The Watch Tailor: The Art of Building a Truly Personal Watch Collection

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Gotham Trading NY

How Gotham Trading NY founder Nathan Yakubov is bringing a more thoughtful, relationship-driven approach to the world of luxury timepieces

For serious watch collectors, there comes a point when acquiring the next coveted timepiece is no longer enough. The more interesting question becomes: What actually belongs in my collection?

It is a subtle distinction, but one that sits at the heart of Gotham Trading NY and founder Nathan Yakubov’s philosophy toward collecting. In a luxury market often driven by scarcity, waiting lists and the pursuit of recognizable references, Yakubov takes a decidedly more personal approach, which starts with a private watch consultation.

He thinks of himself as something of a “watch tailor.”

Much as a bespoke tailor considers the individual before cutting the garment, Yakubov begins not with the watch he wants to sell, but with the person who will ultimately wear it. Their lifestyle, personal style, travel habits, professional environment, existing watches and long-term collecting ambitions all become part of the equation.

The result is an approach to watch collecting built around curation rather than accumulation.

From the Diamond District to Private Collecting

Yakubov began his career in New York City’s Diamond District in 2018, immersing himself in a marketplace where knowledge and access matter, but relationships and reputation can matter even more.

That experience ultimately shaped Gotham Trading NY, a New York-based luxury timepiece company working with clients across private sourcing, buying, selling, trading and collection building.

For Yakubov, however, sourcing the right watch is only the beginning.

“I think of the work as being a watch tailor. The watch has to fit the individual, not the other way around.”

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Gotham Trading NY

Understanding a collector can mean looking at what is already in the watch box and identifying unnecessary overlap. It can mean finding a timepiece that works for frequent travel, an important professional setting or a more relaxed lifestyle. Sometimes the objective is celebrating a major milestone. In other cases, it is finding an exceptional piece that might eventually be handed down to the next generation.

That personalization has become increasingly relevant as the luxury watch market has matured. Experienced collectors are often less interested in simply acquiring another recognizable watch and more interested in understanding why a particular reference deserves a place within their collection.

The Architecture of a Great Collection

Yakubov believes a strong collection should have range, purpose and balance.

Rather than filling a watch box with variations of similar high-demand pieces, he considers the role each timepiece plays. An everyday watch should be comfortable and versatile enough to receive genuine wrist time. A sports watch can introduce durability, functionality and a more casual design language, while a dress watch brings proportion, traditional craftsmanship and understated elegance.

For collectors drawn more deeply into horology, a complication can introduce another dimension entirely, whether through a chronograph, perpetual calendar, world timer, minute repeater or tourbillon.

Then there is what might be called the collector’s piece.

This is often the watch that reveals the most about its owner. It might be an elusive discontinued reference, an independent manufacture, an unusual configuration or a historically important model. Alternatively, its significance may have little to do with the broader market at all. A watch connected to a personal accomplishment or important chapter of someone’s life can ultimately become one of the most meaningful pieces they own.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Gotham Trading NY

The framework isn’t meant to be a checklist. Instead, it gives Yakubov a way to evaluate a collection as a whole: what the client owns, what may be redundant, what is missing and what a potential acquisition would contribute.

That distinction becomes especially important at the highest levels of collecting.

Access Is Only the Beginning

Luxury watches exist within an ecosystem where access can be extraordinarily valuable. Rare allocations, discontinued references and difficult-to-source configurations can command intense interest, and knowing where to find them is part of Gotham Trading’s role.

Yet Yakubov’s philosophy is that access by itself should not be confused with advice.

“I want to understand the person before I recommend the watch. What they already own, how they live, what they actually wear, and what they want the collection to become.”

That can sometimes mean advising a client that the watch they are considering does not actually improve their collection.

It is an approach that places judgment alongside sourcing. Provenance, authenticity and documentation also become particularly important as values increase and collections become more sophisticated. Gotham Trading says every timepiece it offers undergoes a four-step authentication process.

For collectors, that degree of diligence becomes part of the luxury itself. Discretion, confidence in provenance and the ability to have a trusted advisor navigate an increasingly complex secondary market can be every bit as important as gaining access to the watch.

Collecting With an Eye Toward Legacy

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Gotham Trading NY

Perhaps the most compelling aspect of Yakubov’s philosophy is that the ultimate goal is not necessarily to own more.

It is to own better—and more meaningfully.

The best collections evolve alongside the people building them. A watch may begin as an object of craftsmanship or desire but eventually become inseparable from the memories surrounding it: the business milestone celebrated when it was purchased, the places it traveled, the dinners and meetings where it was worn or the person who ultimately inherits it.

In that sense, a collection can become a form of personal history.

“A great collection should feel personal. It should say something about the person who built it and tell a story worth preserving, with pieces that can carry that story forward to the next generation.”

For Gotham Trading NY, that is ultimately what separates simply owning luxury watches from truly collecting them. Scarcity and market value may help make a watch desirable, but they do not necessarily make it meaningful.

The most successful collection is one in which every watch has a reason for being there—and, perhaps one day, a story worth passing on.

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Private Collectors Club