I love mechanical watches, which is either completely understandable or totally insane, depending on which side of the argument you sit on. They’re amazingly intricate, often beautiful, endlessly fascinating - and totally unnecessary. If you want an easier-to-own, cheaper/to-run, more accurate watch, buy a Casio F91W*. Go on, Mr/Mrs Logic.
But that’s not why I’m in this game. It’s not what I love about watches. I love these little examples of engineering brilliance, human skill and ingenuity. They’re little pieces of art.
Yes, art. Don’t leave yet! Brian Eno once said that art is “anything we don’t have to do”. We have to eat, but we don’t need to make a soufflé. We have to move, but we don’t need to dance. We have to communicate, but we don’t need to write novels. Art is the stuff we don’t need to do, but it’s always worth it because it feeds the soul. It’s the stuff that calls for unusual thinking, skilled craft and fantical devotion to the cause.
I think mechanical watches fit into that category. Not all watches are art, of course. Some are shameless, sterile commercial products designed simply to fill a gap in the market and make money. But you get that in any industry. And they’re not the ones I’m talking about.
I’m talking about the fanaticism of Grand Seiko case polishing. The magic of the flippy-face Jaeger le-Coultre Reverso. The craft of the finishing on a Patek Phillippe movement. The 28-year engineering obsession that created the Spring Drive movement. The elegant designer’s eye that goes into a Brew, Ming or anOrdain face.
None of this needed to happen. But it did, because somebody cared enough and had the talent to make it happen.
Plus, watches come with stories. Sometimes about the people who made them and why. Sometimes about the people who wore them and why they mattered to them.
All of this changes how I feel in any given moment - happier, inspired, poorer.
They’re tiny machines that I can strap to my wrist, stare at and learn about. And I love them.
* As it happens, I do actually own a Casio F91W. It reminds me of one of the very first watches I ever had as a kid. So there’s something sentimental there. And they’re just brilliant little machines for the money.
Hello Adam, you write so beautifully and lovingly about watches! It makes me very happy to read an article about someone's passion, even though that passion may be very different from mine. You have inspired me to write about things that I love too. All the best and look forward to learning more about watches from you! :)