Introducing
Rhonda Riche
Watchonista Editor at Large Rhonda Riche: ‘I always research stuff because I’m a research geek. It’s what you find in the research hole that makes it easier.’
The veteran writer discusses her career, from covering fashion and watches, her new book – and what started it all.
Words and photography by @furrywristabroad
Chances are that if one left their house in Toronto this early spring, it was an unseasonably blustery day. Much like herself, the Junction in Toronto, Rhonda Riche’s neighbourhood, could not be bothered by high winds and a forbidding overcast day. Every face I passed on the sidewalk, and that of the owner of Gigli Caffe, where we would hold our interview, beamed with optimism that spoke of genuine gratitude and interest in those around them.
The pride with which Gigli’s owner set up our table and ensured that we had the best light and sound. This spoke to the overall attention to detail this region of Toronto puts forward. This level of exertion was contrasted by Mrs. Riche effortlessly entering the calm café from the windswept sidewalk, wearing all black and without a strand of hair misplaced on her wise head. Beaming with her disarming smile, we ordered our food and sat down, catching up.
Rhonda Riche
The discussion did not start with watches or her new book, The Wonderful World of Women’s Watches: Beauty Beyond Time, but with family and navigating a life fully lived on all fronts. You can read my full review of her book here.
“Thank you so much,” said Mrs. Riche as the owner brought us our drinks, a Diet Coke for Mrs. Riche, a cortado and a bottle of water for me.
“A breakfast croissant,” said the owner as he placed her dish before her, “and ham and cheese for you.”
“Thank you,” I said as I reorganized both Dictaphones for better coverage as the gentle jazz music played in the background.
“I’m going to pretend I’m a photographer,” Mrs. Riche said playfully, rapidly swaying side to side as her rising posture secured her hands while she steadied her mobile phone.
Those who have the fortune of meeting Mrs. Riche immediately come to appreciate the buoyant perspective that she brings to all but the most severe topics of conversation. “The original concept was to make a picture book but make it fun, not scholarly, try to cover off all kinds of different things that would appeal to different readers, both men and women.” Where a less seasoned writer would try to prove their prowess over such a topic in a publication, Mrs. Riche doesn’t feel the need to do so.
For her new book, Mrs. Riche endeavoured to present readers with an experience which was not only approachable but one that would act as a springboard into the topic of women and horology. For most people, their entrance into the world of watches is through a cultural lens. When they reach a milestone in their career, get married, or want to signify the birth of their first child, they do not cordon off significant time to research what watch would be best for them – they resort to what they know. They resort to what feels natural to them, and that is through what they have come to absorb as they live their lives. Over the years, I have come across dozens of men who own one Omega Seamaster or Speedmaster that they bought after receiving their first major promotion and never purchased another watch afterward. The common reason they all stated for doing so was that this watch, in particular, was the watch they saw on either James Bond’s wrist or that of astronauts. I’ve experienced the same phenomenon with women and their Cartiers as they cited Jackie Kennedy Onassis as their inspiration.
As the Editor at Large at Watchonista, Mrs. Riche has years of experience covering watches in culture, and this book leverages her expertise. Mrs. Riche also fills the role of their beat writer, covering all horological matters as they break throughout the day. She also utilizes her years of working for fashion magazines such as DuJour and Instyle, which grant her a much broader viewpoint on the cultural significance of watches. Along with her childhood experiences with mechanical watches, Mrs. Riche is well-positioned to bridge the gap between contemplative and experiential enthusiasts. Where the latter camp likes to experience a field, the former takes the time to research everything about a certain topic. Often, those who reside on either extreme end of the continual scale between the two somehow manage to look down on the opposing camp. The majority of enthusiasts and collectors in all fields, whether it be watches, stationery, a particular sport, cars, or even books, usually fall somewhere on the scale between the two camps.
More importantly, Mrs. Riche uses the cultural aspect of watches to dispel misinformation about women in horology and to shine a light on women working in the industry. As a recent example, to combat a circulating false belief that women were not allowed to wear watches in certain eras, Mrs. Riche gives very clear examples in her book that this had never been the case. When confronted with such views, Mrs. Riche always treats such occurrences as teachable moments in the tenderhearted manner she is known for. “That’s so not true. Whatever era you are showing a photo of a hidden watch, I can show you a picture of Raquel Welch wearing Breitling from the same year,” she said.
