Once more, we’ve packed our bags for an international watch fair as Singapore’s sole all-in-one timepiece manufacturer representative. The destination this time? Munich. But don’t get us wrong, because while Germany is known more for Oktoberfest than the Inhorgenta Munich Watch Fair, we were not there to get sloshed. If anything, we were busy racking up sales and introducing ourselves to yet more potential fans, as a true blue Singaporean watchmaker since 1970 who are open to showing ourselves to the world – not in a Kim Kardashian way, though we’d love to create such an impact.

So how was the experience? Well, the whole adventure was punctuated by delicious German bier and hotdogs. And while it caused our waistlines to take quite a beating, nothing could beat the feedback at the watch fair, as we received a lot of praise which we humbly accepted. As craftsmen, it’s simple things like that that please us, especially when our designs are lauded in a western market no less. As they say, news travels fast too, so imagine our surprise when a couple of attendees enquired about our founder CK Woo’s life story as they were inspired by our previous coverage of him. I even had to double check that they’d gotten the name right, and hadn’t actually mistaken our inspirational father figure for Jackie Chan.

Aside from the German hospitality, we also had to fend off the naysayers, with two English men (likely to be competitors) mocking our copywriting, seemingly oblivious to their less-than-stellar vocabulary and grammar. The last time I checked, an English accent doesn’t make one automatically superior #justsaying #turnoffthenoise Also, copycats are still on the loose, doing a terrible job of trying to replicate our watches and making Shenzhen luxury goods knock-offs seem like the holy grail of fashion design.

I’ll end off with a note of thanks to our Aries Gold distributors and fans, for getting us to yet another celebrated milestone. You guys know who you are. Please excuse me now – I’ve a plane to catch. Do look out for our upcoming limited edition watch of the year, and Baselworld watch fair highlights in March!

-The Watchman