Should I Buy Men or Women Luxury Watches ?

If you’re thinking about investing in a luxury watch, there’s something you should know: The secondary watch market has been falling post-pandemic. The Bloomberg Subdial Watch Index, which tracks the prices of the 50 most traded watch models by transaction value, has declined 40.1% in the last 24 months. In the last 12 months, prices of 48 out of the 50 watches the index tracks have dropped—not a good sign for the health of the pre-owned luxury watch market.

However, there is some early indication that luxury watch prices are stabilising. Of the 50 most traded watches, 2 watches saw their prices appreciate in the past 12 months. The first was the Rolex GMT Master II “Pepsi”, nicknamed so for its red and blue bezel. If you know anything about luxury watches or have read our guide to investing in luxury watches, this isn’t a huge surprise.

As far as I know, and based on a quick poll I did of family and friends around me, it’s a common belief that watches for ladies are worth less than watches for men. Heck, even I thought so too, until I spoke to Stephanie and Deborah. It turns out this is untrue—just because a watch is labelled as “for men” doesn’t guarantee its value.

“Certain brands make big ‘male’ watches that do poorly too, in terms of monetary value. They can even depreciate up to 70%, which is almost as much as a ‘female’ quartz watch!” Stephanie tells me. Generally, quartz movements tend to be less expensive and are more commonly associated with women’s watches than men’s watches.

Instead of a superficial gender label, the real factors that determine the value of a watch are its movement, design, and aesthetic. A question Deborah posed was: Can it stand the test of time such that it remains relevant year after year and people still want to own one? Let me give you an example of a watch that has done a remarkable job of standing the test of time. Stephanie and Deborah are fans of the Cartier Crash, perhaps Cartier’s most distinct watch. Its unique asymmetrical watch face might make you recall Salvador Dalí’s 1931 surrealist painting of the melting clocks, The Persistence of Memory, but the appeal of the Cartier Crash more often stems from the urban legend of its origins.

It turns out the Crash was just a novel watch design that was trying its best to stand out in the swinging 60s when non-conformism was already rampant. It stood out then in 1967, and it continues to stand out now almost 60 years later. As Cheryl Chia of Revolution Watch writes, “the Crash is indeed one of the rare instances of watch design that is deeply rooted in its era yet astonishingly transcendent of it.”.

As unconventional as it is inimitable, the appeal of the Cartier Crash transcends history and time—what more the antiquated notions of gender in watches. Sure, the diamond-studded, blinged-up Crash is more commonly associated with women than men, but you cannot tell me that this is a watch for ladies and ladies alone—not in today’s modern world at least. As Deborah said during our interview, “Give the men a chance! They might have it too.”

Deborah was on to something—the Crash has been spotted on the wrists of male celebrities like Tyler, the Creator, Kanye West, Jay-Z, and Timothèe Chalamet.