“They gave me a pretty good free reign to write about things and make it, not just about women, but of historic timepieces like the Marie Antoinette, which is associated with a specific woman,” she continued. “But also, that women have always been involved in watchmaking. When it was done by families, when watchmaking was a cottage industry in Switzerland, in the offseason, everybody was involved in it.”
Mrs. Riche’s horological journey started back when she became old enough to no longer be considered a toddler. “My grandfather was a watch guy. He was a mechanic in the city of Kitchener. He worked on buses, but he also worked on people’s cars. Oftentimes, he would get paid in watches. So, he would have things on his workbench that he was working on.” At this point in our discussion, her voice pitched upwards, and her diction softened along with the corners of her eyes.
“So, I had gotten a Bradley Cinderella watch, and I thought, my grandfather takes things apart, I’m going to do it too!” Unconsciously, her mannerisms transported both of us back to a four-year-old Rhonda, overlooking her dismantled watch with childlike wonder. “I got it apart, but I could not get it back. I was banned from them (wearing watches) for a significant period, from age five to grade eight, because my mother said I couldn’t be trusted.” Thankfully, she has since found an exact copy of the watch and had it restored.
It was the memories of her grandfather which still resonate the strongest today for her. “I was pretty young, and he died, I was five. It’s one of my earliest childhood memories, sitting at the bench in the basement. He’d have a couple of different projects usually. I don’t think most people sat with their grandfather and took it (an assortment of watches) apart to pieces.” The mechanical workings of a watch came to become central to Mrs. Riche’s appreciation for the world of horology. This is what makes her voice so immensely powerful when it comes to covering the cultural impact of watches.
When speaking about her father’s watch, she gleamed with pride as she told me the tale of how her grandfather gave it to him as a present. “It was a ‘Wolfsburg’ which was a generic Swiss watch. Wolfsberg being the place the town where Volkswagen comes from. If you drove so many kilometres, I forget the exact number, they would give you this watch as a prize,” pausing to take her last remaining bites of her croissant, she sat back in her chair and looked off to her right as she pictured the scene many years ago. “My grandfather must have been fixing someone’s Volkswagen, and they paid him with the watch,” she was suspended in thought before her posture and tone became full of glee as she re-entered the beautiful café in the present. “Then he gave it to my dad.”
Growing up, Mrs. Riche was not immune to being influenced by the watches, which were prominent in the cultural zeitgeist. In grade eight, she received a Tradition, which was the department store Sears’ in-house brand, but as high school approached, she set her sights on something grander. Like many, Cartier’s Tank had subconsciously entered her mind as a target. “So, I went to a garage sale, and somebody was selling a Timex Tank. A clone, which I bought and wore for the next five years,” once again, her inflection and posture became frolicsome as she recalled how she felt holding the Timex for the first time. “It looked fancy. Then I started researching the Cartier Tank, and this is why I like square watches to this day.”
The Cartier Tank is one of the watches which is imminently featured in her new book. It is easy for those who live and breathe watches to forget how influential the choices made by celebrities and those in positions of power have on the public. From the Queen of Naples in 1810 and her Breguet to Liza Taylor and her vast collection, including the Bulgari Serpenti, to Victoria Beckham and her Rolex Daytonas, these prominent women continue to play vital roles in shaping our tastes.
