Laura Ashley Watches Review
While some people want to buy watches for their craftsmanship or their impressiveness as jewelry, others want a watch that simply looks good with what they’re wearing and which can accurately tell the time.
If you’re in the latter group, you’ll find that Laura Ashley watches offer a nice selection of styles, decent build quality, affordable pricing, and a much better-than-average warranty.
Laura Ashley was founded in 1953 as a home furnishings company in Britain, but they soon spread out in to fashion. They specialize in attractive, colorful clothing with a slightly rural feel to it.
Their watches aren’t going to excite watch collectors, but they fill a market niche rather nicely – watches that look good, run well and don’t cost a fortune.
Read on for the full Laura Ashley watches review.
Build Quality
Movements
Innovation
Styling and Features
Care and Maintenance
Warranty
Prices
Where to Buy
Summary
Laura Ashley Watches Build Quality
The build quality is adequate, though not exceptional. Cases are made from brass, stainless steel, and something described as “metal.”
The watch faces are protected by mineral crystal, otherwise known as “glass.” Water resistance is modest, at 10 meters, which means that it’s OK to get them wet, but you shouldn’t shower or swim in them.
Watch bands are stainless steel, leather, or polyurethane.
All of the watches we’ve seen had quartz electronic movements sourced from Japan. That means they’re likely made by Miyota, a division of Citizen. Japanese quartz movements have a reputation for being both accurate and reliable, despite their relatively low price point.
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This won’t surprise anyone, but there’s no technical innovation to be found here. These are not watches designed for watch collectors; they’re fashion accessories designed to provide the time while looking good.
As such, you’re not going to find any features other than the time, a sweep second hand, and the occasional date complication.
This isn’t a flaw; the company’s focus is not on watch making.
For watches that target a relatively low price point, these watches offer a nice selection of styles. They offer several dozen different models with case sizes ranging from roughly 21mm to just under 40mm.
A few models offer decorative crystals around the bezel, and a few models offer cases that are non-round – we’ve seen square, octagonal, and hexagonal.
If you like color, Laura Ashley watches offers the full gamut – black, white, gold, silver, and blues, greens, reds, lavender, and a number of multicolored designs that feature a floral pattern.
You can get models with a metal bracelet, a leather strap, or a plastic strap.
Not surprisingly, these watches are offered only for women; there are no men’s models.
While many of the company’s timepieces are gold-colored, due to their price point, there are no models that feature actual gold or other precious metals in their cases. They’re all plated. Still, they’re quite attractive, and watches that are plated and have crystals, rather than coming with gold cases and diamonds, are much more affordable.
The care and maintenance of Laura Ashley watches will be quite simple. As these timepieces all have battery operated quartz movements, you won’t need to engage in any maintenance other than having the battery replaced every few years.
As with all watches, you should store these watches in a cool, dry place and keep them away from strong magnetic fields.
With care, your watch should run well for years to come.
While these are inexpensive timepieces, their warranty is quite good and much better than average. While some 90% of watch manufacturers (including some very expensive ones) offer a two year warranty, these watches come with a limited 5 year warranty against defects in materials and craftsmanship.
That’s quite surprising, given how inexpensive they are. This means that you’ll likely get quite a lot of use out of your watch and much more so than the retail price would suggest.
As designer watches go, you’ll find that the prices are quite reasonable. We’ve seen them priced as low as $10 or so, and at the high end, they run about $100. Most models are priced right in the middle; you’ll typically pay about $50 for most models.
You can find them for sale at a number of brick and mortar retailers, and most stores that carry anything from the brand will likely carry the watches, too. That would include stores such as Target, JC Penney and Kohls.
You can also find them for sale at a number of online retailers, and shopping online will likely provide you with your best opportunity to buy discount Laura Ashley watches.
Online retailers have lower overhead costs and are usually in a better position to offer discounts.
Oddly enough, you cannot buy Laura Ashley watches at the company’s official Website. We find that a little strange, but that’s how it is.
Laura Ashley Watches Summary
Clearly, not everyone is going to be enamored with this brand. For starters, they only make watches for women, and most watch buyers are men.
Second of all, they offer only quartz models and nothing with gemstones or precious metals or anything in the way of what watch collectors might describe as “interesting” complications.
On the other hand, they offer a nice variety of styles, shapes and colors. They offer an exceptionally good warranty. They’re priced quite reasonably, and the fact that the warranty is so good makes them an even better buy.
If you’re looking for an attractive fashion watch that will keep good time, run well for years to come and which won’t cost you a fortune, Laura Ashley watches might be a good choice for you.
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