I first got here throughout Julia on TikTok, in a video by classic watch knowledgeable and #watchtok energy participant Mike Nouveau: she was the one girl in a bunch of principally older males who all promote watches on 47 St. within the Diamond District of New York Metropolis.
That’s a part of what makes Julia’s social media presence so successful: it’s thrilling to look at her take care of males, typically twice her age, with brute however nimble precision. She calls herself the little fish who “navigates among the many sharks.” Movies of her negotiations are excessive stakes however with out pretense. She’ll throw in dinner with a vendor or a cup of espresso that she owes them, and she or he’ll chow down on skinny crust New York model pizza plopped on the glass counter she works at. She’ll clarify the distinction between two excessive finish fashions of iconic Rolexes, and movie herself hustling her manner by a watch flip from begin to end. And she or he does all her wheeling and dealing in stylish silk blouses, sharp black eyeliner, and with completely manicured nails.
Watching Julia barter with a shopper or fellow seller looks like witnessing a tightly choreographed dance the place she units the tempo; she’s in management in a manner that’s addictive to look at. It’s obvious that folks underestimate her, for no matter purpose—age, gender, expertise, or all three. However Julia has an adept sense of the way to use her experience, attraction, and savvy. You may really feel her beam by the display screen when she seals a deal, and proves an clearly skeptical counterpart flawed.
However Julia’s TikTok superstar is simply a part of her story. Azer grew up a part of a small Jewish neighborhood in Morocco. After finding out in Israel—the place the academic alternatives for girls have been higher—she moved house and saved to maneuver to the US. Whereas in Morocco, she began promoting secondhand luxurious items; after shifting to New York to proceed her research, she saved up the follow in her free time. However she outgrew that world shortly: after touchdown an enormous shopper the corporate she labored for had been attempting desperately to get, her boss denied her fee.
This was a turning level for Julia and soured her on the style trade. Then Covid hit, and she or he bought laid off. She began to sport out her subsequent transfer and she or he thought of her grandfather, a watch lover.
“I all the time requested my grandfather,” she says, “What’s forty seventh Avenue? [He would say] ‘That is the Diamond District, the place every part occurs.’ And I stated in my head, I will work there.”
She put in a name to somebody she knew engaged on forty seventh Avenue and provided to work for him without spending a dime—managing social media, listings, grunt work. She knew subsequent to nothing about watches, so she spent her days googling, watching movies on YouTube, and texting with a watchmaker she knew, studying in regards to the interior workings of timepieces and of negotiations. Lately, Julia manages reselling and negotiations from prime to backside; she sources and authenticates watches, manages repairs, and resells to shoppers of Ari’s Luxurious Watch on forty seventh Avenue.
