A British-born, New York-based photographer, Mr Phil Toledano’s eclectic body of work can be read as a guide to his collecting mindset. His chosen themes range from personal loss to social commentary and cultural history. A personal highlight was his exhibition of carefully restored Vietnam-era fighter pilot helmets, but you might just as easily gravitate to his portraits of phone sex operators or the series that recollects the life of his sister, who died when he was six years old. Toledano, better known to many by his Instagram moniker MisterEnthusiast, is self-deprecating and charming, with a strong contrarian streak that extends to other areas of his life, particularly his love of cars and watches.

Toledano’s tastes cover the classics, but he has a soft spot for the weird and downright whacky. He is, for example, the proud owner of a Soviet-era space suit and a boxy, brutalist Maserati Shamal. So it goes with his watch collection.

Rolex is so unavoidable in the discourse of watches that’s it ubiquitous, but don’t expect to find that brand’s default diver on Toledano’s wrist. You’re much more likely to see the brutal, angular form of the 1970s King Midas.

“What I love about the 1970s stuff is the sculptural aspect,” Toledano says. “It doesn’t all have to be about skeletonised movements and floating subdials, which is what seems to be dominating the independent watchmaking space today.”

Given Toledano’s artistic proclivities, this sensitivity to watches as objects of shape and form, rather than strict utility, should not come as a surprise. Even when he has dabbled with the famous Submariner, he has done it in a surprising manner, creating a limited run of stripped-back, customised Subs with engraved dials depicting a Mr Jules Verne-esque underwater scene in partnership with the master engraver Mr Johnny Dowell, aka King Nerd.

The same can be said for Toledano’s love of that other iconic Swiss brand, Patek Philippe. While everyone else is chasing the tail of the Nautilus, Toledano is falling down another rabbit hole.

“I accumulated all these very lovely, low-production 1970s Japanese edition watches, which, for the era, are very restrained,” he says. “And I want to be less restrained. So for me, the Japanese stuff has acted as a kind of gateway drug for the crazy stuff that Patek did, especially with integrated bracelets. I’ve sold most of the restrained stuff and am going full ham – is that what the kids say these days? – on the really unhinged pieces from that time. For me, they’re extraordinary. I don’t know if they could make them now, and sell them for a profit, but having said that, I suppose they can do whatever they want. The technology and craft involved in making those bracelets is extraordinary. It’s as much about the bracelet as the head of the watch. That’s what I’m veering into now.”

You might think, based on this 1970s love-fest, that Toledano has his heart firmly in the past, but that is not true. His enthusiasms lean clearly towards watches made with a strong artistic sensibility, which is why he is a big fan of a limited collaboration between the colourful cult watch designer Mr Alain Silberstein and the boutique brand Ressence.

“Time has been very good for Alain’s artistic evolution,” says Toledano. “I’ve always been a Ressence fan, but I missed the drop on this release, so when I saw someone selling one in one of the WhatsApp nerd threads I’m in, I pounced. It’s quite different from his earlier work. It’s still colourful, but it’s quite different iconography from what he normally uses. It’s beautiful and interesting and surprising. I think Ressence’s strength is its extraordinary design, which allows for a clear canvas for an artist to use. No other watch can do that. Everyone else is limited to the traditional watch layout. I think Ressence should be partnering with all sorts of amazing visual artists to do exactly what Alain Silberstein did. It’s amazing.”

Pinning down good taste is famously hard, but, to paraphrase the great actor Mr Samuel L Jackson, personality goes a long way. And Toledano’s collecting habits have personality, something expressly evident in his three-watch collection.