Watches are a way of life for Irimescu, who began apprenticing in horology at age 11 and today runs Paul’s Watch Repair with his father, who started dismantling clocks and watches at the tender age of 8. Irimescu’s great-grandfather began the tradition in Romania more than a century ago. “It’s a trade unlike any other,” he explains. “Because you’re around it from the time you’re born, you fall in love.”
Collecting, says Irimescu, “can become addictive. It’s not like cars; watches are easy to collect. You end up wanting to research more and more about them. You can look at them, wind them up, change the bands around. It brings a lot of joy and fun.”
He’s partial to Omega and Zodiac watches. “They are both very good-quality brands that last
forever,” he says. “An Apple watch has a lifespan of about three years. An Omega wristwatch has a lifespan of 140 years. That puts it in perspective.”
Irimescu doesn’t chase after watches as a show of wealth or status. (Though plenty of collectors do: The Rolex Daytona famously worn by Paul Newman fetched $17 million at auction.) Instead, he hangs onto nostalgic pieces: a 1980s Raymond Weil gifted to him by his father when he was 12; a Zodiac Sea Wolf purchased from a Vietnam vet (“It was a tool that people actually used in war”); a Citizen his wife gave him in 1998, “our first Christmas together.”
Irimescu has handled thousands of timepieces over the years, both at his Marconi Avenue shop and at collector shows, but one brand remains his holy grail: Richard Mille. “They make maybe 3,000 watches in a year, all by hand. No one in my family has ever owned one, but I would love to have one someday.”