More like gifted to them by their ex husband in the settlement. I've given my sister a couple of good running condition watches that I bought only because I could get them dirt cheap but which turned out to be very nice watches for a lady. One is a gold 60's Bulova ladies self winding, the other a Benrus 25mm in gold with ruby and rhinestone markers which was far to gaudy for my taste , more suited to a lady. She's not a collector but she now likes to see the fine watches found on this board and asks intelligent questions about vintage time pieces. Many of the older 35mm or smaller mens watches are very well suited to modern ladies. My Midland while a man sized case has a rather small dial for its size in a pearl like luster that would look very nice on a woman's wrist. The boys size watches would also double as a ladies watch especially for outdoor use. My old Ingraham 25mm is listed in their catalog as being for men boys or women, the only differences being the color and length of the band.
There’s a table with about 30 expensive watches bought by a woman who’s a successful business woman, she spends several minutes talking about the “hunt” and how obsessive she is with the details, explains what drew her to several unusual examples, and talks about her discussion with someone who works at FP Journe, and the only thing you hear is when she mentions 3 of those 30 watches that were presents from ex-boyfriends? Not only is this incredibly sexist but also quite paternalistic. Can’t you guys take it if a strong independent woman finds meaning in a relationship that’s not marriage? What I resent about all those media selections of collectors is that they go out and pick female collectors who are mostly drawn to expensive bling watches— indeed giving a completely skewed and vapid picture of what it is to be a female collector. But that is indeed the bias of watch writers, they mostly cater to the wealthy and the contents consequently amounts to a complacent self congratulation of people basking in superfluous luxury.
The thing is, most women have zero f--- to give about watches, model trains, stereo equipment, cars, TVs, you name it. That they let us, that says more about them than us.
@Syrte As I mentioned earlier the interviewee could have been male and my impression would have been the same. Thus the opinion is not based on the gender of the interviewee but on the content of the interview or at least the way Hodinkee presented her. That video spent a considerable amount of time discussing how she “acquired” some of those watches not by “hunting” for them but by receiving them as gifts from what sounded like people she barely knew. One of those individuals literally gave her the AP off his wrist after a couple dates...Another ex pleaded with her to buy the watch back but she refused. She may be a successful businesswoman but she was certainly presented by Hodinkee as self-absorbed.
I didn't see anything in that Hodinkee video that made me think that the interviewee was more shallow and a less informed collector than the vast majority of those appearing on Talking Watches. It was nice to hear someone openly state that the watches were jewelry for once.
@Rasputin And yet, you felt no reason to comment on any of the other times Talking Watches guests (or even whole threads discussing the shallow nature of the segment) were deridded as shallow and self-centered. Just this one.
You say it would have been the same if she were a man passing himself off as a collector with watches that were gifted. But why is your impression that the collection was gifted when only three out of a table of several dozens are a gift? Would your « impressions » have gotten the math wrong with a man? You say she spends considerable amounts of time discussing the gifts etc etc. I challenge you to make an objective count of how many seconds / minutes she spends discussing gifts vs the rest. Yes she says one man gifted the watch after their second date or some such thing. What’s on display is not her personality, it’s the world in which a man treats a 15K watch like a trinket. Do you have the same « impression » of vapid fakeness when the exact same men posture with expensive cars or post pictures of themselves on yachts or at luxury events or with expensive food— and where do we find those posts of you deriding them?
Disregarding the comments about how the interviewee acquired several watches from exes she presents very little substance about watch collecting in that video. No different than those men that posture in front of their expensive cars and yachts but know little about their mechanics and history beyond what the salesmen told them. That type of behavior is so passé that to comment further about it is like beating a dead horse. This Hodinkee video tried to pass this relative rarer female watch collector as something special but presented her as little more than those vapid men. And let’s not conflate paternalism with sexism.
Well, I watched the video and I don't understand the critical comments, they really do seem sexist. I don't really appreciate her taste, but she is definitely a legitimate collector, and the gifting of watches represents only a very small part of the video. There is much more about the specific details she appreciates, how she hunts the watches, etc.
Since no one took up my challenge I went back to the interview with pen in hand— and the facts are in. I could count 19 watches shown on a cropped picture of that table. Four watches being discussed have stories connected to boyfriends— a total of 1 min and 30 seconds in a video of 9 min 47 seconds. But 15 seconds of those are repeated at the beginning to tease the rest, so it’s actually 1 min 15 seconds of content. Three of those watches are mentioned in response to a question or prompt. - what was your first watch (first serious relationship gift), what’s this Rolex Hulk (gift she picked), what watch brings you most joy (gift from current boyfriend- who surprisingly loaned then gifted his AP on their second date.) Not surprisingly, the interview highlights that stories make watches interesting—which obviously reveals why Hodinkee selected out those stories that are tied to relationships. But interestingly that should be what disqualifies the interviewee as a fake collector? should it be deemed more “profound” to talk about the minutiae of how they’re made mechanically? Another interesting story nobody here seems to have noticed is the one where she speaks of her difficult relationship with her father. Funny to note the next item on You Tube is talking watches with John Meyer. Starts again with video of expensive race car, and the interviewee winding a watch and saying “when a watch winds this crunchy (sound)... you can tell the gears are brand new”. Wow. That is profound.
I got so offended by the comments in this thread that I had to put on my DVD set of the Kardashians to reset my moral compass*. *That was a mixture of sarcasm with a heavy dose of sardonic...just in case anyone too busy virtue-signaling and feigning offense doesn't notice.
The feeling is mutual. Nowadays it seems some can find offense in just about anything said relating to gender. Speaking of which...I notice your face-palm meme is of a male. Are you suggesting a female is not sophisticated enough to feel the same way?
I'm face palming at the willful ignorance it takes to call the admonishment of sexist attitudes on this forum "virtue signaling". As I said in the beginning of the thread, I had hoped OF was better than this.
Likewise I'm face-palming the hair-splitting overly sensitive reactions to basically harmless critiquing of a Hodinkee video. "Willful ignorance" and "sexist attitudes" as reactions to posts in this thread is way over the top and virtue-signaling at best. Pandering would be next best. No one here was disrespecting the female gender.
