You may remember I wrote a post called 'Women and Watches' in May last year, which focused on the increased levels of luxury watch advertising appearing in women's magazines. This struck me when we were away somewhere and I happened to flick through my wife's copy of Marie Claire to kill time while waiting for her to do something or other... and it really did surprise me just how much was going on in there. Tudor had a full page ad, as did Mondaine and Omega had a double spread. Then there was several pages of editorial photo shoots featuring among others TAG Heuer.
So apparently chicks dig watches now! Of course I already knew this because my wife has a pretty decent collection of her own. Indeed, this post has been so long in the making that her collection has actually more than doubled in size since I started writing it! And of course I'm all for it... what could be better than a wife who shares your all consuming hobby?
Yes sure, I still get the occasional rolling eyes when I talk about purchasing another piece, but I'm sure it would be a whole lot worse if she didn't have an interest herself and it sure made our visit to the TAG Heuer manufacture in 2018 a whole lot more interesting for her.
WK1313-0
It all started about 15 years ago, when I decided to buy my wife a 2000 Series for her birthday. I had recently bought my first TAG Heuer (my F1 Kirium) and I had seen her peering at the blue dial 2000s in the cabinet in Goldsmiths, so a few days before her birthday I took her shopping and fooled her by walking straight past the door, before turning around and dragging her inside. She was pretty taken aback, but very happy and she's loved that watch ever since. It's still in very good condition, the polished over-riders on the bezel are a bit scratched up but other than that it's excellent. I noticed the lume is still pretty strong as well when I was putting it away after taking this picture.
962.215
Of course, my wife kept her blue 2000 for best, but it wasn't long before she started thinking about getting a pre-owned one to wear to work... so her next piece was this grey dial 2000 which she bought off eBay for just under £200 (IIRC). Unfortunately a few years after she got it we were out on a country walk and she tripped and fell while wearing it, which scratched the glass and scuffed the clasp. She lived with it like that for a long time until it started losing time and needed a service and at that point she decided she might as well get the sapphire replaced and here it is looking as good as new.
WAH1314.BA0867
The collection stayed largely unchanged for nearly a decade, until 2014 when my wife and I came into a little bit of money unexpectedly and she suggested we both buy a watch! Don't know where that came from but it cost me as the watch I settled on (the Aquagraph) cost more than the windfall... ah well. My wife on the other hand had her eye on this lovely steel and ceramic Formula 1. They made several different models of this with varying amounts of diamonds, some had diamond bezels and one had a circle of diamonds in the centre of the dial. My wife liked that one but they didn't make it in the smaller size and my wife has very small wrists so she settled for this one.
I really like this watch, every time I take it out of the box to change the date I am super impressed by the ceramic bracelet and the overall design. They do of course make something very similar in a 41mm, but it doesn't work as well at that scale in my opinion.
Oris Artelier Silver Skeleton
What.... the hell! Yes indeed, it's not a TAG Heuer! I know I was as shocked and appalled as you are, but truth be told this is a gorgeous watch and it's all TAG's fault at the end of the day. Y'see, when I bought my Carrera Heuer 01, my wife said that if they made a ladies version of that she would buy it. Of course, they never did and since they didn't have any ladies skeleton watches for her to buy, when this one popped up at a discounted price it was game over.
We found this one at the 'Artelier' store at Bicester Village, which has since closed down. They had a good selection of watches in there over the years including Breitling, Maurice Lacroix, Chopard and Porsche Design, but this the only thing we ever bought there.
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Hmm, this was the third 'diamond' watch in a row, and what a beauty! This one features a stunning purple Guilloche dial with diamond hour markers and not only that, it's an unusual one made only for the Chinese market. It's not a limited edition or numbered, but it's pretty scarce and very hard to find any details on the internet about it.
This is one of the joys of Bicester Village, you just never know what you are going to find... if I remember correctly I visited the store alone and described it to my wife when I got home and then we went all the way back a few days later to see it and she decided she wanted it straight away.
It's another beautiful watch, but the date window is so ridiculously small it really might as well not be there. That dial is really nice though...
WAA1412.BA0760
My wife was looking for an Alter Ego for a while, but she wanted to expand her range of dial colours so she didn't want the common or garden blue or black models. She settled on the pale pink but found it hard to find one to buy, until she found this at a Cash Converters in Wakefield.
They weren't keen to haggle, but my wife got them to drop it a little bit and she left with it, complete with barrel box for £280. The bracelet is a pain in the butt to size, as it has tiny little screws holding it together and the TAG Heuer boutique in Hull couldn't even help. Eventually she sent it off to be sized and at the same time she had it refinished (it was pretty scratched up to be fair) and it came back looking much, much better.
Another really cool watch, but what were they thinking with that crown. For a start it's completely smooth and where they put it the bracelet is totally in the way when you are trying to adjust the time - thank God it doesn't have a date!
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This one was actually purchased before the purple Link, but it had to sit in the box for six months waiting for our 25th Wedding Anniversary to arrive. We had planned to go to Geneva for our anniversary and had both been saving hard for that, when on a trip to Bicester Village we came across this Swiss 150th Anniversary model.
Years before we had seen a similar piece in the window and my wife had always regretted not buying it, so this time we had to be decisive. It was clear she loved it so I offered to buy it for her for our anniversary and she offered to pay for the holiday. What better gift could there be, it has several Swiss cities on the dial including Geneva and even though our holiday to Geneva was actually a few weeks before our actual anniversary I let her take it anyway.
Interestingly, in the buying post for this one I mention trying to get a post about my wife's watches finished.... it only took me another two years!
WA1415
My wife looked at classic Formula 1s for ages, eventually deciding against the resin strap versions and then flip-flopping between the pink and green colour schemes. Unfortunately finding either of those in good condition was a very frustrating experience, not helped by shady sellers on eBay using generic pictures of the watches they were trying to sell rather than photos of the actual watch they had to sell!
In the end she took a chance on buying from the USA and scored a really tidy piece, although when I took it out of the box I was horrified at how short the bracelet was and started searching eBay for spare links; however, when she tried it on it was way too big for her tiny wrist! At least she didn't have to wait to long for this one as it arrived just a few days before her birthday.
WG141C
I came across this one on eBay last Summer and sent my wife a link to it, often these emails don't get much response but this one was met with much excitement. I'd been looking at red S/ELs for myself for ages, but the prices were always over the top. This though was listed with some really poor photos, but an attractive opening bid of £300... and after some nail biting, that is exactly what she ended up paying.
This is a great watch, albeit a very, very small one. I think it's 25mm or thereabouts... I took a photo of it next to my 45mm Carrera Heuer 01 once, which was rather hilarious. Since then I managed to get my own red S/EL so now we have a matching pair.
WL1316
I bought this as a surprise for my wife, and when it turned up it was a bit of a mess. I spent a good bit of time polishing it up though and it came out pretty darned good in the end. My wife loves it as well, but I knew she would because she had been looking at these on eBay on and off for a long time.
These Kiriums really do have the most gorgeous blue dials and the Mercedes hand set looks great against it, I do like the later Kirium hands, but these look great too.
WBD1316.BA0740
So that's watch number ten, which is almost the end, but not quite because in another few days the green Aquaracer can finally come out of the cabinet. Yes it's very nearly my wife's 50th birthday and at last she can get her hands on her WBD1316. And that really is a beautiful watch, pity they only made a few and they've all gone now.
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