I went to one of the biggest watch fairs in New York, where I saw unreleased watches and was tempted to buy my first timepiece

• I attended WatchTime New York inside Gotham Hall over the weekend.
• I discovered why watchmakers, brands, and fans flock to the event.
• I’d even say that I became a fan of watches myself and am looking to buy one in the future.

Before getting into this story, I need to make one thing clear: I don’t own a watch.

It’s not because I dislike them or because I’m a member of Gen Z who can’t read analog. I’m just a 29-year-old millennial who relies on my phone a little too much — time-telling included.

On Sunday, though, I had the urge to change that.

I attended WatchTime New York, a multi-day event that brings watchmakers, brands, experts, and fans together to experience the latest timepieces on the market.

Almost instantly after entering, I’d felt like I’d joined an exclusive and luxurious club. I just needed to buy my own watch to secure a membership.

Here’s what it was like inside.

WatchTime New York is a small but impactful convention of sorts.

The event is held each year at Gotham Hall in Midtown. It’s mainly a chance for brands to showcase their coming launches and let fans see them up close.

Some brands also sell watches at the event and offer waiting lists, allowing shoppers to reserve specific pieces for the future.

I attended this year on Sunday, the third day of festivities.

There was a short line of attendees waiting outside on a red carpet when I arrived about 15 minutes before the event started.

Once I joined, I overheard chatter about how Sunday is “the best day to go” for that exact reason: smaller crowds.

The event space was packed with brand activations, including some from luxury brands that even the most casual watch fan might recognize.

Upon entering, I was given a brief tour of the event floor by WatchTime editor in chief Roger Ruegger.

As a newbie to the watch world, I needed (and appreciated) this introduction. I didn’t know where to start. That said, the average attendee would have no problem finding their way around.

Most independent brands were positioned to the right, while most prestige brands, such as Chopard and Piaget, were in the middle.

There were also small spaces upstairs and in a lounge room where more brands were tucked away. I recognized Greubel Forsey (a favorite of Mark Zuckerberg), Citizen, Breguet, G-Shock, and a few others, but even as a senior style reporter who’s been covering fashion, including people’s favorite watches, for eight years, I had a lot to learn about the rest.

Trying on watches was extremely fun.

Hautlence, a luxury Swiss brand, was my first stop once I joined the crowd on my own.

There, a representative introduced me to a purple Sphere Series 3 watch. He said that only 28 are made in each colorway before production ends.

He let me try on the piece, which costs 69,000 Swiss francs, or about $87,683. It was far lighter than I expected and unique in design. At each hour, a metallic ball spins and reveals the time.

Admittedly, the watch wasn’t my style, but I could understand the brand’s appeal overall.

Founded in 2004, Hautlence emerged to bring avant-garde designs to the luxury watch space. The brand’s signature is thick, rectangle-shaped watches, though it has also experimented with futuristic technology, such as a watch that can be shaped into a small robot.

I saw a range of products — from handcrafted watches that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to a $2,900 timepiece made from recycled materials.

I found the latter style at Oris, an independent watch brand from Hölstein, Switzerland.

The 121-year-old company is known for its mechanical designs and certified climate-neutral status, which it achieved in 2021.

A brand representative told me that its upcycled watches each have unique faces, as they’re made with recycled plastic.

A one-of-a-kind watch that costs under $3,000? It seemed like a solid deal to me.

Watch collectors seemed especially excited about the rare pieces on-site.

During my tour with Ruegger, he showed me a new Armin Strom piece, limited to 15 pieces worldwide.

It features two balances that oscillate in opposite directions, which is a rare feature. The longer the watch runs, Reugger said, the more synchronized the balances become.

Naturally, I struggled to understand the mechanisms and physics that make it work. Luckily, Reugger said he felt the same way. All I really needed to know was that I was witnessing the watchmaking equivalent of magic.

Soon enough, I wanted a timepiece of my own.

A baby-pink watch with a mother-of-pearl face caught my eye.

The timepiece was from the British company Fears, one of the lower-priced brands at the event. Its watches range in price from $3,000 to $5,000.

The pink style I tried on has not yet been released to the public, but once it is, it will be priced in the middle of that range.

I adored its unique colorway, materials, and fashion-forward look. It was a bit too large in shape for my wrist, but I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I left.

A pink watch might just be in my future.

It wasn’t the fancy timepieces or prestige brands that really caught my attention. It was the watch collectors I met.

The initial draw of this event might be the exclusive opportunities to see new watches.

However, for shoppers, experts, and newcomers alike, the most valuable aspect of the event appears to be its opportunity for connection — a key aspect of securing coveted watches.

I saw countless people taking photos of each other’s timepieces, introducing each other to new brands, and exchanging information to connect in the future.

The same went for the attendees I met, like Julia Gray and Eli Mensch. They were eager to show me the Omega watches they were wearing and share their vast knowledge about the industry.

They were also just two of the many people I met who predicted I’d “get bitten by the bug” before the day ended.

I learned a ton — and I think the experts there did too.

Before attending WatchTime New York, I assumed that the crème de la crème of watches always comes from brands like Rolex and Patek Philippe. Now, though, I know that watch collectors are more often drawn to the brands that speak to them.

Most booths seemed equally busy, with small crowds forming almost nonstop. At times, I had difficulty edging my way in to see watches up close.

The standout company seemed to be MB&F, or Maximilian Büsser & Friends. Though I’d never heard of the luxury Swiss brand before the event, it quickly moved to the top of my radar.

Reugger described the brand to me as the “superstar of independent watchmaking,” with Büsser himself being “a rockstar.” Almost everyone I met later said they were interested in visiting its booth.

So naturally, I took their cue and stopped by. Though its watches weren’t exactly my style, I realized one thing while browsing its timepieces: I had, indeed, been bitten by the watch bug.

I might not have bought a watch on Sunday, but that wasn’t really the point. Instead, I was turned into a potential buyer, or at the very least, a fan.

As one person told me, with no pun intended, it was about time.

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