Mrs. Riche expertly covers these topics in her new book while also providing the reader with a historical foundation upon which to base their growing enthusiasm. It’s one thing to write about specific model lines of watches and those who made them popular, but another to shine a light on those currently working at the highest levels of the industry. Many who pick up The Wonderful World of Women’s Watches will be doing so as their first step into the realm of horology. Probably her most significant chapter appears in the latter half of the book, and it is an interview with Catherine Rénier, the CEO of Van Cleef & Arpels. Mrs. Rénier’s visionary leadership is on full display as she breaks with the common tact within the industry of merely looking at one’s past catalogue for inspiration. While at Jaeger LeCoultre, Mrs. Rénier’s implementation of the Made of Makers series focused on artisans and creatives outside of the immediate industry to breathe new life into an ever-evolving catalogue. Hearing Mrs. Rénier’s voice come to life through the pages of this book brings hope for women who are just starting to look into the world of horology. As Mrs. Riche said in our interview, while shopping for a new watch, women are left to choose from timepieces that were given the “shrink it and pink it” treatment. This can be immensely disheartening, as one can immediately get the impression of an industry that does not value them. It is through the works of people such as Mrs. Renier that the industry is growing to cater to women and their tastes, all while moving the industry as a whole forward without having to rely on the past.
What makes Mrs. Riche even more of a perfect narrator for this space is her background in arts, for she can immediately decode and appreciate the work which goes into the hand-painted elements and gem settings of many timepieces. “I went to school for fine arts. I would have liked to have been an artist, more of a creator. In university, I went to the school paper to complain that they never did any arts coverage, and they said that if I wanted arts coverage, I would have to do it myself because nobody else wanted to do it. That’s how I got started, writing for the school paper.” She then went on to study journalism, and it was from there that her love for research took over. This sentiment was strongly voiced when I asked her what she enjoyed most about writing.
“The greedy end is the research thing, because it’s a problem, I never know when to stop. I keep finding new things to write about. You probably know the same thing, where the end is sometimes, there’s just so much that you can write in a five-hundred-word story.” We spoke at great length about the love for researching any and all topics and how it always comes back to informing one’s writing.
For inspiration, Mrs. Riche also turns to those around her to keep her love of horology alive. “One of my oldest friends, I worked for him, he had a DJ magazine in Toronto. He just recently got into watches, and it’s super fun because I’m rediscovering through his eyes…”
“Sort of like when you have a kid,” I replied.
“Yeah! He’s learning how to repair watches. It’s just fun. I’ve taken him along to some events because he lives in New York. It’s invigorating because he’s got that same excitement we all did starting out, and I still do.”
She also adores those who are new to the same spaces that she occupies, especially influencers on social media and younger writers. “Young writers, I consider them mentors in a way. People have shown me how to take proper pictures with my camera or how to do little Reels on Instagram that I never considered before.” Keeping a level head and never forgetting where one came from is definitely why Mrs. Riche is so widely loved. “I’ve been the hot new girl, where you get invited to lots of things, and then someone newer comes along, and that’s my advice to older writers, older collectors - that’s going to happen, don’t take it personally. You’re still here.”
Moving forward, Mrs. Riche would like to tackle the biggest challenge she was presented with in writing this book – covering all the stories properly and doing justice to the efforts of women in the watch industry. In her words, the topic deserves a much “bigger canvas.” Names such as Dr. Rebecca Struthers, the watchmaker, and other journalists, including Carol Besler and Victoria Townsend, came up. “There’s so many more stories and watches. There are young watchmakers, the radium girls, and non-Swiss watchmakers. There are people I know in Japan who do the decorations, these details, there’s a lot of entrepreneurs.”
As the café’s owner came to take our dishes, Mrs. Riche reached for my pens as I took a couple of portraits for the article. “I do enjoy writing with a pen. It goes back to when I was a kid, and I was a big fan of all of the Anne of Green Gables books. There’s a huge section where Lucy Maud Montgomery is describing Ann Gilbert’s peculiarities for different kinds of nibs. A whole chapter of, ‘this one’s scratchy,’” she said, laughing. “It was just purely emotive, not practical, ‘I feel like this is my kindred spirit.’”
It was from there that we took the opportunity to explore her neighbourhood further, stopping by the stationery store Take Note. As we examined all the wonderful items on display, we decided to purchase two Pilot Metropolitan fountain pens to celebrate the release of her book. It was here that we concluded our joyful day, discussing a topic that we both hold very dear to our hearts in a city that fosters such enthusiasm, with charming and welcoming neighbourhoods like The Junction.
You can purchase Rhonda Riche’s new book, The Wonderful World of Women’s Watches: Beauty Beyond Time, here directly from the publisher.
