Watches With Watchers

KEEPING TIME WHEN WE CHECK OUT A LEADING COLLECTOR ON INSTAGRAM, WE SEE MORE THAN ALLURING TIMEPIECES. WE SEE A PASSION.

Anyone who’s obsessed with luxury watches knows it’s more than just a hobby. Watch collecting is a lifestyle. It involves constantly staying up-to-date on the latest models, technologies and brands. And along with the pages of ACCENT magazine and our store, Instagram has become an amazing resource for watch enthusiasts, whether you’re a newbie just starting out or a seasoned collector looking for tips.

So ACCENT rounded up a handful of the best and biggest watch influencers in the Instagram game. They’re not celebrities, but regular folks with impressive collections who know what pieces to buy and how to style them—and, of course, how to get their thousands of followers to engage with their content. Read on to see some of the best-of-the-best wrist candy on the ’gram, plus these influencers’ advice for collectors new and established.

@CHAMPSG, 37, AUSTRALIA.

Not just any watch influencer can get 9.1 million views on a wrist roll Reel. But Chamath Gamage, aka @champsg can. In fact, “wrist rolls” are the main attraction of Gamage’s Instagram account, which has amassed more than 85K followers since he began posting content regularly in 2016. Gamage’s passion for timepieces goes back even further—he admired his father’s and grandfather’s watches as a kid, and began his own collection with his first-ever purchase of a Seiko Kinetic in 2002, when he started college. Now, Gamage, who recently became a new dad, has more than 25 luxury pieces, his favorite being the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Ref. 15202. “In 2016 I went to Baselworld, but the AP factory was closed by the time we got there,” he tells ACCENT. “Lucky for us, the CFO of AP invited us for a tour next time we were in Le Brassus, Switzerland,” he says. “Three months later, I took him up on the offer and got a factory tour at the HQ with my wife.” There he made this purchase. “Had we not run into each other accidentally, I wouldn’t have been able to get my hands on this rare timepiece.”

As far as styling goes, Gamage wears bright shirts and jackets to make the watches pop, and chooses his watch of the day based on the occasion. “I’ll wear a dress watch like Audemars Piguet for formal black-tie events and leave the pilot/diver watches for more casual sportwear,” he says. “And I always match the color of the watch to my outfit.”

@VIVI.WATCHES, 30, NEW YORK CITY.

A childhood obsession with Swatch watches turned into a lifelong passion and career for Viviana Shanks, a former employee of Audemars Piguet who now works at watch site

Watchionista with her CEO husband, Josh Shanks. Vivi and Josh share not just a company but also a watch collection, as she prefers not to gender timepieces. “I don’t necessarily agree with the terms ‘men’s’ or ‘women’s’ watch,” she tells ACCENT. “A watch should be worn by someone who loves it.” She can’t pick just one favorite luxury watch brand—“that’s like asking a kid to choose just one candy at the candy store!” she jokes—but her one favorite piece is the rare Rolex GMT “Root Beer,” a recent 30th birthday present.

As for her Instagram account? “I started out of curiosity and because I wanted to follow the brand I was working for,” she says. “It began as a personal account, taking pictures from my iPod Touch, and I randomly started posting watches and my Instagram took off.” She says her followers respond best to content about “everything but me,” and engaging with the community when she has time has helped her account amass almost 10K followers. Keeping it simple and authentic helps too, she says. “No need to add dazzle [or other accessories] around your wrist; the watch will speak for itself,” she advises. “And be yourself. Hard-to-find watches are great, but if you don’t like them, why pretend?”

@NYCWATCHGUY, 35, NEW YORK CITY.

They say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem, and the anonymous, Manhattan-based creator of @nycwatchguy is the first to admit that his collection of 100+ watches is a bit excessive. But none of them merely sit in his high-security, insured vault—he wears every single one. “I try and give most of my watches some wrist time on a regular basis,” he tells ACCENT.

This collector’s favorite piece is his Gronefeld 1941 Remontoire Only Watch, which he won at the 2019 Only Watch auction. “I think it is the most perfect watch ever made,” he says, “and I don’t know if there is another watch that I will be enamored with quite like this one.” Another sentimental piece is the Zenith El Primero Chronomaster, his first mechanical watch purchase back in 2011, and his two from Maximilian Büsser & Friends, aka MB&F. “They make watches that really push the envelope in terms of design and, in many ways, make you reimagine what is possible with a watch,” he explains. This @nycwatchguy guy keeps his followers engaged by changing up his timepieces with “bad-ass straps,” posting memes and consistently sharing photos of interesting watches he spots.