How to get your Rolex to be even more exclusive - Moneycontrol.com

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Girard-Perregaux Laureato Ghost by Bamford.

You’ve just acquired a Tag Heuer Monaco and are justifiably proud of your decision. But since you are not the only person who owns one, you suddenly start spotting Monacos on one too many wrists during Zoom meetings and at socially distanced events. Is there a way to have a one-of-its-kind Monaco?

Well, if you have the cash, you could go to people like George Bamford, who runs an eponymous watch customisation firm in Mayfair, London. Bamford, 39, is the scion of the JCB construction dynasty, and the story of his custom outfit began, in a way, on his 21st birthday when he was gifted a Rolex Daytona.

Upon wearing it to a dinner party, he discovered that several other guests, too, had the very same model on their wrists. The young—and presumably, disappointed—Bamford spoke to the folks at his father’s company and, guided by them, experimented with Diamond-Like Carbon (DLC) coating on two used Rolexes and found that there were a lot of takers for his mods.

When he started Bamford Watch Department in 2004, George Bamford mostly tricked out Rolexes before moving on to other high-end brands, all of which were decidedly unimpressed with his cheeky modifications to their classic timepieces. But eventually some of them started coming around.

Today, Bamford Watch Department has a tie-up with LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, and customises select watch brands from its stable, including Zenith, Tag Heuer, and Bulgari. Customers can log on to the brand’s website and choose between a range of case coatings and dial colours, and tinker around, among others, with the colour of minute markers, batons and dial rings.

Late last year, Bamford also partnered with Girard-Perregaux to create his first solid white timepiece, based on the Laureato. The limited edition Laureato Ghost, which costs about Rs 11 lakh, has a case made out of white ceramic.

Bamford Watch Department is not the only watch customisation outfit around. MAD Paris embeds diamonds and engraves patterns on pre-owned luxury timepieces to make them stand out in spaces where they might be commonplace. In January, it reworked the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak by engraving it with intricate floral motifs. And last year, its tasteful reworking of a Rolex Datejust 41—matte black finish and a deep blue dial—attracted a lot of attention. Unlike Bamford Watch Department’s official tie-up with LVMH, customers purchasing MAD’s mods have to forgo the respective brands’ warranties.

That is not a problem with Porsche Design, though. The brand that rocked the 1970s with the Chronograph 1 has an extensive online configurator that offers up to “1.5 million possibilities.” Based on the Chronograph 1, the colour options for the watch are a hat tip to the Porsche 911’s interior and exte-rior colours and the rotors are inspired by the timeless sports car’s wheel designs. With a base price of about $5,000 your custom watch won’t come cheap, but you could rationalise the decision by telling yourself that it’s nowhere as pricey as a 911.

Or, you could simply have some fun with Casio mods, a ‘cheap and best’ way to project your individuality and the current hottest trend among watch enthusiasts.

“Earlier, we would mod Seikos, but now the Casio G-Shock fad has really taken off,” says Punit Mehta, busi-nessman and the Mumbai chapter lead of international watch collectors’ community RedBar.

“You buy a Casio G-Shock for about 100 dollars and change the case, strap etc to give it a new look. The GA 2100 or CasiOak is the current favourite due to its re-semblance to a legendary and virtually unattainable time-piece. It might not be highly exclusive and the kits, sourced out of southeast Asia, cost as much as the G-Shocks, but it is a fun way to build a cool product.” The Link Lonk


June 19, 2021 at 08:54AM
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How to get your Rolex to be even more exclusive - Moneycontrol.com

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