It’s somewhat paradoxical, but the explosion of interest in fine timepieces, fuelled by the internet and social media, has also resulted in the increased popularity of offline meetings. And they’ve always been there — before Instagram and Facebook were the prime drivers of the ‘watchfam’, it was the various watch forums, like Timezone and Purists, that resulted in that weird ritual of online-friends-but-offline-strangers meeting in public, and piling lots of watches out onto tables, much to the bemusement of strangers. More recently still, this get together culture has evolved again, thanks to events such as Fratello Watches Speedy Tuesday world tour and Worn & Wound’s Windup Watch Fair. These events bring together more fans, brands and other players in the space than is practical otherwise. To date, though, there’s not been a lot happening on this front in Australia, something that Paxton Wong is hoping to change with Watchfest, a collector event taking place in Sydney on the 6th and 7th of September. So, we spent a few minutes chatting to Mr Wong to find out more. What’s the idea behind Watchfest? “I wanted to bring the collectors together. I wanted to bring the collectors to influence the new people.…
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