In 2022, a couple of months after Joseph Barreto retired as a highschool counselor in East Harlem, he received a commemorative gift: a 42-millimeter stainless-steel Omega Constellation watch with a gray-taupe dial and a particular date display.
But getting the watch wasn’t as easy as, say, going to the Omega boutique on Fifth Avenue. Instead, the Hackensack, New Jersey, resident traveled to Switzerland to buy it.
“Buying a watch in Europe is just a completely different experience,” said Mr. Barreto, 57. “You sit down; There is champagne, there is chocolate. It’s just an event.”
Many of the previous students with whom Mr. Barreto had worked over his 34-year profession had given him money for his retirement and said he should spend it on things that might help commemorate the occasion. (“They’re family to me,” he said.)
His first purchase was a custom-made 14-karat gold diamond and sapphire pendant that he wears every single day in memory of his father, who passed away in December 2019. “I had, believe it or not, money left over to buy the airline.” I actually have a ticket for the trip,” Mr. Barreto said, “and there was some money left over to buy a watch.”
Mr. Barreto, who grew up in a working-class household, said his interest in watches was personal. As he put it, “I’m a Puerto Rican from the Bronx – it’s not a Bronx thing to get a top-of-the-line watch.”
“When we were kids, a Timex was a ‘good watch’ – that’s what they called it,” he said.
Over the years he bought watches from Bulova, Movado, Swatch, Victorinox and others. Then, during his first trip to Europe, which he took in 2017 to go to a cousin, Noel Matos, Mr. Barreto bought a 42-millimeter Rado Centrix quartz watch in black and gold.
“He came here and fell in love with Europe,” said Mr. Matos, a food industry executive in Basel, Switzerland. “This trip really changed his life. He started eating differently; He began to look at the world differently.”
And through the pandemic, Mr. Barreto began using online resources to learn more about watches, especially by watching YouTube videos from watch dealers like Teddy Baldassarre and Federico Iossa.
As Mr. Barreto retired – a couple of dozen kilos lower than lately, thanks partially to a Swiss-inspired weight loss program – he began planning one other trip to Europe, but this time together with his wife Teresa and their son Joseph.
“He really felt like he had to share his first experience with two other people who had never been to Europe,” Mr. Matos said. “It was really about opening Pandora’s Box to his wife and son.”
When the Barretos arrived in Europe, they launched into a journey through six countries in 14 days in a rented Mercedes-Benz E-Class station wagon.
Mr. Barreto had a listing of contenders for his retirement watch, including models from Rolex, Tissot, Rado, Oris and Omega, a brand he had long admired.
And one morning, a stop was planned on the Omega boutique in Interlaken, Switzerland, because Mr. Matos knew someone who worked there. Mr. Barreto, a James Bond fan, said he got here in with strong intentions of shopping for a Seamaster. But when he tried on the watch he eventually bought, he said, “There was something special about the dial on that Constellation watch: the texture, the color,” he said. “When I saw it, that was it.”
Mr. Barreto, who retired as chairman of Somos New Jersey, a nonpartisan political motion committee focused on Latino voters and their representation, said he now has about two dozen watches in total.
Of the Omega his cousin bought, Mr. Matos said, “It completes his wrist.” Not only does it look good, it goes with every thing he wears. It will depend on how he behaves.”
