“Everyone looks at your watch and it represents who you are, your values and your personal style”- In memory of Kobe Bryant (1978 – 2020)
A wristwatch is more than just an accessory, more than just a timepiece. It is a piece of the person who chooses to wear it, telling the most important truth that defines their reality.
I had the pleasure to meet Katie at the Westfield mall on a Sunday Afternoon. She was rushing into the stores aiming to find the best deals on Christmas gifts for her family. I asked her about her watch, and she friendly replied that the watch she was wearing was once her mother’s watch that was given to her one day when she was rushing for a job interview and wanted to look professional. Her mother thinking of professionalism gave her the watch to complete her look. While she was telling me the story, I noticed that she couldn’t stop looking at the watch, almost as if she was reading the story from the book. As she kept talking about the watch her eyes lit up, she wasn’t just telling the story of that day, she was there, reliving it in full colors. What’s the power that such a small object holds? I asked myself.
Frozen in time, taking us back to the first-ever appearance of the watch as a wristwatch. I had the opportunity to go to an event at Covert Garden, London about the Big Pilot a famous watch made by the IWC company. Where Marta, a Spanish worker at IWC kindly went through the beginning of the wristwatch industry and how it molded all options we are able to find today. From Casios (cheap watches) to Longines to Rolex and Omega (luxury watches) the watch industry has many facets of clean slates to different stories.
“It all happened in 1868″ said Marta “the first to be ever made for Countess Koscowicz of Hungary, by the Swiss watchmaker Patek Philippe.” However, back then Patek gave only the first baby steps towards what is recognized today as an approximate of 6.93-billion-dollar industry, the watch industry, and having been forecasted to reach a value of over 9.3 billion dollars by the year 2025. She continued “Patek was a pioneer very much like Florentine Ariosto Jones (1841-1916) who was also a watchmaker. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, he became the founder of the IWC in Schaffhausen in 1868. Yet, for a long period of time wristwatches weren’t very successful and many refused to see the value or the advances of having a watch on one’s wrist instead of one’s pocket. When it begins to be appreciated as is around 1899 it became a female accessory.”
Marta then went to explain how “in the late 1930s, two IWC wholesalers from Lisbon believed to be Messrs Rodrigues and Antonio Teixeira approached the company with a demand. The demand of not only creating men pocket watches but also men wristwatches with the precision of marine chronometers.” That was when the “Portuguese” (famous watch) watch was born, and from there on other ideas appeared in the market and wristwatches were no longer considered a piece of jewelry for women.
Since the very early stages of the creation of this market, we get to see the reflected influence of watches powered by identity. The Portuguese had a purpose, and that purpose was to fulfill usage objectively and subjectively to those who were living under the Second World War influence. When these watches were launched Europe was a continent torn apart living by one hope, time. As times have changed, so have watches but the core continues to underline the existence of humanity with them. Watches have been molded to benefit the one wearing the watch, race competitors, military pilots, kitchen chefs, doctors, and even athletes, and many more. Those are the true faces of a watch. The ones that hold the dial to future exploration, to future discovery. The reason why the industry continues to grow year by year has a lot to do with the reason why we continue to grow, develop, and evolve year by year. Watches make us aware of that one simple thing that we, unfortunately, can’t stop, but we surely can appreciate – time. As quoted by one of my favorite movies as a child “We leave or we die by the clock, that’s how long we have” – Castaway (Tom Hanks). It is only up to us how we choose to spend it.
During this writing, I had the opportunity to learn from a number of those identities who have got to mold such objects. After all, without them, watches are just as obsolete today as sending letters when one can email or facetime one another.
The day I arrived at London Heathrow airport I saw an image that I will never forget. A woman sitting down at a Costa Coffee place with a baby on her chest. The baby looked about weeks old. In the middle of a pandemic room, full of people with masks and scary destinations, there was this baby just sleeping in his mother’s arms and waiting for someone to arrive. Minutes later a guy dressed in a military outfit joined the table, was he the dad? He kissed the woman and for minutes and minutes, he didn’t let the baby go, he was holding as tight as he could. Then he placed the baby on his trolley. He got a box out of his jacket and gave it to the woman who was once holding the baby, the mother. She opens the box, and it was a watch. In my head, I immediately thought about this entire moment being saved on that watch. Almost as a picture, a picture that one day that same baby could wear it and remember something that perhaps would have been forgotten. An amulet of family? A symbol of reunion? An index of love? That is up to the baby to decide. Like Katie this is only one of the many stories behind what one has on their wrist and that value does it truly hold.
A watch can have many faces, when is worn by different people. The watch may be though initially created for a purpose then used for something completely different. There are watches out there created for pilots (that can hold speed), chefs (with impressive chronometers), and even doctors (to measure pulsation), and no we aren’t talking about digital watches. I am talking about amazing creations such as automatic watches, mechanical, solar, and so on. Those that are microparts of metal that when carefully craft and placed together somehow create a movement that allows us to tell the time.
At the Spitalfields market, I had the pleasure of meeting Shaun Miller, a Watchmaker.
At times a watch can shine its own identity through the brief of life it brings on its own. I am talking about those we see in movies or important celebrities that may have influence over us. However, it is an incomplete identity. Watches that are part of movies for instance are built by huge amounts of nostalgic influences towards what they truly represent and that may have a meaning strong enough to be considered an identity of its own. A meaning built upon them that highlights themselves from others. Yet even though there is still some sort of identity already created by the watch, without the person who wears it, it will continue to be just a watch, no stories to tell, no meanings to share, no moments to be relieved except of course, when talking about a 007 movie watch for instance and the moments shared on screen.
Talking about identities it would be wrong to believe that one’s identity is reflected upon a watch, it’s rather reviewed and even relived by a watch. They say a picture says a thousand words, well a watch is nothing less than a wearable picture, a wearable autobiography of the self, which tells us who we are and the choices we have made. With that in mind, I ask you, will you show me your watch, to tell me your story.
“It all depends on how much you want to spend to tell the time” – Shaun Miller
(A Watchmaker)