What is the thing you love or know most about in the world?
What is your passion? Perhaps it’s a cause you care about, like protecting the environment, or a thing you know a lot about, such as comic books. Or maybe it’s an activity you love to do, such as playing soccer or writing poetry. Would you ever want to become famous for it?
In “At 11, Already Making a Name for Herself in Watches,” Vivian Morelli writes about a young girl from Switzerland who has done just that:
GENEVA — She loves colorful high-top Nike sneakers and shopping sprees at Bershka, the fast-fashion retailer. She listens to the Belgian hip-hop artist Stromae and likes to drink Stracciatella Frappuccinos, a specialty at Starbucks in Switzerland.
Amandine is just a regular 11-year-old growing up here — except she has become quite well-known in the watch industry, thanks to her passion for timepieces and her candid social media comments about them. (She is identified only by her first name in public and in online posts, an arrangement her parents said was for her safety.)
In the year since it was created, her Instagram account watch_it_with_amandine has accumulated nearly 2,000 followers, including well-known names like the vintage watch dealer Zoe Abelson and the collector Mark Cho. Her posts, in French, usually start with “Salut les amis …” (in English, “Hello, friends …”) and she goes on to talk about a watch or to give a glimpse of her daily life.
Her number of followers jumped in March 2022 when the auction house Phillips posted a YouTube video with Amandine doing a guest review of some watches it had scheduled for sale — hosted by Aurel Bacs, the well-known auctioneer who runs Phillips’s watch business, and with off-camera comments from Arthur Touchot, Phillips’s head of digital strategy. (She loved the Harry Winston and F.P. Journe Opus 1 Chronomètre à Résonance, but said the Ming x Massena LAB “Honeytrap” “feels a little simplistic.”)
Since then, she has been interviewed by online sites like the Hong Kong-based Wristcheck, had one of her IG posts praised by Watchonista and has done some interviews of her own, like a recent one with Pierre Jacques, chief executive of De Bethune for the Journal Suisse d’Horlogerie magazine. “Amandine is a breath of fresh air,” Mr. Jacques wrote in an email, “a refreshing, uninhibited and wondering look at contemporary watchmaking, yet without taking herself too seriously. It does us so much good!”
Amandine said her budding celebrity has been a bit of a surprise. “It happened all of a sudden, like a storm,” she said. “It just fell on me, but I like it a lot.”
Students, read the entire article, then tell us:
Amandine is passionate about watches. What is your passion? What is something you love or know a lot about? Why do you care about it?
Where did your passion come from? The author notes that Amandine is from the watchmaking capital of the world and that she has been interested in timepieces since she was a little girl. Have the places you lived in and the people around you influenced your passion at all?
Professionals told Amandine that if she was interested in watchmaking, “she should attend watch events, talk with people and do what she loves.” Do you agree with this advice? How do you engage with your passion? Do you go to events for it? Do you get the opportunity to talk with people about it? Or do you mostly keep it to yourself? Do you ever wish you had more time to do what you love, or more chances to share it with others?
Would you ever consider making a social media account dedicated to your passion, as Amandine did? Do you already have one? Amandine uses her account to comment on different kinds of watches. What would — or do — you post on yours? Recipes? Reviews of video games? Facts about reptiles?
If you were to make an account dedicated to your passion, would you want to become famous for it, as Amandine has? If so, how famous? And if you did become known for it, would you still “just try to be a normal person” around your friends, like Amandine? Why or why not?
In “At 11, Already Making a Name for Herself in Watches,” Vivian Morelli writes about a young girl from Switzerland who has done just that:
GENEVA — She loves colorful high-top Nike sneakers and shopping sprees at Bershka, the fast-fashion retailer. She listens to the Belgian hip-hop artist Stromae and likes to drink Stracciatella Frappuccinos, a specialty at Starbucks in Switzerland.
Amandine is just a regular 11-year-old growing up here — except she has become quite well-known in the watch industry, thanks to her passion for timepieces and her candid social media comments about them. (She is identified only by her first name in public and in online posts, an arrangement her parents said was for her safety.)
In the year since it was created, her Instagram account watch_it_with_amandine has accumulated nearly 2,000 followers, including well-known names like the vintage watch dealer Zoe Abelson and the collector Mark Cho. Her posts, in French, usually start with “Salut les amis …” (in English, “Hello, friends …”) and she goes on to talk about a watch or to give a glimpse of her daily life.
Her number of followers jumped in March 2022 when the auction house Phillips posted a YouTube video with Amandine doing a guest review of some watches it had scheduled for sale — hosted by Aurel Bacs, the well-known auctioneer who runs Phillips’s watch business, and with off-camera comments from Arthur Touchot, Phillips’s head of digital strategy. (She loved the Harry Winston and F.P. Journe Opus 1 Chronomètre à Résonance, but said the Ming x Massena LAB “Honeytrap” “feels a little simplistic.”)
Since then, she has been interviewed by online sites like the Hong Kong-based Wristcheck, had one of her IG posts praised by Watchonista and has done some interviews of her own, like a recent one with Pierre Jacques, chief executive of De Bethune for the Journal Suisse d’Horlogerie magazine. “Amandine is a breath of fresh air,” Mr. Jacques wrote in an email, “a refreshing, uninhibited and wondering look at contemporary watchmaking, yet without taking herself too seriously. It does us so much good!”
Amandine said her budding celebrity has been a bit of a surprise. “It happened all of a sudden, like a storm,” she said. “It just fell on me, but I like it a lot.”
Students, read the entire article, then tell us:
Amandine is passionate about watches. What is your passion? What is something you love or know a lot about? Why do you care about it?
Where did your passion come from? The author notes that Amandine is from the watchmaking capital of the world and that she has been interested in timepieces since she was a little girl. Have the places you lived in and the people around you influenced your passion at all?
Professionals told Amandine that if she was interested in watchmaking, “she should attend watch events, talk with people and do what she loves.” Do you agree with this advice? How do you engage with your passion? Do you go to events for it? Do you get the opportunity to talk with people about it? Or do you mostly keep it to yourself? Do you ever wish you had more time to do what you love, or more chances to share it with others?
Would you ever consider making a social media account dedicated to your passion, as Amandine did? Do you already have one? Amandine uses her account to comment on different kinds of watches. What would — or do — you post on yours? Recipes? Reviews of video games? Facts about reptiles?
If you were to make an account dedicated to your passion, would you want to become famous for it, as Amandine has? If so, how famous? And if you did become known for it, would you still “just try to be a normal person” around your friends, like Amandine? Why or why not?
