My Life In Watches: George Bamford
Inherently, we are all collectors and hoarders. Art, trainers, shoes, glasses – everyone collects something. We only need one of these things, but we have ten. I don’t need any more watches, but actually I do, because I’m a collector.
A watch on my wrist is something that I love. Anytime I take a watch off and I play with it, and I look at it, it's something that makes me smile. On the weekends, I always wear a watch that I've not designed or done anything on. It’s my treat to go, okay, I'm going to wear a Panerai or an Audemars Piguet. That makes me smile as well, because I'm wearing something that delights me in another way.
Before anyone talked about side hustles, watches were my side hustle. I used to go to flea markets and trade them. In 1995, I took my first watch to pieces. I’m highly dyslexic so I learn by looking and doing stuff with my hands. I used to take VCRs and DVD players and TVs to bits. My parents even had to have a lock on the outside of my bedroom door because I'd get up before them, go downstairs and try to rebuild the juicer or something like it.
That watch I took to pieces was a Breitling Navitimer. My parents gave it to me for Christmas. I can remember my father telling me the price he’d bought it for. I think it was £350 and I don’t think he expected me to take it to bits. By the end of Boxing Day, it was in pieces on a towel next to a screwdriver and a penknife. By New Year, it was back together, and missing a few bits. It’s got scraped since then, the glass has been broken a couple of times, the hands have been replaced at least three times, and there are loads of dents where I tried to rip off the back as a kid. But it sits in my safe and it will never go anywhere.
When I was growing up, a friend of my sister’s boyfriend was just the coolest guy. He would always have a Silverstone or a Speedmaster on, and I think that turbocharged my love for that type of watch. But there was nowhere you could really learn about those watches.
Talking about watches used to be like talking into a wall. There were people that would buy a watch because it would be a certain value, and there were people that really loved watches, but there wasn't a community that was talking about watches. Today, you can get into this weird world and find cool things for almost nothing – a Casio, a Seiko, even a Zenith for a couple of hundred quid.
The consumer now has a genuine choice between vintage and modern. With vintage, you used to either be a part of a very unique group of collectors, or you kind of ignored it because you couldn’t afford it. Companies like Subdial and Wristcheck have changed that. They’re supported by proper watchmakers, and they have proper teams in place to give you trust in what you’re buying. Even the brands now have big pre-owned departments. It never used to be like that – pre-owned was just a sort of bargain-bucket area.
There’s so much going on now, it’s hard to cut through the noise. That’s why we did the pop-up shop for our latest G-Shock. We took over an old newsagent for four days – t-shirts in a detergent pack, cereal packets with hoodies in. It was experimental, but it felt like us. There were queues around the block.
Our previous G-Shock sold out in 90 seconds. It crashed our website, it crashed G-Shock worldwide, it crashed G-Shock UK. We couldn’t do that again, so this time there were stage points. There was the pop-up, then we went online in the UK only, then worldwide later on. There was still such an influx that G-Shock’s UK site went down, but we put enough stock in the system that people could still buy. I want this watch in real collectors’ hands. I don’t want the messages going, you arsehole, I couldn’t get one.
Back in the day, I spent six months in India with a yellow G-Shock on the whole time. It was a big, bad boy and I loved it beyond belief – the idea of that toughness was amazing. If you’re a watch lover, you have to love the G-Shock.
A Seiko Tuna with a ceramic shroud is an amazing dive watch. Christ, it’s a cool watch. For bang for your buck, I’d look at the TAG Heuer Aquaracer, and then there’s Tudor. Tudors always offer good bang for buck, and I kind of like that they’re not Rolexes. They’ve got the same heritage, but I think they’re cooler.
For a dress watch, I think a Furlan Marri Disco Volante is a beautiful thing. If the budget’s bigger, I’d probably go Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso – I love the Reverso idea. At the high end, Piaget Polo is a knockout. It’s an alternative to a Nautilus that you don't see many times. That's a damn cool watch.
£1,000 is kind of an odd price point for watches. If you’re below that, I’d definitely go for a G-Shock. Just above it, there are some lovely Frédérique Constants. With £1,000 for a daily wearer, I think I’d pick up a Seiko Speedtimer.
I have a top ceiling on pricing and I never tell anyone what it is. Above that price, there are watches I look at and go, wow, I love it, but I will never buy it. There are a few at that level this year that I think have moved the needle. The Ulysse Nardin Ur-Freak that they launched at Dubai Watch Week was an absolute knockout. Batshit bonkers, but cool.
There is one watch I love beyond belief but could never justify. It’s the IWC Ingenieur with shock absorber. I just love the idea of it.
Brands are now going back into their archives and coming up with interesting things. We went back with Girard-Perregaux into theirs to come up with a Laureato last year. It was a knockout white ceramic, and I think white’s going to come back in a big way, as well as other exciting colours. I think tool watches are here to stay, and odd-shaped ones too – the Cartier Crash is now sacrosanct.
I’m excited to see what happens with watches in 2026. Last year we saw brands doing things with new materials – look at the TAG Monaco that launched at Dubai Watch Week. Tudor is doing different things with the Pelagos and I think there’s more to come. Brands like IWC and Panerai are not pushing back to their heritage, but they are saying, this is us, and we’re really going to fuck around with this. As a consumer, I think that’s going to make for some pleasant surprises where you just go, ohhhh, yeah.
Yes, I do think you can wear a G-Shock with a suit. I wore mine to a legal meeting this morning. It’s got a metal case and it looks great. Why do you have to conform, anyway?
To see more of George’s custom watches, visit BamfordWatchDepartment.com
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