Aficionado Paxton Wong set up a watch fair to share his passion for timepieces.
Looks can be deceiving, but not in the case of watch enthusiast Paxton Wong. With a timepiece on each wrist, he’s attired in cobalt-blue sneakers that pick up the patches of his NASA Speedmaster jacket and the straps of his Seiko Prospex backpack.boutique, where Wong is considering adding a hyper timer to his collection. Soon we’re debating the merits of a $90,000 Excalibur Spider Huracan versus an Excalibur MT, one of 88 that retails for about $200,000.
He can thank his family for his interest in watches. “We came to Australia from Singapore so I could study here. My father was an officer in the Singapore Police Force. He was promoted on the day I was born and bought an Omega Constellation. He would sleep with the Omega and his gun under the pillow. That’s something I will always remember; it shows how much he valued his timepiece.”
“I bought watches off postal orders, whatever I could afford. One of the first was a TAG Heuer Formula 1. But I was aiming for a Speedmaster, a lot of walking past windows. I saw one in AngusCoote with the wrong price tag. I went in and didn’t try to attract too much attention. I just said ‘I’d like that one’ and that’s how I got my first Speedmaster.”
“It’s changed,” says Wong. “Before the internet you’d be lucky to find what you were looking for. You’d be travelling, going into a little store and discovering something. Now you just have to Google and you know where something is, what price it is.”Thankfully, Wong has found an outlet for his passion beyond the timepieces themselves. In 2019, he founded Watchfest, a Sydney-based fair that attracted 600 people and brands including Omega, Seiko and Oris.
Australia Latest News, Australia Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Teen girl's head pushed out of the way just before Sydney executionA 16-year-old girl caught up in the middle of the Sydney assassination of two women 'has not stopped crying and cannot eat' as it was revealed the teen's head was pushed out of the way by one killer before unloading a weapon into the back seat of a car.
Read more »
‘I’m desperate’: how Gillian Wearing exposed our innermost thoughtsIn the third of our new series about artworks by women that are relevant today, our writer looks at a series of photographs that revealed the worries of people facing an economic recession
Read more »
Chinese woman ‘detained for wearing Japanese kimono’Woman claims she was questioned for hours after accusations of ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble’
Read more »
PwC’s ‘Boy from Mungindi’ squeezes his oranges, seeks capital for new ventureRenowned agribusiness adviser Greg Quinn has stitched up plenty of raisings for clients at his former firms PwC and PPB Advisory - and now he’s chasing capital for a business of his own.
Read more »
Life360 on path to profit: CEOLife360, the ASX-listed and US-based group that owns a family tracking app, says it expects to be able to benefit from raising prices.
Read more »
Adelaide mother charged after allegedly stabbing two children on side of highwayThe two children remain in hospital in a stable condition. 9News
Read more »