Julianna Wanner was at dinner with a prospective client last October. She noticed his Rolex. “Cool Datejust,” she said. He’d bought it when his own company hit $1 million in revenue. They traded watch stories, and she landed the client. That one deal pushed her past her revenue target for the quarter. Wanner, 31, sells advertising in Los Angeles. She told the Journal’s Tara Weiss the watch talk is what built the rapport.
She’s part of a trend with numbers behind it. Chrono24, a big online marketplace for luxury watches, says American sales of women’s watches have more than doubled over three years and more than quadrupled over six. Cartier is the brand women spend the most on there, and its share is still climbing. Dimepiece, a site for women who love watches, launched in 2020 and has around 62,000 Instagram followers. Its founder, Brynn Wallner, said the industry had missed her as a customer when she was about to turn 30.
The watch is a key. The door is the conversation. Nicole Cost is an executive at Bank of America (BAC) in Greenwich, Conn., who works with wealthy clients on trusts and estate planning. Three watches take turns on her wrist. A Hermès H08 in brushed titanium, $7,500. A 1984 Rolex Datejust with a blue Roman-numeral dial, about $6,000. A 1950s Rolex Oysterdate Precision, about $4,750. One client wore a Breitling Emergency, a $17,650 to $22,400 watch with a built-in distress beacon that skiers favor. She used it to open a talk about skiing. “It builds trust,” she said.
Milestones, with a ceiling
Erica Eckes, 29, a director of strategy at a tech company in Charlotte, N.C., bought her first serious watch for a promotion. A $6,795 Cartier Panthère, which she calls her gateway. The director title brought a Rolex Datejust, a model with an $18,000 retail price. At a dinner in an earlier job she noticed a Breitling Navitimer, a watch that can run to $54,000, on the wrist of her boss’s boss. They ended up comparing collections. Her next pick is an A. Lange & Söhne 1815 Up/Down at about $40,000, or a vintage Piaget stone-dial watch at $5,000 to $30,000. She turns 30 soon. Laurie Henneborn of Catalyst, which studies women at work, put the trend in one line. “It’s about social capital and who gets access.”
Our read
This one is Career, with a cash-flow footnote. Two of the women in the story tied each watch to a milestone. A promotion. A 30th birthday. Making director. That’s a good habit. The purchase has a reason, a date and a ceiling, so it can’t quietly become a monthly hobby. The vintage route also cuts the price hard. Cost’s 1984 Datejust cost about $6,000. A new Datejust retails for $18,000. That’s about a third, for a watch with a better story. Buy used, buy once, and let it work for you in the room. Bank of America comes up here only as Cost’s employer. It’s held at weight in 11 books. Nothing added.
The one thing in your plan this touches is the fun-money line, the bucket for things you want and don’t need. This week, check that it exists and that it has a number on it. If a watch or any milestone gift is coming, set the ceiling before you shop, and pay from that bucket, never from the emergency fund. Then we’ll look at the rest of the plan together. A good plan gets checked on a clear day too.