Cover Watch collector Nop Srinara has spent nearly two decades building a curated collection—from MB&F to Bvlgari
Watch collector Nop Srinara has spent nearly two decades building a curated collection—from MB&F to Bvlgari
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For Nop Srinara, nearly two decades of watch collecting have been guided by one simple rule: if the piece does not spark joy, let it go
Nop Srinara still remembers the watch that started it all: a Panerai Luminor 1950 8 Days GMT PAM0233 worn by a colleague in 2007. “There was something very cool and macho about it,” recalls Srinara, who has been in software sales for 20 years. At the time, the oversized watch trend was in full swing, and he told himself he would own one soon enough. A couple of years later, he did.
Neither that Panerai nor his very first watch—a Tag Heuer Monaco, bought with one of his first pay cheques—is still in his collection. He sold both without much deliberation. Unlike many collectors, Srinara has never been too sentimental with his watches. He has always approached the hobby with the attitude of just enjoying it, and moving on when a watch stops speaking to him to make room for what comes next.
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Above Nop Srinara wears the MB&F Legacy Machine 101 EVO in titanium with a green dial
Nop Srinara wears the MB&F Legacy Machine 101 EVO in titanium with a green dial
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To curate his collection, he applies, in his words, the “Marie Kondo approach”—embracing the renowned organising expert’s philosophy of keeping only what sparks joy and letting go of everything else. This helps Srinara keep his collection at around 30 pieces. He is equally firm about resisting hype. “The watches that usually catch my eye have something unique either horologically or aesthetically,” he says. “Ultimately, if the watch sings to me and I can justify the price tag versus the overall horological value, then I’ll add it to my collection.” His wife Charmaine is also his voice of reason. When at one point he found himself working too hard to win favour with certain brands to buy their watches, she was quick to call it out. “She said to me, ‘Why are you trying so hard to talk to people who are obviously not interested in having a conversation with you?’” recounts Srinara, who took the reality check on board and never looked back.
That clarity steered him firmly towards independent watchmaking—and in particular, to MB&F. The brand first caught his eye years ago with the HM3, a watch so unconventional he told himself he would own one someday. He eventually tracked one down on the secondary market and upon registering it, was deeply struck by the brand’s response: MB&F welcomed him warmly, making it clear that no matter how the timepiece was acquired, he was now part of the tribe. He went on to buy two more MB&F pieces directly through an authorised dealer.
Above Vilhelm Watches Prism Smoked Teal in titanium, Bvlgari Octo Finissimo S Octo Club Singapore Edition, Otsuka Lotec No 8
Vilhelm Watches Prism Smoked Teal in titanium, Bvlgari Octo Finissimo S Octo Club Singapore Edition, Otsuka Lotec No 8
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This fascination with independent design eventually fuelled Srinara’s own creative impulse. In 2015, inspired by the birth of his firstborn son Liam, he co-founded Vilhelm Watches—the “Vilhelm” being the Scandinavian variant of his child’s name—designing sporty, distinctive timepieces incorporating special materials and Swiss movements. Though the project is currently on pause, the first-hand exposure to the behind-the-scenes complexities of watchmaking gave him a perspective that permanently changed how he evaluates other people’s work. “There’s a lot of trial and error, and things are much more complicated than you realise,” he says. “Now, I don’t just look at the brand of a watch—I look at where it gets its movements, its materials and the investment in R&D that goes into it.”
Among his most prized possessions today are three watches that each shows a different side of his identity as a collector: an Otsuka Lotec No 8, the MB&F Special Project One and the Bvlgari Octo Finissimo S Octo Club Singapore Edition. The first, from self-taught independent Japanese watchmaker Jiro Katayama, reflects his appetite for the genuinely obscure, while the second—MB&F’s first dress watch, featuring a three-dimensional layout that showcases a seemingly floating barrel, balance wheel and dial—represents his love of bold design. “The moment I saw it, I knew I had to get one,” he says. The final piece anchors his collection as a deeply sentimental piece he vows never to sell.
That sentimentality stems from a deep personal history; Srinara did not just buy the watch—he helped create it. His journey with the model began around 2017, when he first noticed the Octo Finissimo, and was drawn to its ultra-thin case and in-house micro-rotor movement. In 2022, he founded the Singapore-based Octo Club as a global community of Octo Finissimo collectors after realising that no such group existed. From there, he pitched a Singapore edition of the watch to Bvlgari’s creative director Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani and then managing director Antoine Pin. He was adamant about creating something a collector would actually be proud to wear, and that the brand would be interested in collaborating on. “Too often with country editions, the design tends to be a tad lazy and obvious, like just pasting the flag on it or making one of the numerals red—a very simple five-minute job,” he says. “But the Finissimo is very artistic and stylised, so we also wanted [the Singapore elements] to be subtle and implied.”
They settled on a crescent moon and stars on the sub-dial, Singapore’s longitude and latitude coordinates discreetly marked at the 2 o’clock position on the dial, and a nod to the country’s year of independence via the “65” engraved on the ceramic cabochon of the crown. Thirty pieces were made, all pre-sold. The watch was later included in a Bvlgari encyclopaedia documenting the Octo Finissimo’s history. “It’s part of the history books now,” Srinara says. “It’s hard to top that.”
For Srinara, watches are ultimately inseparable from the community and conversations they spark. He has made close friends through almost two decades of collecting and that human dimension, he insists, matters more than any individual piece. “Meeting like-minded collectors who have become my friends—I think that’s even more important than the watches themselves.”
Credits
Photography: Ching
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Annabel Tan is the Editor of Watches and Jewellery at Tatler Singapore, where she covers all things luxury timepieces and fine jewellery across both print and digital platforms. She is also the Editor of Tatler GMT Singapore, a role that deepens her fascination with the ever-evolving world of watchmaking. Outside of work, she’s usually on the hunt for her next favourite watch that she can’t afford, planning her next beach getaway, or catching up on the latest Formula 1 race.
