2016 Wrist Watch Trend Predictions and how it may affect the vintage market.

by Adam Dubilo
adamvintage.com

For anyone that has been paying attention, there has been a focus on three key changes in the luxury wrist watch category.  And this focus has a lot of force behind it.  They are; size, color options and new vs. nostalgic collections.  Yes indeed, over the past few years, size has been coming down to planet earth with most men and women alike preferring a more discrete luxury watch - which translates to a smaller size as we see in many new collections.   In fact, some very prominent manufacturers have crossed into the unisex world of watchmaking.  As a natural observer and working primarily in the business world, I've noticed much less dinner plate sized watches in 2015 covering the wrists of executives; which overpowers the wrist and cuffs.  Instead, business men have downsized and spent more money for a watch that could have been produced in the 1940s or 50s, excluding modern materials and new complications of course.  Why?... well first of all fashion styles change; and second, I think people finally started to realized that massive watches were being perceived as obnoxious and really only useful to the vision impaired or special operation forces.  

To summarize regarding size, my prediction for 2016 remains a steadfast continued trend toward smaller watches like we've seen in 2015 with very slow movement to downsize any further.  After all, even if demand for smaller watches spike - manufacturers in the luxury mechanical watch industry cannot pivot with great speed due to the nature and complication of what they produce.  

Color options are gaining some traction with the standard silver, white, black dials gaining some additional color highlights and blue dials making waves; just look at Patek's and Jaeger-LeCoultre's current offerings.  Trends for more color options will continue into 2016 with one caveat - and that leads us to the third and final major trend.

While some manufacturers, like Ulysse Nardin, are primarily focused on the use of new materials, designs and complications; others are more focused on bringing back the old and making them new again.  Yes, we've seen many
new collections emerge by highly prominent manufacturers which are designed with the nostalgic of the 1940s - 1970s.  Some even using the same caliber of movements from the original period.  I expect this trend to continue as more classical or vintage fashion trends continue to pick up speed. 

My prediction for 2016 and at least into 2018 is a strong vintage watch market with double digit price increases year over year for the foreseeable future.  This is due to the fact that the vintage watch market is currently undervalued (except for cult pieces) and since the trends mentioned above are a fit for vintage watches; and well made vintage watches are at a price much more affordable than their modern boutique counterpart...I think I've said enough.

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