For Pop Duo Aly & AJ, Vintage Watches Tell Stories and Keep the Past Alive
21.09.2023 - 18:37
/ atlasobscura.com
/ Atlas Obscura
Secret Obsessions is Atlas Obscura’s column where we ask wondrous people to take us down a rabbit hole. This edition features chart-topping pop duo Aly & AJ—sisters Aly and AJ Michalka.
AJ Michalka knew she had found something special on the antique site Foundwell. With a delicate interlinking strap and circular face, the 1959 Audemars Piguet (AP) Disco Volante was the perfect piece to commemorate a return to music. It was 2017, and she and her sister, Aly Michalka, after a 10-year hiatus, had just released their first EP as the pop duo AJ & Aly, fittingly named Ten Years. A watch seemed like just the thing.
“The vintage AP was my first purchase,” says AJ, who has since amassed a unique and deeply personal watch collection. “It’s kind of a ridiculous analogy, but I feel like our music career got a total repair,” she says. “And I feel like that can be the life of a watch, too.” Watches die and stop ticking, but with a little care and effort, they can come back to life.
Aly, who’s three years older than AJ and has her own vintage watch collection, agrees. “I think that these pieces have a special energy and spirit around them,” she says. Every watch tells a story, and both sisters cherish the chance to add their own experiences to a watch’s tale.
As part of Atlas Obscura’s Secret Obsessions column, we chatted with Aly and AJ about their favorite watches, from a 1934 Patek watch commemorating a record seaplane flight to their great-grandmother’s Hamilton, and how wearing these timeless pieces onstage feels like putting on armor.
AJ: The watch thing started seven or eight years ago. My sister was about to get married. It was the day before the wedding and we were talking about heirlooms.
We were like, “We don’t really have anything our parents held on to from past generations. So let’s start it ourselves.”
We decided that the best heirloom we could probably pass down from generation to generation, whether it’s to commemorate a wedding or an event, would be a vintage watch. And that’s kind of how the conversation started.
Aly: We’ve always just been people who love old things. We love history. We love the story behind an item. And so I think that’s what drew us specifically to vintage watch collecting.
Aly: It started with my husband, who bought his first vintage watch from Eric Wind. It’s this beautiful Universal Genève from 1945. It suits him so well. I was like, “Wow, this watch was made for you!” This was around the time when AJ and I were having discussions about heirlooms.
So I think after he bought that watch, AJ soon bought her AP. And then I was third in line.
I had seen this watch at a pop-up shop for [watch site] Hodinkee. I was actually making fun of my husband for being there. I was like, “Why