I can't remember the specifics, however on a S&E show a few nights back I happened to hop on to the channel just as they were giving the 'background story' to the watch, where it took its design cues from etc. I mean this not against whoever they were referring to (the person in the back story), however I just sat there thinking 'what the heck does this have to do with the watch we're looking at?!?' It was a story about someone who'd climbed the world's 10 tallest mountains in 10 minutes and then dived to the bottom of the world's 10 deepest oceans and lakes in 5 minutes (ok it wasn't but you get the gist) and the guest from the (Field?) family went on to say along the lines of 'yes, and this was the inspiration behind the watch, in its design and build.'
Genuinely, there was NOTHING that would make you think of the person in the back story, or mountaineering, or diving, looking at the watch. Nothing. Zilch. It was just yet another generic looking watch.
Although I tend not to like products being linked to a back story (because it's often a tenuous link with little representation in the product itself) I don't mind if you think 'yeah, I suppose I can see that.' However in this case, no correlation whatsoever.
The thing is, because the watches themselves having no stand out features, just basic generic Ali express type watches, they have to try hard to make them sound appealing or distinctive.
Now there are a quite few watches out there that have a story behind them, but it’s usually an actual story with a direct link to the watch in question, most obvious for most people would be Omega’s Speedmaster Moonwatch, original was worn by the Apollo 11 Astronauts, Bulova’s Lunar Pilot Moonwatch again was used by Dave Scott (Apollo 15) on the moon, or Gagarin’s watch, etc and as I say all these modern watches have a direct link to the story or are re-issues of watches from History.
The trouble with Swan & Edgar and a few other brands on IW, is there is they have no direct link to the past, whether that be the stories, history or heritage, it’s all a fabrication. Their main story overarching the brand is the Swan & Edgar store, survive 2 wars blah blah blah, but the Swan & Edgar watch brand, is only a few years old, they only registered the Swan & Edgar trademark they are using in 2017 and have no connection with the original store or company. Baby fields also claims to be a fourth generation watchmaker, that’s utter bullshit, Swan & Edgar don’t make watches, they are not watchmakers. They may get watches made for them, with their brand name on it, in some Chinese backstreet sweat shop & sell those watches, but that doesn’t make you a watchmaker or watchmaking brand, just listening to him spouting his nonsense for 5 minutes would convince anyone he knows very little about watches let alone be a watchmaker.
And in a similar vein, the stories behind the individual watches are again all fabricated nonsense, the tenuous links that they have created to give some sort of validity to the watch being called after a certain person, event etc is not only stupid but mind boggling stupid. All they’ve really done is taken a Name and invented some ridiculous connections as to why that particular watch celebrates its name.
With some of the guests on IW, you could say well it’s only a bit of exaggeration or they are just ignorant, but with Baby Fields it’s out and out deceit, he’s a conman pure and simple, yeah he exaggerates, yeah he’s ignorant but more importantly he lies, oh and Miss precision is not far behind him.
yes heard that one!
