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Jon Kortajarena has modeled for some of the biggest fashion names on the planet, including Versace, Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, and Tom Ford. They certainly helped shape his sense of style.

But when he considered watches to collect, that direction came from his greatest influence: his mother.

“For my 21st birthday she said, ‘You are an adult now, you need a good watch.’ It was a rite of passage,” said Mr. Kortajarena, now 32. And his mother, a hairdresser, had saved to buy her son what she considered the best: a Bulgari. “It was like a baptism into my adult life,” he said.

The native of Bilbao, Spain, stumbled into modeling as a way to travel. His family was skeptical, and a bit worried, but he told them he would give it a year. Fifteen years on, he said quite modestly, “it went pretty well.”

Since his 2009 debut in Mr. Ford’s first movie, “The Single Man,” Mr. Kortajarena’s ambition has been to act. He recently had a recurring role in the ABC drama “Quantico” and now is filming “The Aspern Papers” with Vanessa Redgrave and Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

Thanks to his success and gifts from the jewelry house, Mr. Kortajarena now owns a wardrobe of Bulgari watches.

“Women wear jewelry, but a watch is the most elegant thing a man can wear,” he said.

His favorite is the Octo Finissimo, “the thinnest watch in the market. You don’t feel it at all. It becomes a part of your skin.”