Long before I cared about movements or brands or any of the things that define this hobby, I noticed the watches my mom wore.
They were always Skagen. Not sometimes. Always.
At the time, I wasn’t thinking about quartz versus mechanical. I didn’t know what made a watch worth talking about. I just knew they looked like her.
The watches were thin, light and simple. Most importantly, they were small. My mom was petite. To her, that wasn’t a detail, it was the whole point.
Most of what the watch world celebrates would have looked out of place on her wrist. Big cases. Thick profiles. Heavy bracelets. None of it would have worked.
Skagen did.
Skagen never tried to win the same game as Swiss watchmaking. That was a choice, not a failure.
You forgot you had them on. They didn’t snag on anything. They didn’t need adjusting. You put one on and moved on with your day.
That’s the job.
It’s also the kind of watch that’s easy to dismiss once you start caring about movements, heritage and all the other things this hobby teaches you to care about.
But my mom didn’t need any of that from a watch. She needed it to fit.
And they did.
There isn’t one particular memory I associate with them. She wore them everywhere. Dressed up for a night out. Going to dinner. Working in the garden. Just around the house.
You name it, there was a Skagen on her wrist.
After my mom passed, my wife and I went to her house to gather the things I didn’t want to leave there. Her jewelry went into a box.
Her watches came home with me and sat on my desk. These ones aren’t for wearing. Not by me, anyway.
They’re just… hers.
Not in a dramatic way. In a very literal one. These are the watches she wore every day. The ones she didn’t think about. The ones that were just part of getting ready and getting on with it.
My daughter never got to meet her. She was born nine months after my mom passed.
At some point, she’ll be old enough to ask about them. Or curious enough to try one on.
Not because they’re special in the way collectors define special. Because they belonged to someone she never got to know.
For now, they stay with me.
Because eventually, they won’t just tell me something about my mom.
They’ll tell my daughter something too.