THE WATCH THAT STARTED IT ALL
WEI KOH Co-founder and Group Creative & Editorial Director
I’ve always been interested in watches, but there are two ones that really got me started. There was my grandfather’s Rolex Datejust, which was given to my uncle, who then gave it to me when I was 16 years old. But that watch has unfortunately been stolen.
“My first Panerai was a PAM 61. It embodied all of the mystique and heroism and sense of adventure that those watches instilled.”
The second watch was much later in life, in my late-20s, and what really got me back into watches was Panerai. My first Panerai was a PAM 61, a titanium, manual-wind watch with a tobacco dial. It embodied all of the mystique and heroism and sense of adventure that those watches instilled.
TRACEY LLEWELLYN Editor-in-Chief, UK
For me there are two potential candidates.
My first foray into watch journalism was back in the early-2000s when I was editing a luxury travel magazine. Finding my quartz sports watch unacceptable, our resident watch journalist — and now a close friend — decided to donate a piece from his collection to me. The watch in question was a 1950s black-dial Tudor Oyster Prince with applied indexes and a rose at 12 o’clock. Although I knew nothing about the brand, I adored the watch, and it started a love affair with Tudor that survives to this day.
“A stainless steel Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Classic. Everything about that watch appealed — the Art Deco aesthetic, the clarity of the dial, the fact that it wasn’t round and
