Swag Time
It’s Saturday. I returned from Watches & Wonders and Switzerland on Tuesday. I feel like I’m still recuperating. I don’t really have the energy to write up anything really insightful about the presentations we saw (you can read about the actual watches I saw on watchonista.com). What I can manage thus morning is an inventory of the gifts the brands gave us for visiting their booths.
The amount of swag given this year was way down. And that’s okay by me. Given the current environmental crisis, we need less rather than more stuff in the world. I do appreciate the thought behind presents though. And I will never say no the chocolates and stationery.
Here are photos of my Day One haul.
There were so many bags. I joked that I would make a quilt out of them. The Zenith tote proved to be the best of the bunch because it was solid and big. I used it as my carry on on the trip back.
It took me a minute to figure out what this thing was. It turns out that its a gadget for holding your cellphone. I need such a thing but unfortunately I just got a new iPhone 13 the week before I left and the bumpers on this gadget covered the camera.
If I was to give one piece of advice for the folks involved with buying gifts in general would be to steer away from anything that involves accessories for technology—it all becomes obsolete too quickly.
The best swag of the show was this embroidered Oris Bear sweatshirt. Clothes are risky but this baby is stylish and came in handy when the temperature in Geneva suddenly dropped.
Day Two. Some things are doubles because I did a swag swap with some colleagues aren’t as passionate about stationery and chocolate as I am. The TAG Heuer branded Caran d’ache pen and Moleskine notebook were my Day two faves.
Day Three. Candles, a tie and more chocolate, notebooks. I have come to rely on watch shoes to provide all of my candle needs.
It was a lovely ties but Mr. Andrew does not wear them so I swapped it with a friend.
A lovely leather envelope for sorting out loose postcards.
Day four. Chocolates, candles and comic books. There’s a cardholder in the Hermès box. There are also assorted post cards which is exciting for me because I have a lot of pen pals.
An aside: some gifts were experiential as opposed to physical. For example, Hermès offered massage sessions and Montblanc arranged to have postcards mailed out for you.
There are a couple of things that I now realize that I forgot to photograph. Probably because I traded them for other things like this portable speaker. There were also lots of baseball hats. To be honest, all baseball hats end up being regifted. And some things got left behind in my hotel room because they just didn’t fit in my luggage (and I even paid $75 extra because I brought home way more stuff than I brought).