very sexy sexagenarian and septuagenarian action stars on movie screens and our current fascination with all things vintage - from air-cooled Porsches to monopole Burgundies and Tre Tacche-cased sector dial watches In the last two decades, it has been Aurel Bacs of Bacs & Russo, which heads up all vintage watch auctions and private sales at the venerable Phillips auction house, which has single-handedly transformed our worldview on vintage watch appreciation "To show collectors that the magic of vintage watches relates to objects that were created to be as uniform as possible, but over the decades or even centuries, have each become individualized by their reaction to time.

There is nothing more unique than a vintage watch, because even with watches from the same reference - say a 6263 Rolex Daytona, which is now almost 40 years old - no two watches will look or feel the same One watch may have subdials that have become tropical thanks to the exposure to UV light; another may have aged in a different way But every watch today is a distinct, unique organism and that's what I love about vintage watches" There has never been a time when vintage watches have been more relevant.

It is for this reason that our generation has so wholeheartedly embraced vintage watches A vintage watch has been made unique as a result of its interaction with time In a world where money and taste increasingly diverge, where places like Regine's and Studio 54 have been supplanted by cavernous realms of banality, where champagne wars have become the currency, wearing something as understated as a vintage watch, which will only be recognized by someone with similar taste and knowledge, has become a membership badge for the truly elegant. Source