Over the past few years the designer watches industry has been all about colour. Even the so called traditional luxury brands have been getting in on the act and adding more colours to their product range. Without doubt though, this revolution was introduced by two brands in particular.
ToyWatch and Ice-Watch have been at the fore front of this movement with their colourful plastic watches. ToyWatch first brought out their colourful plastic watches which retailed for around 125 here in the UK. These watches were a massive success and seen up and down the country in designer clothing stores and retailers rather than traditional watch stores. The watches were also seen on A-List celebs which made them a must have fashion watch. Since hitting the UK though the brand has started to go a lot more up market and the watches now retail anywhere from 125 up to 1000 for the ceramic ToyWatches. Does this mean ToyWatch is moving away from the colourful watches which we associate them with?
Another brand at the front of this movement is Ice-Watch. The brand has grown massively over the past few years and is now represented in over 89 countries and is constantly growing. The success behind the brand is the various colour ways and collections within the Ice-Watch brand as well as the three different size watches, small 38mm dial, unisex 43mm dial and the big 48mm dial. This allows the brand to be worn by children, teenagers, women and even men so it appeals to a wide audience. The brand has also kept the watches more affordable compared to ToyWatch. This allows people to buy more than one watch to suit various outfits. The Ice-Watch brand now consists of our 25 different sub collections with this number constantly increasing. The most popular range however is the Sili Ice-Watch range however which retails from 70 to 75 in the UK depending on size. I also where an Ice-Watch Sili watch 😉
At the moment these brands have build their success on colourful watches but where do they go from here? Yes ToyWatch has moved into more expensive ranges to try and move away from the colourful watches but what for Ice-Watch. If rumours are right they will be also launching an upmarket brand called Ice-Swiss Watches as they also try and branch out into new areas. This maybe launched at BaselWorld 2011.
The final question we ask is will ToyWatch and Ice-Watch be part of the next fashion watch craze, who knows? We at TicWatches think digital or touch screen watches will certainly be the next watch craze. You heard it here first.
Danny Rich the founder of TicWatches