Update 8/19: On Tuesday, Weiss released a watch made in collaboration with Tyler Childers. The limited-edition version of the brand’s 38mm Standard Issue Field Watch features orange detailing and a textured forest green dial “inspired by the Appalachian landscapes that shaped Tyler’s music.” Only 50 were made, and they’re exclusively available on Tyler Childers’s website.
If rap’s chart-toppers from the last two decades are to be believed, the most covetable watches are those from luxury Swiss brands. Take J. Cole’s “Mr. Nice Watch” from 2011: on it, Jay-Z mentions Hublot, Audemars Piguet and Rolex in just one verse. Even musicians outside the hip-hop genre support this flex. Last year, well-known watch nerd John Mayer collaborated with Audemars on an $180,000 timepiece.
A new era for watch flexing may be dawning, kicked off by the most unlikely of musicians: Tyler Childers. On “Eatin’ Big Time,” the first song off the country artist’s latest record, Snipe Hunter, the 34-year-old sings about his own precious timepiece — not some bejeweled wristwear that costs as much as a house, but a modest $1,200 field watch made by American watchmaker Weiss Watch Company.
“Keep my time on my Weiss / Ya goddamn right I’m flexin’ / ‘Cause a thousand-dollar watch is fine enough flex for me,” he sings. “Have you ever got to hold and blow a thousand fucking dollars? It runs for 40 hours and then it winds itself to sleep.”
The State of American Manufacturing, According to 10 Companies
What’s the reality like for U.S. brands making blankets, furniture, cookware and watches? We asked them.For Childers, a Kentucky native whose music is intimately tied to his Appalachian upbringing, the choice to don a watch from Weiss is a no-brainer. Founded by Cameron Weiss in 2013, the brand is focused on reviving the art of mechanical watchmaking in the United States through the vessel of a humble, unadorned field watch. (Weiss watches include American and Swiss parts, but they’re inching closer to fully domestic production.)
“As a trained watchmaker and father, American manufacturing is important to me, and I believe in preserving the lost art of watchmaking,” Cameron told us in June. “I am not cutting corners, and I am doing the work piece by piece to create a legacy that outlasts me.”
This isn’t the first time Weiss, which was founded in Los Angeles but is currently based in Nashville, Tennessee, has been touted by musicians. In 2023, the brand released a limited-edition timepiece with country artist Chase Rice. Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead has also been a fan for years. But it’s the first time they’ve been name-checked in a song, and ostensibly the first time their watches have been showcased in a music video, too. (It’s not totally clear, but Childers’s Weiss appears to be placed on the table in the video for “Eatin’ Big Time” at 2:50 and shown on his wrist at 3:03.)
According to the company, Childers bought a 42mm Standard Issue Field Watch with a latte dial from them back in 2020. That would explain the “thousand-dollar” line. On Weiss’s website, the available watches run from $2,700 to $3,400, a significant jump from five years ago when they were selling for a little more than $1,000. The price hike is partly because of inflation, of course, but as Cameron told us, new tariffs enacted by President Donald Trump are leading to increased costs for both materials and the highly specialized equipment needed for manufacturing watch parts here in the United States.
If you prefer to flex like Tyler instead of John Mayer — and if the new collab watch is sold out — consider picking up the Weiss 38mm Automatic Standard Issue Field Watch if you dig the latte-colored dial, or the 42mm Standard Issue Field Watch if you prefer the larger size, running seconds subdial and manual-wind movement. Either way, they both run for (over) 40 hours.
More Like This
This article appeared in an InsideHook newsletter. Sign up for free to get more on travel, wellness, style, drinking, and culture.