July 27, 2007 8:38 AM PDT

For really fancy buccaneers, a Swarovski pirate watch

Posted by Caroline McCarthy

(Credit: Amazon.com)

My, how times do change. Ten years ago, a respectable pirate wouldn't have been caught dead in a wristwatch adorned with a skull-and-crossbones made out of Swarovski crystals, even if he'd plundered it off the most bad-ass seagoing merchant in the West Indies. Sure, he could explain all he wanted that he'd had to use two rapiers, a cutlass, and a two-by-four to obtain it, and that the fight for the watch took place in a swamp filled with fifteen-foot-long alligators and a small but highly dangerous population of the elusive Puerto Rican Swamp Shark.

Yeah, it might be the spoils of battle, but it's still a sparkly watch with girly little jewels on it, Bluebeard.

Then along came Johnny Depp, who really did do wonders for the image of the prototypical pirate in his Captain Jack Sparrow get-up. Now, instead of needing to be head-to-toe greasy and smelling like maggot-ridden hardtack, pirates can be prettier than John Edwards. We're seeing lavish jewelry, runway-worthy ruffly shirts, and the heaviest eyeliner since the heyday of The Cure. (And it's proven influential, as evidenced by one guy at Crave who tends to take the "guyliner" a bit over the top.) Pirates can even be domestic--man, this sure is about a million nautical miles from the days of yore.

So you can be a legitimate pirate and wear your Vabene pirate watch with the utmost of pride. A veritable treasure chest's worth of variations is available, ranging from $250 to $295 in price. Our favorite, as shown, is naturally the pink one.

And if anybody takes offense, you've still got that cutlass.

(Via Uncrate)