Mens watches are going off!

[Lol-x]

Big time: Men's watches get bold

By JAMES H. BURNETT III AND KATHRYN WEXLER

http://www.miamiherald.com/tropical_...ry/249411.html

In grand American fashion, the more, bigger, better trend has caught fire in the form of men's watches.

Two years after jewelry industry prognosticators said that men's watches were passé, because more men were checking the time on their cellphones and PDAs than on their wrists, the men's watch business is booming. And it's all because of collectors, experts say.

While it is true that fewer Average Joes bought lower-priced watches in 2005 than the year before -- sales were $761 million nationwide, down from $800 million -- those numbers started climbing back up the end of 2006, and this year's sales are expected to top $788.5 million, according to retail market researchers Packaged Facts. By 2010, Packaged Facts predicts, men's watch sales in the United States should reach about $841 million.

NOT ABOUT TIME

The key to the comeback says Packaged Facts and Christie's, the auction house famous for selling high-priced stuff, has been guys like Scott Rothstein, a 45-year-old attorney in Fort Lauderdale.

CEO of the law firm Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler, Rothstein's personal collection of more than 120 timepieces is worth more than $2 million. If it was simply about telling time, he might very well sport a $50 Timex. But Rothstein does not care so much about telling time as he does about owning the absolute best and most uniquely engineered pieces around.

''I've been collecting watches for 15 years this year,'' says Rothstein, as he watch-shopped at Levinson Jewelers in Plantation, on a recent Tuesday afternoon. ``And I could just check my cellphone for the time, if that's all I wanted. But when you're into hoarding things, there's nothing more beautiful to have than a watch. If made right it's the perfect combination of science and art. Really, they're beautiful.''

You have to take the word of a man who's wearing a $65,000 Jaeger -- Le Couture watch as he speaks.

While Rothstein and Kanti Gopalji, gemologist and director of sales for Levinson Jewelers in Plantation, check out an array of watches, including a $382,000 Triple Bridge Turbine that is already part of Rothstein's personal collection, Rothstein explains, ``It's business as well as personal. These things . . . won't lose value. But back to the personal, if they are creative in design and well made, picking out a different watch to wear each day can be as fun as picking out a different set of clothing.''

Gopalji says that Levinson's sales have gone through the roof over the past couple of years, in spite of the national downturn in 2005.

''I've found the prices of the higher-end watches -- and we have time pieces priced for as little as $1,000 and as much as several hundred thousand -- did not deter male shoppers,'' Gopalji says. ``The men who are collecting are younger men. I don't mean the youngest, but certainly not seniors. And they are looking for unique time pieces, watches whose engineering is simply superior to the point of being artistic.''

ALL ABOUT STYLE

Another factor driving the men's watch market is style, Gopalji says. ``When you have watches that are so elegant, . . . they also look good. It is no different a mentality really than high-end automobiles. Sure people drive them because they're well made, but they're also very nice to look at.''

John O'Rourke, owner of Montica Jewelry in Coral Gables, says his experience has been similar. ''The watch market is exploding right now,'' says O'Rourke, a 25-year veteran jeweler. ``Production has just been incredible in watches because they've really become a fashion trend.''

Roseanne Morrison, fashion director of the Tobé Report, a retail consulting firm, pegs the rise of men's watches to 1999, when luxury group LVMH purchased Tag Heuer and created ad campaigns with Tiger Woods and Jeff Gordon. ''They invested so much money in it and that kind of raised the awareness,'' Morrison said.

With the profusion of slick ads and glowing editorials that followed, watches have become to men what handbags are to women. ''They've been getting so much press over the last five years in men's magazines,'' Morrison says, ``it's the status symbol for a guy.''

Freeze watches has teamed up with rap artists to make timepieces for fans. Those who want a piece of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony on their wrists, for instance, can now buy the Bones Watch, which with skull logo and 2.75 carats of diamonds costs $1,399.

Aficionados of furniture designer Piero Lissoni or architect Aldo Rossi can buy watches they designed.

And fashion types can buy watches by Dolce & Gabbana, Versace, Gucci and Michael Kors. Men's Fendi watches, which retail for less than $1,000, are so hot that vendors can't keep them in stock.

''They are over 170 percent oversold, so out of 10 watches I order, I'll only get three,'' O'Rourke says. ``Right now, the wait is 2 ½ to three months out.''

Even individual shops are angling for a piece of the upscale market. The Bozeman Watch Company in Montana, for instance, recently added 25 individually numbered watches with domed sapphire crystal, ''hand-placed'' roman numerals for $5,700.

With the industry of flashy timepieces so crowded, nabbing consumers' attention is half the battle. Dior enlisted actress Sharon Stone to help sell its black sapphire crystal and pavé diamonds watch by John Galliano. Chopard paid Russian soprano Anna Netrebko for ads.

PARTY TIME

Taking a more personal tack is Chopard, which recently threw a party in Miami for 100 men, serving them Dewar's 12 and oak-grilled filet mignon at the Forge restaurant.

Chopard's 19 timepieces from the limited edition L.U.C collection glowed under glass displays, notably, the Luna One, which even keeps track of leap years, for a cool $58,000. And to ensure the merchandise wasn't overlooked, models in evening gowns worked the crowds, men's watches on their wrists.

''Sometimes people are intimidated by a certain retail environment and we're hoping to break some of that down,'' says Mark Rushka, CEO of Chopard USA.

The newest wave of watches offers technological advances at prices much lower than in years past. Some have chronographs, a second hand indicating tiny intervals of time, and tourbillions, mechanisms that cancel out the effects of gravity that affect accuracy.

Watches under $1,000 now offer automatic movement, which means they are self-winding, a feature that used to cost thousands. But aside from getting more bang for the buck, men are being enticed to collect the timepieces by a shift in values, say some in the industry.

''Our father maybe had that one key watch that really meant something,'' O'Rourke says.

``Nowadays we tend to find that guys in general are getting into fashion as much as women and . . . really buying them as accessories.''