Time Tellers : The Meaning of a “Good” Watch
Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe, Rolex and Tag Heuers. These are what you could consider “luxury” watches. All brands of watches that, as of yet, mean nothing to me. Other than the simple fact I can appreciate some of their beautiful designs and respect that their movements are insanely accurate, the materials they use are of ridiculously good quality and their price point is just ever so slightly out of my reach.
So why talk about watches? Not just these watches, but all of them. All the watches. Well, I think everyone gets that itch. At a certain age, possibly more for the male counterpart of our species, we start to appreciate horology and design a little more, or at least the dilution of that into a product. It’s like it’s engrained in us. We take all of these influences and experiences throughout life and they culminate into a “taste”. This “taste” determines the style of watch we will select or that someone else will select for us, which is generally considered a ballsy move to nail down someone's preferences.
Dieter Rams designed Braun BN0171
Anyway, from there, factors like budget, lifestyle and purpose all come into play and inform that very personal choice. When it comes to choosing casing depth and bezel sizes, it’s probably more about confidence and the size of your wrist, for me, going a little bigger is the way forward. The material and colours, again, subjective. For myself, the minimalist sensibility is drawn to the likes of Braun, probably better know for razors than watches, but they are just beautifully simplistic and reductive. The lifestyle choice, Nixon. Something I feel I never need to take off, rugged but relatively inexpensive so if I smash it to pieces on a night out or jump off a cliff with it on, it’s not the end of the world. Done both of those things in actuality, once falling down the stairs of a hostel in Berlin to the demise of my first Nixon. The second time, cliff jumping in Thailand, but that one survived.
Ultimately, I think a watch should be a watch. To clarify, this new spate of “smart” watches turn me off. I want the time at a glance of my wrist. I don’t want an extension of the phone in my pocket. I want it’s purpose to be singular. We are arguably the over-connected generation as it is, without throwing it on our wrists. All that said, some are far more beautiful than others. But, each to their own as the wise idiom goes.
IWC Pilot
I suppose, as time goes on, with that appreciation for quality, design and essentially the money to blow, I can get that IWC Pilot I’ve been coveting for so long. But until then, I can still enjoy the culture. So with that, I guess my list would go Casio, Timex, Nixon, that free Sonic watch I won from a local newspaper competition at 8 years old and my Dad’s Bulova Spaceview skeleton watch. Pretty happy with that.
Cheers for reading.