Mr Jeremy Kirkland has come to know a thing or two about watches. Exploring the world of fashion – and the notable personalities who shape the industry – has been the premise of Kirkland’s popular podcast Blamo! since 2016. In which time, he’s had the luxury of interviewing countless captains of industry, including some of the world’s leading watch authorities. In the process, he’s accumulated a wealth of knowledge on the topic of time. But he admits, candidly, that at first, he got into the world of watches for all the wrong reasons.

“I think that term ‘podcaster’ is somewhat pejorative at times, but I’m rather proud to make a living as a podcaster,” he says. “Before [Blamo!], I was working in menswear in New York City and it was like the hashtag ‘menswear’ era and everybody had a blog. And so I was writing about watches on my blog and eventually Esquire hired me to be their watch writer. I didn’t know a ton about watches at that time, but I was so interested in learning more about the industry. I’ll tell you the truth, I got into watches for the wrong reasons. I wanted to be accepted into a world that I thought wasn’t welcoming. Little to my knowledge, I found out that it was this exciting community of people who really didn’t care which watch I was wearing.

“My first watch was a Casio, which I still have to this day. I bought it in the Lower East Side and I wore it daily; it was awesome. But despite that, I really wanted a Rolex. So, like most dummies, I saved up for a very long time until I was finally able to buy my first Rolex: an Air-King. I remember paying $1,800 for it, which was a lot of money for me. And I immediately had this feeling like some people might get with clothes or with bags; when you feel something that’s high quality and you really can’t explain it. Hemingway couldn’t even explain the joy that I felt. The history, the luxury, the quality; I fumble over my words trying to explain how good it felt to have that watch.”

From that initial purchase, Kirkland has gone on to amass a host of watches from Rolex, Seiko, NOMOS Glashütte and more. Some are sentimental – he’s put away a GMT-Master II “Batman” and “Pepsi” for his daughter and son, respectively – while others are just fun.

“What I have learnt over the years is that most people that say that they like watches tend to fall into two different camps: it’s either some form of a status symbol or they’re trying to reclaim their memories of a relationship with a loved one. At the end of the day, whether or not we admit it to ourselves, we all love that these watches are little status symbols, and then we kind of find weird and sentimental ways to justify the purchases. And it’s a fruitless endeavour to just own one, right? It’s like having one pair of shoes… You could do it, but should you?”