When Nrupesh Joshi enquires with his customers about how his watches are doing, some of them often tell him that they really haven’t had a chance to wear them. “They tell me, ‘Oh, my wife/girlfriend/partner has appropriated it,” says Joshi, co-founder of the three-year-old Bangalore Watch Company (BWC).
BWC, India’s first microbrand, makes watches such as the Renaissance Automatic, the Mach 1 pilot watch, that is set to be updated very soon, and the cricket-inspired Cover Drive.
Joshi does not think that the number of men who have been deprived of their BWC watches by their partners is indicative of a trend yet. “I feel it’s similar to the ‘boyfriend’ jeans phenomenon. A lot of women are comfortable with — and prefer — unisex watches. You’ll find them wearing a BWC, or a G-Shock, and the really enthusiastic ones probably go for a Panerai and such like,” says Joshi.
The preference for unisex models that Joshi has discerned is possibly a faint echo of a larger conversation taking place worldwide. Over the last six months, especially, several prominent watch journalists and enthusiasts in the United States and Europe have had a go at watchmakers and their unfortunate penchant for genderising watches. You’ll find a bunch of them on watch websites and social media articulating their dissatisfaction with the lack of choice for women, the sexist advertising, and the age-old practice of adorning watches with diamonds and calling them ‘ladies watches’.
In February, Cara Barett, a staffer at the influential New York-based online watch magazine Hodinkee, wrote that she found the category of women’s watches “especially pointless”. Barett was referring to “the category of so-called men's watches that are simply shrunken, bedazzled, and quartzified for the ladies.”
And if you are on Clubhouse, you might want to follow Watch Femme. Founded earlier this year by Suzanne Wong, editor-in-chief of World Tempus, and PR professional Laetitia Hirschy, its mission is to “to bring more female perspectives to fine watchmaking.”
Closer home, too, female watch enthusiasts, whose horological worldview goes beyond the Omega Constellation, have banded together to create communities on social media and are also part of watch enthusiast and collector communities such as RedBar Bombay.
Nidhi Aggarwal, AGM-Marketing at Mumbai Duty Free, who also heads the travel retailer’s watch category business, is one among them.
“I’ve had all the big boys — from Breitling to Panerai — but I find it odd that as a watch enthusiast, I have to turn towards the so-called men’s watches when I’m looking for a formal timepiece. Being gender-specific in a category of watches is quite unnecessary, and I hope brands realise this and come up with more inclusive and bolder options for women to wear. My current daily wear is a Corum Admiral and I see no reason for it to be slotted in the men’s collection, ” says Aggarwal.
Like Aggarwal, Vritti Jadwani has always been a watch person. So it was not surprising that the NIFT designer once worked with the Swiss luxury watchmaker Jaeger-LeCoultre. Jadwani’s collection includes, apart from a Reverso, Corum Bubble, a Panerai and a “bunch of Casio G-Shocks”, and she is on Instagram @watch_that_kalai. Both Aggarwal and Jadwani say that brands must learn to rethink how they talk to women. “If watchmakers educated women consumers on heritage of their brands and the craftsmanship involved in mechanical watchmaking, watches would be as desirable as shoes or handbags.”
While Aggarwal, who has just ordered a Dan Henry, is saving up for an IWC Portugieser, Jadwani hopes to be able to acquire a Panthere de Cartier (mini model) very soon.
And even as they put money aside for their next big purchase, they would be glad to know that both of BWC’s upcoming launches — the second generation Mach 1 and a brand new sports watch collection — have had their case sizes rationalised to 40mm.
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