Every year we have our "new year's resolutions", but given the holiday season has just ended, which is always filled with the standard commercialism and retail therapy, I thought it might be worthwhile to give my perspective on the subject. Specifically when we refer to a certain type of spending as "materialism" - this ties in nicely with the watch world, since 2016 was officially the worst year on record since the early 80's!

First, what is materialism?

It has now become common knowledge that this past year has been one of the worst on record for the watch industry. Data released by Bloomberg and the FHS (Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry FH) show that sales have dropped over 45% between 2015 and 2016, and the level of Switzerland’s watch exports dropped 11 percent during the first 10 months of the year.

Let me try to explain the whole "going over $5k for anything good" position, and then offer some suggestions.

The thing about the watch industry today, is that if you broadly look over the watches in the up-to-$5000 range, the overwhelming majority are almost like cookie cutter watches. 

That is to say, they have the same sugar daddy (Swatch or Richemont), all use generic ETA or Sellita movements, not their own in-house movements as many of these brands used to, and are focusing more on trends than actual watchmaking, again like many of these brands used to.

As a result, people like me will always recommend go vintage.