November 27, 2025 |
In July 2023, the professional basketball player Tyrese Haliburton signed a £190 million contract with the Indiana Pacers and, to celebrate, he wanted a Cartier Crash. Even for a famous NBA star, ultra-collectible pieces like the Crash can be hard to get hold of, so Haliburton called for backup. Enter Mike Nouveau.
A former DJ, Nouveau has garnered more than 485,000 followers on the eponymous TikTok page he started in May 2022, when he rebranded himself as a vintage watch dealer and content creator. His impressive social media presence, which he built sharing natural-style “watch-spotting” videos filmed on the streets of Lower Manhattan, rendered him a go-to for anyone on the internet interested in watches, from casual fans to big-name collectors like Haliburton (who had contacted him via DM).
After receiving the sports star’s request, Nouveau reached out to fellow dealer Zoe Abelson, who had the watch – a modern London Bond Street Crash, which typically retails for £33,000 and has a market value of about £185,000. The two of them flew to Indianapolis, watched the Pacers win, hand-delivered the piece to Haliburton after the game and then came back to New York City – all within 24 hours.
London Tank Normale watch in yellow gold by CARTIER
Now, just over three years since starting his TikTok, Nouveau has cemented his position in this industry, just as he did in the world of nightlife more than a decade ago. He has established his reputation as a vintage dealer with clients such as the actor and model Luka Sabbat, co-founded the watch-marketplace app Pushers and been flown around the world by brands like Hermès and Cartier, whose cachet he has helped inject into the popular imagination of the downtown scene through endless promotion of their vintage models. This year was his second time attending the invite-only Watches and Wonders in Geneva, the world’s premier watch fair. Fans of his TikTok come for the luxury timepieces but stay for the quick wit and the no-filter approach to this otherwise very closed-off world that was, until the pandemic, not inclusive of ‘outsider’ characters like Nouveau.
Nouveau grew up in Nyack, New York, a suburban town less than an hour by train north of the city. Coming of age in the Nineties, he was interested in The Simpsons, punk rock and skateboarding, those last two regularly enticing him into Manhattan, where he would skate and go out in the East Village with the help of a fake ID. School was not a priority.
“All my teachers said the same thing – ‘You have so much potential, but you don’t care’,” Nouveau says. By the time his peers were starting exams, Nouveau had made it abundantly clear to his reluctant parents that university was not in his future, and when he graduated high school (“by the skin of my teeth”), he got a job at the local pizza place, where he made £4.50 an hour. Eventually, he also landed an internship at Rolling Stone, so three days a week he’d drive into the city, be a “super-intern” then drive back to Nyack and deliver pizza.
from left: Reflet watch in pink gold by BOUCHERON, Coussin watch in yellow gold by CARTIER; from left: Coussin watch in yellow gold by CARTIER, Ellipse watch in yellow gold by PATEK PHILIPPE from CARTIER
Once he had officially moved into an East Village apartment with a friend in 2004, he fell deeper into the nightlife scene, becoming a habitué of places like Max Fish, Darkroom and the Beatrice Inn. Nouveau graduated from partygoer to party thrower, eventually teaching himself to DJ, which led to gigs at Paris Fashion Week.
His first major watch purchase was a vintage Rolex GMT, which he was able to afford after he was bought out of a rent-controlled apartment in a stroke of New York luck. “It was more money than I’d ever had and I wanted to use it to change the direction of my life to get out of DJing,” Nouveau says. “But I didn’t know what that direction was.”
He became obsessed with perusing online watch forums “like I did with skateboarding… After a few years, I saw an opportunity to buy and sell them very casually.” With so much time dedicated to the watch-focused message boards, he’d snap up undervalued pieces to flip for “extra pocket money”.
“Then I stumbled upon a really big, important watch. An original Patek Philippe Nautilus 3700 in gold,” he continues. “I knew it was something special, so I basically negotiated for it with no money – I made this deal and had to find someone to pay for it. I got in touch with a dealer. He said, ‘You go pick up the watch, I’ll send the wire and we’ll split the proceeds.’”
from top: Calatrava Ref. 96 31 mm watch in steel by PATEK PHILIPPE, Reflet watch in pink gold by BOUCHERON, Ellipse watch in yellow gold by PATEK PHILIPPE from CARTIER
This risk proved to be the turning point in Nouveau’s new career, converting him from enthusiast to player. He continued to forge a relationship with the dealer, buying and selling watches that were becoming more popular thanks in part to world record-breaking sales like that of the Paul Newman Daytona, which fetched £13 million at Phillips in New York in 2017. Nouveau’s dealings continued under the radar until the pandemic threw lighter fluid on the secondary watch market, leading him to start his dedicated TikTok page.
“There was nothing like that on TikTok,” Nouveau says. “And [my friend] Isaac [@isaaclikes_] was like, ‘Exactly, there’s not – that’s why you should do it.’” So, despite having few connections in the watch world, Nouveau filmed a watch-spotting video that blew up. Then he filmed 30 more and hit 100,000 followers seemingly overnight.
“That’s when shit just changed completely,” he says, still in awe. “Suddenly, people were DMing me, asking a trillion questions, wanting to sell me watches, wanting to know where to buy watches. I started making videos every day, without missing a beat. Anything I could think of.” This only led to more clients, fans spotting him on the street and, gradually, the approval of the industry.
The watch world is composed of many serious characters – scholars, auction professionals, Swiss CEOs, private collectors – and by contrast, Nouveau, who stands out by simply being himself. Dripping with sarcasm, a little crass, cruising around Dimes Square in a leather jacket with his entourage of fashion bros, watch collectors and NYC fixtures like Scarr Pimentel, owner of the ever-popular Scarr’s Pizza. And although there would seem to be little overlap between the luxury watch industry and the downtown scene, both worlds operate with an air of exclusivity, which Nouveau has learned to finesse no matter who is at the door.
What’s next for him? “I got the Rolex invite this year at Watches and Wonders,” Nouveau says with a satisfied smirk. “Still waiting for Patek, though.”
Taken from 10 Magazine Issue 75 – BIRTHDAY, EVOLVE, TRANSFORMATION – out on newsstands now. Order your copy here.
MIKE NOUVEAU: DIALLED IN
Photographer GREG KESSLER
Talent MIKE NOUVEAU
Text BRYNN WALLNER
Grooming CECILIA ROMERO
Photographer’s assistant JACKSON VERGLAS
Shot at ELLA FUNT, NEW YORK
