This series of articles has been triggered by recent discussions about the world of fake watches.
Ever since I got into watches and first started exploring videos on YouTube I got the message that ‘Fake watches are bad’.
In my head, it immediately made sense that fake watches can’t be great, because you are stealing another brands intellectual property. I don’t need anyone to explain or prove to me why this is wrong.
But there was another side to my thoughts that felt that if you are knowing buying a fake watch you were likely never in the market for a real one anyway, so its not like you are taking food out of the mouths of Rolex workers.
I also thought, ‘You know what? If these factories in China can make fakes that are almost indistinguishable from the real thing, then fair play to them!
Maybe Rolex should up their game or question their price tags if China is doing what they do for a fraction of the cost?
Add to this the fact that I am all for the democratisation of the watch world. I think this hobby should be as accessible as possible and shouldn’t just be an upper class sport.
But then I was hearing people link fake watches to terrorism and child labour, which is a whole different conversation in my mind.
That’s serious stuff and I would absolutely be avoiding anything linked to these activities, but I also don’t just accept what I’m told without knowing the facts and information sources myself.
So that’s what I plan to do over the next few weeks.
I want to start exploring the fake watch industry and find out exactly where the links to unethical practices comes from so I can make my own informed decision regarding these watches.
Now, in the title I ask ‘Are Chinese watches bad?’ not ‘Are fake watches bad?’, because I actually think the conversation goes deeper than just fakes.
Ali Express is filled with a mixture of fakes, homages and original designs, all being sold side-by-side.
Surely it’s not inconceivable that these watches are made side-by-side also?
If we are going to condemn fakes do we need to do the same with all of these cheaper Chinese watches? The San Martin’s and Pagani Design’s?
I want to ask other questions which I believe are all wrapped up in the same debate….
Do ethics come at a price?
Does the eastern watch industry suffer from western stigmatisation and an anti-China agenda?
Is Chinese manufacturing such a deeply integrated part of the watch world, that bigger problems arise that effect more than just Ali Express?
What evidence can we trust when everyone has an agenda in the watch game?
I need to split this up into a series of posts as I want to do the subject justice and come at it from as unbiased a stand point as I am able, so I will gradually work through it point by point and then eventually pull it all together.
The aim of this isn’t to prove a point one way or another, it’s simply to put together information so watch enthusiasts can come to their own conclusions and make informed decisions.
If there are any aspects of this topic you would particularly like me to cover, then let me know.
Kaysia.
The Escapement Room 
I like the fact you differentiated between Chinese watch brands and Fake watches from China, and yes I believe proper Chinese watch companies do suffer from the stigma labelled at watches made in China.
I personally have always heard from watch guru’s and aficionado’s that Seagull 1963 is the best mechanical watch out there for the price point. Diving further you can find brands with great specs and movements, Seagull not withstanding… like Ciga Design, Longio, Memorigin etc.
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I’m not 100% sure about this and its application to this article, but here it goes; I taught design in China to Chinese students for three summers and have some observations. The Chinese students I worked with were very literal thinkers and had a difficult time to think abstractly. If you asked them to design a specific product they would draw a known example of that product. To be honest, most students anywhere have a difficult time thinking abstractly when they first begin (I have taught in the US for more than 30 years, I have also taught in Germany). I did find that literal thinking was the most prevalent among Chinese students. It’s difficult to bring a fresh product to market when you can only think about what is currently there. This is were I might go slightly off the rails with my hypothesis; The written Chinese language is made up of many very specific symbols each of which is a complete idea. The word “tree” is a single character, “tree by a river” is the combination of those two characters. Compare that to western languages which use a set of characters (the alphabet) which can be combined in many ways to mean different things. Western language is built for abstract thinking. It is a small step to realize that simply making a watch look like a watch is most likely the result.
I may not have crafted this in a particularly compelling way, but I think there is a trace os something here.
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This is really interesting actually, and fits perfectly with something I’ve just read in “Poorly made in China”. In it there is a story that talks about how much the Chinese manufacturing industry values designs from abroad. They struggled to create their own so would put in a lot of effort to… ‘appropriate’ designs from elsewhere. Your observations fit very well with that!
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