VIDEO: “My girlfriend said to me… ‘you scratched my back honey… But you scratched it with a Patek.’” Talking romance and the future of watches with Kristian Haagen

Andrew McUtchen

Kristian Haagen walks the walk, talks the talk and owns the watches. To go to the next level in this watch caper you need some skin in the game. Haagen’s collection is all game. It’s incredible. The A.Lange & Söhne Datograph Perpetual Calendar in platinum, the Zeitwerk, the Patek Philippe Nautilus 5980 to name just three. Ringing any bells? Yep, he’s all that, and aside from stare lovingly at his watch winder, he also somehow manages to be an editor, publisher (we are huge fans of Hashtags and Watches), tastemaker and an avid lover of camo.

We caught up recently at a watch fair and, on a couch in the middle of a hallway, we broached the really big questions, like, if you’re going to scratch your girlfriend’s back with a watch, does it make any difference what brand it is? Why do we still come to watch fairs, anyway? What is the future of watchmaking? What are we going to see more of? “Up, up, up,” Kristian says, though we’re not sure if he’s talking about his own stocks, which we can confirm, are well and truly on the rise. It’s guys like these that make the watch industry a great place to be and to work.

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“I think you need to separate that cool piece for you wrist, and that piece that just looks great…[The Zeitwerk] is not your first Lange and it’s not your only watch. Instead of calling it Zeitwerk it should be Zeitart. And it tells time too.”

“I never take off a watch unless it has a strap and I have to have a shower. My girlfriend said to me one morning, ‘you scratched my back honey… But you scratched it with a Patek.’ That was one of the most romantic things you could say to a watch geek.”