WatchPro Watch of The Year- A Karltastrophe

WatchPro, the UK’s main B2B magazine for the watch industry has today announced the winners (and therefore losers), of its annual Watch of The Year competition. Split into 10 categories, including luxury watch of the year and rising star of the year, the competition highlights some of the finest wrist watches available in today’s market.

Until today.

I have been waiting with anticipation to see which brand would win the Fashion Watch of The Year category. Undoubtedly the shortlist would be led by entries from the Fossil Group as, however much I try to hate them, they consistently produce beautiful, on-trend, brand appropriate watches. There’s your Micheal Kors, your Marc by Marc Jacobs as well as Diesel’s obnoxious looking Grand Daddy and the ostentatious yet undeniably pretty Stella from Juicy Couture. Nothing really to my taste but solid commercial pieces nevertheless.

 Juicy Couture's Stella, £464.07 here

Diesel's Grand Daddy, stomping in at £949 here

Then there’s the category winner. Now I can only hope that there’s something awful in the water at WatchPro towers as the winning watch has to be one of the ugliest, poorly designed and lazily thought through products I have seen this year. The winning watch, Karl Lagerfeld’s Karl Zip is as odd and assuming as the man himself and most annoyingly, functions very poorly as a readable wrist watch. 

The Karl Zip, £595 worth of 'edgy'

Yes, the adjustable zip strap is a bit different to your standard single or even wraparound strap but the whole piece, as per the whole collection, is just trying too hard to be edgy. Black leather! Minimal detailing! Studs! Enough.

This is something I’d expect to see on a High Street retailers ‘punk’ trend board, not the very best fashion watch the UK can muster.

 I’m sorry WatchPro, but this time, you got it wrong

As I’ve mentioned before, I am not a fan of Mr.Lagerfeld. I don’t like the way he bullies those he doesn’t deem perfect enough to fit into his high fashion ideal and his hypocritical body-fascism but I do acknowledge that he is a credible and very talented fashion designer. He’s the man behind my favourite watch and my favourite fashion house. I’m disappointed in him. Like a distant family member, I don’t really care for him but I know he is better than his horrible watch collection.

 Karl, being Karl.

Since launch in November last year, it has been impossible to escape Fossil’s PR assault to thrust the Karl Lager watch collection into the public's consciousness. The WatchPro win is probably just another tactic in the licensing giants’ marketing machine strategy. However, bombardment marketing will only get you so far. The flashy website and high profile press love will only get your product our there, it's wallet zips and website shopping basket clicks that are the real mark of a brands' success. 

Several watch buyer friends of mine has lamented they've had to reduce their range options of the brand as stock just isn’t shifting. In fact, I've never actually seen anyone wearing anything from the collection, which, considering you can't move for  Michael Kors chronograph, speaks volume.

As usual, it’s another of style over substance. The general public are too wise for this. they know when they're being sold a dud. They know when a product is just an exercise in ego (Karl's face is on the CROWN for chrissake). So you can have your competition WatchPro, you can have your marketing prowess Fossil Group because this time the wallet zippers are staying shut. 

The wrists have spoken.