I Love the 90s, and You Should Too
An Underappreciated Era Revisited: Part I
This is the first in a multi-part series on the lasting impact of the 1990s on the watch industry as it exists today. Each week in August will see a new addition to this series. You can read Part II here.
If I were to ask you to pick what decade had the greatest impact on modern watch enthusiasm, which would you pick? The 50s? The 80s? There is no right answer, really; like everything else in this world, watch enthusiasm is a true culmination of everything that came before. That said, few people would cite the 90s in answering that question.

That would be a mistake. The 90s, for all their foibles and particularities, represent the bedrock upon which our modern enthusiast culture is built. Things we take for granted today were, like me, born in the crucible of an optimistic post-Cold War world. And in the same way that the world came out of the Cold War into a brighter tomorrow (one which gave us the Spice Girls, the iMac G3, and Pierce Brosnan’s Bond), the watch industry had come out of a crisis of its own.
The Quartz Crisis
It’s fair to say that the 80s wasn’t a great time for the watch industry, or at least it wasn’t if you were a proponent of mechanical watches — especially Swiss ones. The introduction and adoption of quartz watches through the 70s and 80s did a real number on the traditional watchmaking industry.

The advent of cheap, accurate, and reliable quartz watches was, with hindsight, a generally good thing, but it also devastated what had been a longstanding industry. By some estimates, over the twenty years that followed the introduction of the quartz watch in December of 1969, employment in the Swiss watch industry dropped to less than a third of what it had been at its zenith.
It was only through the passion and commitment of a relatively small circle that mechanical watchmaking survived at anything approximating scale, and it would take years for the new normal to be established.
The New Normal
That new normal really came into its own over the course of the 90s, and it was, truly, a whole new world. Where once there had been many, now there were few — although the few that remained were formidable. Brands like Rolex had ridden out the quartz crisis with a staunch devotion to mechanical watchmaking and hit the ground running when interest in mechanical watches began to rebound.

The break in interest revitalized makers of mechanical watches, and the 90s saw a tremendous amount of technical innovation. New materials, new approaches, and a renewed focus on high-end complicated watchmaking (especially of the independent variety) helped to bring lost energy back to the watch industry, which in turn brought new consumer interest back to watches as a whole.
Critical to this was the introduction of the internet. I know, I know, saying “the internet changed everything” is a bit of a tired position to take at this point. That doesn’t mean it isn’t true. The internet allowed enthusiasts around the world to connect, and knowledge to be shared at a pace and quantity that had previously been unthinkable.

And as collectors began to help each other develop tastes and understanding, brands began to react. The understanding that nostalgia could play a role in how we all engaged with watches became readily apparent for the first time and had a profound impact not only on how enthusiasts approached collecting but in the watches brands went on to release.

New levels of interest saw brands make bold choices. New icons were born, and long tired watches were refreshed. Bigger, statement-making watches became commonplace, while at the same time, classic designs were resurrected. Brands previously trapped behind the veil of the Iron Curtain, especially in East German towns like Glashütte, were chief among these, expanding the scope of European watchmaking.
Over the next few weeks, I will parse through all of these changes in exploration of a decade that has not gotten nearly enough credit. But that will be for another day. For now, I’ll just leave you with this — the 90s aren’t back; they never went away.