What really is a luxury?
Is it something you can’t afford?
Is it something meticulously crafted?
In watches, we’re constantly talking about where affordable ends and luxury begins. But today on my desk is a watch that claims to be both affordable and luxurious at the same time.
And that forces a bigger question.
What is a luxury watch in an age dominated by social media?
Is this £160 watch really more luxurious than a Cartier?
Let’s find out.
If you want to check out Tremont – do so by clicking this link – it’s an affiliate link *hey ho
A Different Way of Scoring Watches
If you’ve seen some of my more recent, watch review adjacent videos, you’ll already know about the Aura System. It’s my semi-objective way of scoring watches holistically.
Aura stands for aestheticism, utility, romanticism, and authenticity.
The watch in front of me today leans heavily into two of those categories, aestheticism and romanticism.
Because this watch is a product of our contemporary moment. It’s designed with Instagram in mind, and priced in accordance with current economic realities.
This watch, the Tremont L003, challenges what luxury really means.
Welcome to Doug’s Watches, the thinking watch channel. I don’t really do traditional watch reviews. Instead, I try to connect art, design, history, theory, and philosophy to the world of watches.
If that sounds good to you, you know what to do.
The Watch Itself
You would be forgiven for calling the Tremont L003 an homage watch.
It clearly evokes the Cartier Pebble, from its case shape to its square mineral crystal. This particular black and gold colourway is undeniably Cartier inspired.
But that doesn’t mean the watch can’t stand on its own two legs.
A Tissot Seastar shares many stylistic notes with a Rolex Submariner, yet it isn’t simply an homage. It exists within the same category, but at a lower price point, and therefore has different constraints and challenges.
The Tremont L003 faces the same reality.
The Cartier Pebble returned briefly in 2022 in a run of just 150 pieces. The few examples available today trade for well over £20,000. At retail, prices hovered around £40,000, justified by the 18-carat gold case, the Cartier 430MC movement, the brand itself, and the watch’s extreme scarcity.
The Tremont costs significantly less.
£160, with a further 10 percent discount available via a code provided on screen and in the description. I don’t receive a kickback from this. Tremont is a new brand trying to establish itself, and this was simply offered to viewers.
To hit that price point, compromises were inevitable.
The watch uses a Miyota 9T22 quartz movement, a gold PVD case, and a mineral crystal rather than sapphire. There’s no cabochon on the crown. But this is not an off-the-shelf case ordered from Alibaba. It required design work and bespoke manufacturing. Real effort has gone into this watch.
And crucially, what hasn’t been compromised is the feeling of luxury.
The Feeling of Luxury
The Tremont arrives on a supple Italian leather strap with branded hardware. The buckle has shape and presence, and the branding feels intentional. The quartz movement is two-hand only, which means at a glance it could easily be mistaken for mechanical. It’s also accurate to within one second per day.
The packaging leans heavily into luxury codes. Dark green and cream, colours long associated with wealth, taste, and aspirational lifestyles across Pinterest boards and Instagram feeds.
The L003 presents an unblemished aesthetic of luxury.
And in today’s social media driven world, that aesthetic is often what separates the luxurious from the ordinary.
Quiet Luxury and Its Problems
A year or two ago, Instagram and TikTok fashion discourse was dominated by the phrase “quiet luxury”.
The idea was simple. Remove bold logos. Remove obvious branding. Replace ostentatious displays of wealth with subtle signals. If you know, you know.
The flex became stitching quality, fabric mills, and discreet silhouettes. Brands like Zegna, Brunello Cucinelli, Loro Piana, and The Row rose in cultural relevance. The idea was that you were paying for craftsmanship, not cultural capital.
But quiet luxury has a fundamental problem.
It’s no longer quiet.
These brands are now widely recognised by the mainstream consumer. Their exclusivity, once rooted in obscurity, has eroded. As a result, genuinely wealthy consumers move on, seeking new markers of distinction that other wealthy people can recognise.
This creates a constant churn. Some brands fall. Others rise. And this process happens not just at the top of the market, but further down as well.
This is where Tremont enters the picture.
Or perhaps Tremon, if you drop the final “t” and lean into the accented “é”, placing the brand linguistically within the world of Parisian avant-garde fashion houses.
To the uninitiated, to someone not deeply embedded in watch or fashion culture, Tremont could plausibly sit alongside Cartier within the shifting language of quiet luxury.
We’ve seen this before in fashion. Massimo Dutti rose as an upmarket basics brand by adopting the visual language of luxury at a more accessible price point.
Tremont is doing something similar in watches.
Curated Luxury
Scroll through Tremont’s website or social media and the intent is obvious.
The watch is photographed in restaurants. Alongside vintage camera equipment. Against European streetscapes. Next to chunky knits. Even paired with the tail lights of a Porsche 911 993 Turbo S.
The watch, the brand, and the aesthetic are all luxury coded.
In their own words, this is “attainable elegance”.
Many buyers may not even recognise the Cartier Pebble inspiration. They may only know the Tank, Santos, or Ballon Bleu. To them, this simply looks like a luxurious watch.
And that’s the point.
The Tremont L003 is not trying to replace a Cartier Pebble. It’s asking a different question.
What is a luxury watch to the wider market, not the enthusiast?
What Actually Is a Luxury Watch?
We often divide watches into two camps, affordable and luxury.
From an enthusiast perspective, affordability usually means anything below an arbitrary number. £50. £500. £1,000.
But that thinking ignores Coco Chanel’s famous idea that luxury begins where necessity ends.
For most people, a watch is already unnecessary. Phones tell the time. Clocks are everywhere.
So an affordable watch, in practice, is one you can buy without thinking. A luxury watch is one you have to save for.
If you need to save for a Hamilton Khaki Field Mechanical, then that is a luxury watch to you. If you buy one casually because you skipped a few meals out, then it’s affordable to you.
Within the broader market, though, the distinction becomes blurrier.
Most people would classify a Cartier Tank, a Royal Oak, or a Submariner as luxury watches. Not just because of their price, but because they score highly on aestheticism and romanticism. They look good, and they carry stories.
Interestingly, the same can be said for watches like Casios and MoonSwatches.
Casios are well designed tools that generate joy. Certain models genuinely feel luxurious despite their price.
The MoonSwatch borrows the Speedmaster’s design language and created a massive shared cultural moment. Young and old, collectors and non-collectors, all lined up for one. That’s romanticism.
And most buyers didn’t impulse buy them. Even a £50 or £200 watch requires thought for the average consumer.
Watch enthusiasts are simply desensitised to pricing.
So Where Does the Tremont Sit?
With all of this in mind, the Tremont L003 presents a genuine challenge to traditional ideas of luxury.
Through its aesthetic, its curated image, and its alignment with fashion trends, it projects luxury convincingly.
It’s quartz, but so is the Cartier Tank Must.
It lacks heritage, but it looks and sounds like it could have one.
It costs £160, but for many people that still requires consideration, budgeting, and even saving.
And that is the key point.
Luxury today is not about objective quality. It’s about outward aesthetic projection.
The Cartier Tank does this.
The Rolex Submariner does this.
And fundamentally, the Tremont L003 does this as well.
If you want to check out Tremont – do so by clicking this link – it’s an affiliate link *hey ho
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