I Flirted With a 1930s Omega and Ghosted Every Fake on Portobello Road

The first thing I did after borrowing my father's Cartier Santos was log on to TikTok.

I hardly use the app, but it felt like the perfect starting place to figure out how to wear what was then a brand-new style of watch for me. Stainless steel and sportier than the slim bracelets I was used to wearing, the Santos left me searching for inspiration on how to stack it without overwhelming it, and how to mix metals purposefully. One unboxing video led to another… and another.

What started as a simple thought experiment quickly turned into a new lifestyle, spurring on my burgeoning obsession with watches. Suddenly, my Instagram For You page was full of watches of all shapes and sizes from the Cartier Baignoire to Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak, showing off different variations like open casebacks, reels featuring comparisons and subjective and viral ranking videos comparing luxury watches like the Omega Speedmaster to the Rolex Submariner, vintage options for sale from all around the world, and more.

I was learning about brands I'd never heard of; A. Lange & Söhne and Richard Mille, for example, and seeing brands I hadn't previously given much thought to in a new light, like Omega. I found myself disagreeing with content creators who ranked my Santos below watches I thought were less sleek, and eyeing vintage models I had never before considered.

I was seeing timepieces I loved on celebrities: Kaia Gerber was recently spotted wearing my favorite Cartier Panthère in gold, along with roundups of pieces worn by tennis players at the US Open, like the Rolex GMT-Master II "Sprite" that was spotted on finalist Ben Shelton. There were seemingly random reels of people purchasing their grail watch at high-end boutiques, and videos about what your favorite watch really said about you. Spoiler: my love of the gold Panthère de Cartier apparently means I'm trendy.

After a few months of parsing through videos, a reel showing off a vintage Seiko from the early 1980s caught my attention. The watch featured a double-face, a white dial with The Blackdiamond Collection written on one side and a black one on the other, connected by a rotating two-tone case. The Seiko V400 wasn't actually for sale, but I was riveted.

I scoured Google and eBay, looking for Japanese dealers who might have something like it, but came up empty-handed. I carefully combed through vintage markets asking if anyone had seen one or could track it down, but no luck. One dealer even told me she thought it looked so cool, she'd probably keep it for herself if she ever found one.

Defeated in my task to find this particular watch, but no less determined, I returned to Instagram with a newfound appreciation of what the site's reels could reveal. I was enthralled by ads for resale sites like 1stDibs, lusting after a Patek Philippe Calatrava in gold and a Tank Louis Cartier. The stunning Panthère still topped my bucket list for a big forthcoming birthday, but it was the videos of slim Rolex cocktail watches, offset with delicate diamonds and intricately woven gold bracelets from the 1950s that sent me back to eBay to look for something perhaps a bit more in my price range.

It was there I found another vintage Seiko, this one from 1993, with a delicate gold-plated bracelet and a striking black dial. Inspired by those vintage Rolexes that had since become a staple on my social media, this felt like a low-risk way to add the style to my growing collection.

The idea of owning a vintage Seiko also felt kind of cool, inspired by videos of shopping hauls from Japan. I didn't end up buying that watch as the bracelet was ultimately too small, but it cemented a love affair with the idea of vintage: the older, the better.

It was with that thought in mind that I walked into the narrow entrance of Grays Antique Market earlier this month. Set in the heart of London's Mayfair, the two-story market is a dizzying maze of nearly 100 different individual dealers displaying their collections of vintage jewels and watches like a candy-colored adult version of Willy Wonka's factory. There are Rolexes and Cartiers, Longines, and more. But it was a tiny, 21 mm manual-wind Omega from the 1930s that immediately captured my attention.

The Art Deco cushion-shaped case was made of 9-karat gold with an original dial that showed its age in a delicious way. It felt like a piece of history that was still somehow entirely wearable. And priced at about $950, it was a lot more affordable than other watches I had ogled online.

Still, I couldn't pull the trigger, and walked away with a small tinge of sadness, but excited to see what else was out there.

The next day, I made my way to Portobello Road to admire the rows and rows of watches sold for practically nothing. I had first come to the street when I was just beginning my watch journey late last year and returned now with plans to pick up one of the inexpensive alternatives I had seen then. It would give me the look of a vintage cocktail watch without the price tag. But as I stared down at a table offering an endless supply of no-name dials in every color under the rainbow, an uncomfortable feeling settled over me. I didn't want this. I didn't want a cheaply made piece with no sense of watchmaking history built in. Unlike my first visit nearly a year ago, I didn't want it to just look the part.

Months into collecting watches, I had started to become keenly aware of what it meant to cherish a movement, even if I didn't fully understand all that went into it. Learning the differences between quartz, automatic, and manual-wind movements, and appreciating each for what they meant to the grand history of watchmaking, I wanted to own a piece of that.

I walked away from Portobello Road without a new watch, and with a new plan. I would compile a list of dealers in Paris for my next trip to the city in December, going in with a budget and a bit more research on what's available in that price range. My deep-seated love of Cartier means I am crossing my fingers I can find a relatively affordable Must de Cartier. It will still be many months before my dream Panthère can even attempt to manifest into reality, but I will let the watches speak to me. However, no matter which watch I ultimately choose, there will be one non-negotiable requirement for this particular shopping trip: a sense of heritage.