| The fall season is full of life for the watch industry. Orange colors with black, blue, red, pink (and any other color you like) in diamonds. Sparkle seems to fill the retail holiday symbols with thoughts of snow and falling leaves that make “buying” the major thought of the fashion-minded. Pumpkins and Thanksgiving and – aah the holidays – all seem to bring hope of cooler days while we are suffering the heat of the summer that won’t go away.
So much for trying to be poetic when it all comes down to business!
From what I hear, the watch business has been booming and the upcoming seasons promise more of the same. There are a few new watch brands that come to mind this year as exceptional.
There are many fine watches; that’s why we are in business. That’s why we sell magazines. Every now and then I see a watch (or two) that just grabs me. These two – actually three – brands bring hope to those of us who are tired of the fashion watch that may or may not be in style next year and the companies who produce them that may or may not be in business next year.
The three brands I’m thinking about are so well made that I can see there is a future for them. The people behind these brands are also dedicated to becoming the future Audemars and Rolex (and the many other traditional watch names that people know and love). They want to leapfrog the industry. With modern design techniques, computer graphics and metal work that was impossible 30 years ago, these young watch manufacturers can enter the market with the same – or better – products than some of the older, larger cruise ships which have to plan months ahead just to make a 5-degree turn (and it takes months and sometimes years to finally turn the ship into a different direction).
The younger buyer today only knows what he or she sees in the magazines and on television and in movies. In ten years, only the watch companies that are promoting to the youth of today will be the brands that make it into the “well established brands” category. |  | 
The watches that I like are “Scalfaro,” “Officina Del Tempo” and “Buti.” WHY? Well, it’s because of a few reasons. I have met the people behind these brands. They are young, alive and really dedicated to making a mark or a “tick” in this “over-tocked” industry. Also impressive is their deliberate, painstaking attention to detail.
Scalfaro: Two brothers had an idea for a watch. They made one or two as prototypes and wore them. Their family has been in the jewelry business in Germany for many years and the people that the brothers knew started asking questions about the watch they were each wearing. They said that they had made them for themselves. Requests to have them made for others started and then more customers started rolling in and word of mouth led to more interests.
All of the attention led to the idea of this being a business. The idea of making Scalfaro a business was the original intention, but the strong interest and a growing demand for their personal watches escalated the whole business part of these two brothers’ creations.
Scalfaro is the combination of two Italian words: “Scalare” (meaning rising, ascending) and “Faro” (meaning the lighthouse,) making it the “rising lighthouse” which is represented in the logo used on their watches.
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