Do you ever wonder why luxury watches usually have this "luxury" feeling about them? Like when you have those watches in your hands, you may not know anything about the brand, but you instantly know they are high quality and probably "expensive". On the contrary, a lot of affordable watches look good in photos but fall short in real life. They scream "affordability".
One of my design goals for Model One is to have this high quality feeling to the watch, and achieve this high quality at a much lower price point compared to the luxury offerings from name brands. This is obviously a big challenge. After all, if it is so easy, then why most affordable watches still feel so..."affordable"?
Being a watch enthusiast for 15 years, I have the opportunity to touch and feel watches ranging from $18 (yes, eighteen bucks) to $50,000. It helps me understand what constitute this feeling of extreme high quality in a watch. FYI if you are curious, it is not just one thing, it is a combination of pretty much all design elements - I'd save that for another post. But one thing for certain, all high-end watches have exquisite fit and finish.
With Model One, I have to say what we have actually achieved at its target price level exceeded my expectation. It's hard to make a quantified comparison, but I can almost guarantee Model One can compare comfortably with name brand watches in the $3,000-$5,000 range in fit and finish.
So today, I have decided to showcase what Model One looks like compared to a few other watches which, I believe, also punch way above their price points:
- The mighty Tissot PRX: a name brand watch at almost same price as Model One
- And the Christopher Ward the Twelve, another infamous micro brand watch at roughly 2 times Model One's price.
I'd leave your conclusion to yourself with the photos, but I have to say:
- Both the PRX and the Twelve are amazing watches for what they are. And of course, the Twelve is at least one level above the PRX in fit and finish
- There are a few things I can learn from the Twelve. But in terms of look and feel, Model One competes with it very very comfortably :)
