Sketchy Is as Sketchy Does: A Watch Post

I’m a watch person. Watch people love to discuss their obsession on forums and groups, and I’m no different. One of my prize watches is a Breitling, so when group members talk about the brand I pay attention. Lately the word “sketchy” has appeared in the title of nearly every Breitling post. From context, it’s clear the posters don’t mean anything bad by it — more like approval or admiration, actually — but what’s behind it? What did I miss?

So I posted this to WatchCrunch, one of the groups I’m on:

The very first response led me to this YouTube video, which explains everything: Sketchy Dudes Wear Breitling — We Don’t Make the Rules.

Here’s a quick summary for those who don’t have the patience to watch an eleven-minute video:

In the 1990s and 2000s, Breitling watches became popular with elite military and espionage personnel — fighter pilots, commandos, SEALs, undercover operatives — sketchy dudes. The video even singles out some genuinely shady Breitling wearers: international arms dealer Viktor Bout, Blackwater CEO Eric Prince. Breitlings have featured in action movies from Thunderbolt to Blood Diamond. 

That’s the source of the meme, and now I know. Not only that, the video is so on point it’s almost scary.

I must have sensed some of the points made in the video when I bought mine in 1990 (right at the beginning of Breitling’s sketchy era). I’d flown from Japan to Hong Kong, intending to buy a Rolex Submariner (another watch associated with the military and espionage, thanks to the James Bond movies). I’d recently come off a joint staff tour with U.S. Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida and had returned to the cockpit for my third operational F-15 Eagle assignment, this time at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa.

I told some Air Force, Navy, and Marine friends beforehand I wanted to buy a Rolex in Hong Kong, and they recommended a broker who worked out of the Royal Navy’s China Fleet Club. When I sat down with the broker I learned that the Submariner was at the very upper limit of my budget, and wasn’t a particularly exciting watch in person. When he showed me the Breitling, I instantly knew it was the watch for me, and all to the better the price was half that of the Rolex. I flew back to Japan with my new prize, wore it for the remaining seven years of my time in the service (including a few hundred flying hours in the Eagle and other aircraft), and still wear it today, 34 years later.

I’m retired now and fairly sedentary. I read books, cook, blog, and walk my dogs. But I’ve got the watch to show I once was a sketchy dude!