COVID-19 and the end of the dress watch
I remember when the reality of this wretched disease first hit me. It was the 25th of January, 2020 - the eve of Chinese New Year. Being in the healthcare industry I've been following the news about the Wuhan Virus (it was called that back then) intently.
Word was it came from some animal wet market - livestock were cooped up, treated like commodity and slaughtered on demand under unacceptable conditions. It seemed like a local problem. The world was not ready for what was coming.
Fast forward to now and we're all probably still reeling from the effects of the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19). It is the first virus to go woke, but more importantly, it is the nail in the coffin for many watch collector's dress watch collection.
Like many around the world, I have moved to a largely home-based work environment - web conferencing and remote meetings take over the board meetings and off-site traveling. Work has been condensed to short bursts of time instead of the long drawls determined by the movement of the sun.
The sports watch became the better watch of choice for my new lifestyle. I was dressed casually most of the time, and on days where there were no online meetings I didn't even need to dress out of the home casuals. Bezels, lume and 22mm lugs were commonplace in my rotation - just look at my Instagram feed.
At the end of the week I would look at the dress watches I have and let out a huge sigh - they do not deserve this neglect.
So if you're like me, guilty of choosing the more flexible sports watch over the sophistication of a good dress piece, do what I promise to do from now. Throw on a shirt, strap on a classy sonnabitch dress watch, and go sit yourself down to some coffee while you thumb through Hodinkee and add a $6,000 travel clock to your cart.