So my grandfather had this Omega. Constellation Day-Date, late seventies. Honey-coloured dial, case worn smooth from years on his wrist. He was a one-watch guy, and I mean that in the best possible way. One watch, worn every day, for decades.

I never met him, but I know he cherished it the way you can only know something through the people it shaped. My dad spoke about him with a particular kind of reverence, and somehow the watch carried all of that.
My grandfather wore it until he couldn't, then passed it to my dad. My dad wore it for years with the same quiet care, that same nightly ritual, I'm told, the watch coming off, resting on the nightstand. When the time came, he passed it to me. It lives with my sister now, and I think about it a lot.
Buy the thing you'd be happy to hand to your kid one day. That's your filter. Everything else is just noise.

My dad had his own thing too. Every single evening he'd lay out his clothes for the next day. Jacket, shirt, shoes, and he'd polish the shoes properly. Tin, cloth, real effort. He wasn't doing it because he had to. He actually enjoyed it. That always stuck with me. The idea that looking after your things isn't a chore, it's just part of owning them.

Those two threads, my grandfather's relationship with that Omega, my dad's relationship with his clothing, basically made me who I am as a collector. It wasn't one or the other. It was the fusion. The lineage of a mentality. A way of seeing objects not as things you use up but as things you steward, and eventually pass on.
Because what I took from both of them wasn't really about watches or clothes. It was about intentionality. Choosing things carefully. Treating them well. Keeping them. In a world that's constantly telling you to upgrade, replace, move on, there's something that feels almost rebellious about just... not doing that.

I've been a watch specialist for 15 years now and the question I get most is some version of "what should I buy?" And honestly my answer is always the same, buy the thing you'd actually wear. Not what the guy on IG you follow wears. Buy the thing that makes you want to glance at your wrist for reasons that have nothing to do with checking the time. And buy the thing you'd be happy to hand to your kid one day. Wear it, enjoy it, then pass it on. That's your filter. Everything else is just noise.

Rubato gets this, which is why I wanted to write something for them. There's a real philosophy in what they make, clothing that's designed to get better. To soften and settle and become yours over time. I find that genuinely exciting. Most things are engineered to fail. A well-made jacket that you're still reaching for in fifteen years? That's the dream.

Watches taught me to see clothing differently. When you spend time around timepieces that are forty, fifty, sixty years old and still running perfectly, still beautiful, actually more beautiful, you start to apply that lens everywhere. You stop seeing a scuff as damage and start seeing it as history. You understand that newness is actually the least interesting thing an object can be.
My grandfather's Omega has had work done over the years. Crystal replaced, new strap. It doesn't look new. Good. New would mean nobody had loved it yet. For a one-watch man, every mark on that case was a year of his life.

That's what I'm chasing really, in watches, in clothing, in everything. Things worth loving for a long time. Things you can fix when they need it. Things with a life beyond yours. That’s the ultimate luxury.

My grandfather knew that, I've always been certain of it, even without ever having met him. My dad knew it too, in his own language, through fabric and leather and a tin of polish set out each evening.

Justin is wearing: