Why watch customisation is a rising trend

Jan 18 , 2019

Bamford Watch Department personalised a Zenith El Primero in matte black with a grey dial and orange accents.

Brands like Bamford Watch Department and Blaken offer personalisation services to make your watch truly unique

There used to be a time when owning a luxury watch was good enough. Not any more. Now, in an age of mass-market consumption, it’s about going beyond the norm. People want something that’s truly theirs.

“We are all striving to find that true luxury item in a mass-market world and personalisation of mass-market products is one way to find that item,” says George Bamford, CEO of Bamford Watch Department (BWD). “We are all individuals and I believe that our clothes, jewellery and watches should represent who we are as individuals.”

A few watch brands, like Bulgari, Jaeger-LeCoultre and Baume (Baume et Mercier’s edgier and more affordable younger brother), have tuned into this trend and offer customisable options for certain lines.

A Zenith Pilot Ton-Up gets customised in matte black with an aqua blue dial by the Bamford Watch Department.

Companies specialising in third-party customisation have popped up to take advantage of this niche but growing market, including BWD, Blaken, MAD Paris and Titan Black.

“I have always been excited by the watches I own but one evening, I was at a dinner and I spotted that most people were wearing the same watch as me. I wanted my watch to be different so I started modifying it myself,” says Bamford, who owns Breitlings, TAG Heuers, Omegas and Rolex Datejusts, just to name a few.

That passion soon turned into a business – the Bamford Watch Department, which was established in 2003.

Personalisation in the luxury industry is nothing new. “You see personalisation across all fields within the luxury industry, from cars to clothes – it is a general trend,” says Alexander Klingbeil, CEO of Blaken.

Bamford says, “Personalisation and the watch industry are becoming more hand in hand nowadays and you can see it in a number of brands [that] are personalising straps, cases and dials.” He adds, “We have a motto which is ‘If you can imagine it, we can create it’, and we love it when clients come to us inspired by something they have seen, like the colour of a car or even a lipstick.” And when the sky’s the limit, clients tend to get creative, going beyond just changing the colour of the dial or applying Super-LumiNova onto the hands or indices. Blaken, for example, has had clients from the Middle East requesting the faces of their relatives on the dial.