Some people gravitate towards handbags. Others notice shoes. Brynn Wallner always spots watches.
Wallner is the founder of Dimepiece, a website and Instagram account dedicated to watches for women. While working in editorial at Sotheby’s, she began contributing to the watch department and quickly realized that coverage and marketing in the category were overwhelmingly geared toward men.
Wallner set out to change that. And while she wasn’t an expert at first—and didn’t even own a watch when she started the Instagram account—she really knows her stuff now.
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On the latest episode of the Marie Claire podcast “Nice Talk”, Wallner sits down with editor-in-chief Nikki Ogunnaike to chat all things watches—including what she considers the current It Girl timepiece.
“I think it’s definitely the teeny tiny Royal Oak,” Wallner says. This is the Mini Royal Oak by luxury brand Audemars Piguet (or “AP” to watch fans). There are various styles, but a new one can retail for $38,000.
“Hailey Bieber’s wearing it. Rihanna’s wearing it,” Wallner continues. “I was really happy when AP officially re-released it, and they did it with that hammered gold, the Carolina Bucci ‘Florentine Finish’. She’s iconic. They’ve done a really good job pushing that.”
With AP behind it, Wallner adds, “it feels really serious watch-y, but it’s in this cute, cool little package.”
The hype is real: an Olympic champion even reached out to Wallner for advice on how to get one. “Simone Biles wears one. She DM’d me. She was like, ‘Where can I get this watch?’ And I was like, ‘Let me set you up with the AP people.’ And that was around the Olympics. I was like, ‘Ahhhh!’ And seeing her wear it in photos with, like, Serena Williams at Art Basel… so you’re getting a range of It Girls.”
Of course, the $40K It Girl watch is probably not the best starter watch for most people. For those new to collecting, Wallner recommends Cartier.
“I started with Cartier,” she says. “I feel like that’s a brand where it’s like the price point is still okay. It’s luxury and it’s still the most money I’ve ever spent on anything in my life … I was turning 31, so it was about a year into me starting Dimepiece, maybe a little less, and I was like, ‘I’m gonna buy a watch.'”
Cartier, she notes, offers accessibility that many other marquee brands don’t.
“You can’t buy a Rolex at a Rolex boutique. You can’t buy an AP at an AP boutique. All these watches have really high demand and low supply, but… you can still walk into Cartier and walk out of there with a watch. And so, for me, my first watch, my starter watch, I was like, ‘I want the pomp and circumstance of the retail experience.'” She adds, “‘There’s a macaron!'”
For more from Wallner—including her tips for buying watches secondhand and how her collaboration with Timex came to be—check out this week’s installment of Nice Talk. The episode is available everywhere you listen to podcasts.
