With a collection that takes in the likes of Vacheron Constantin, Cartier and Patek Phillipe, Mr Teo Yang is quite the watch connoisseur. His interest was sparked not just by his aesthetic intuition as an interior designer, but in more traditional values, too. “In Korea, a classic watch is one of those things people have a huge appreciation for,” he says. “It doesn’t need to be expensive, but it’s a reminder to value time, and to remember the most special moments. People often exchange them before they marry.”

Even under lockdown, Mr Paul Feig was impeccably attired in a brown three-piece suit, pocket square and tie for our Zoom conversation. So it came as little surprise to see that his fantasy watch purchases ran towards the more flamboyant end of the horological spectrum. Or perhaps he had just embraced the “fantasy” element of the exercise with gusto. “I have been told a few times, mostly by my wife, that I have expensive tastes,” he laughs. “Wait, I don’t have to buy these, do I?”

“Punctuality was very important in my family,” says Mr Kevin Kwan, author of the Crazy Rich Asians series of novels. “I’ve always been instilled with an appreciation for watches. It was part of getting dressed up and going out in public, and I feel naked without a watch.” As a child of the late 1970s and early 1980s, Kwan’s first contact with the watch world coincided with the boom in high-tech digital watches. “In those days, it was really fun to have watches as gadgets,” he says. “My brother is five years older than me and I’d get his hand-me-downs: he had a Citizen watch with a touchscreen that could actually do addition and multiplication on the screen. I thought that was the coolest thing.”

When he’s not touring as part of one of the world’s most successful bands, Coldplay bassist Mr Guy Berryman has plenty to keep him busy, be it designing clothing for his newly launched line Applied Art Forms, publishing cult motoring magazine The Road Rat or restoring and rallying classic cars. A passion for design underpins his every project, which dates back to studying mechanical engineering and architecture at university, and extends to a fascination with the history and functionality of watches. “I really gravitate towards watches, which have some kind of heritage and a sense of gravitas,” he says. “I like to put on a watch and think just for a second, ‘OK, I’m a submariner or a spaceman or a pilot.’ It’s that sense of occasion that a certain watch can make you feel.” For Berryman, the exercise of choosing three watches for a fantasy collection proved to be a test of resistance to temptation. “I’ve basically blown all of my income on cars, and with watches I’m very cautious. I’ve got quite a small collection because I know that if I let myself go, I could have a lot,” he admits. “With cars, you’re very limited by space, but with watches you can get an awful lot in a cupboard…”

With a collection that takes in the likes of Vacheron Constantin, Cartier and Patek Phillipe, Mr Teo Yang is quite the watch connoisseur. His interest was sparked not just by his aesthetic intuition as an interior designer, but in more traditional values, too. “In Korea, a classic watch is one of those things people have a huge appreciation for,” he says. “It doesn’t need to be expensive, but it’s a reminder to value time, and to remember the most special moments. People often exchange them before they marry.”

Even under lockdown, Mr Paul Feig was impeccably attired in a brown three-piece suit, pocket square and tie for our Zoom conversation. So it came as little surprise to see that his fantasy watch purchases ran towards the more flamboyant end of the horological spectrum. Or perhaps he had just embraced the “fantasy” element of the exercise with gusto. “I have been told a few times, mostly by my wife, that I have expensive tastes,” he laughs. “Wait, I don’t have to buy these, do I?”