My thoughts on watches

Discussions

• Is the bracelet the real watch, and your strap drawer a cry for help?

  A watch is not finished until its bracelet is on it. I need you to sit with that before you reach for the spring bar tool again. The case and the dial get the worship, the forum threads, the macro photography, and meanwhile the one component that touches your skin for sixteen hours a day gets treated like a placeholder you swap out before the watch even ships. Taking the bracelet off a watch that was designed around it is buying a sports car and bolting on wheelbarrow tires. It is hanging a…

• Is Tudor just Rolex for people who want credit for not buying Rolex?

  Tudor is Rolex for people who want credit for not buying Rolex. That is the entire brand. They're even sold by the same company, but they're somehow more understated. Well, yes, never heard of anyone outside of Watches forums knowing that Tudor is a brand. Every Tudor owner carries himself like a man who rejected fame to focus on the craft. They talk about their Black Bay the way indie film directors talk about shooting on 16mm. Everything has to feel intentional. Thoughtful. Understated.…

• Does your G-Shock secretly think you're soft?

  The G-Shock is what happens when a watch is designed with open contempt for the concept of damage. Every luxury watch brand talks about durability like it’s a romantic character trait. G-Shock treats durability like a baseline expectation for existing on Earth. This thing survives construction sites, military deployments, skateparks, engine bays, and being launched across rooms by toddlers with absolutely no interest in receiving credit for it.

• Is a Hamilton Khaki Field just a $1000 Timex you can brag about?

  Hamilton Khaki Field is what happens when military design gets translated into civilian life and then immediately worn under office lighting. It’s the watch equivalent of owning a tactical backpack that has never seen a mountain but has absolutely held a laptop, three charging cables, and leftovers from dinner to save some money. And to be clear: it’s a great watch.

• Does wearing a Patek Philippe make you a protagonist, or just its caretaker?

  Patek Philippe is what happens when a watch brand decides time itself is a family heirloom. Most watch companies sell you a product. Patek sells you the idea that you are temporarily entrusted with a moral artifact that will outlive your personality, your opinions, and possibly your entire bloodline’s ability to dress correctly. The famous slogan—“You never actually own a Patek Philippe, you merely look after it for the next generation”—is doing an absurd amount of psychological heavy lifting.…

• Is Citizen the most competent watch brand nobody wants to admit loving?

  Citizen is the most competent watch brand on earth and absolutely nobody wants to admit it because competence is boring. Rolex sells aspiration and fantasy. Omega sells history, even if it's all the same event over and over again. Tudor sells “I’m not like other Rolex owners.” Citizen sells a watch that survives fifteen straight years of abuse inside the glove compartment of a Honda Accord and then asks if you’d like the correct time in Tokyo too as soon as you land.

• Can you wear a Cartier Tank with dignity, or does it end up wearing you?

  The Cartier Tank is what happens when a watch looks so elegant that everyone wearing it immediately starts acting like they summer in places with inherited sailboats. Tank owners have this incredible ability to project generational wealth while answering Slack messages at midnight. You’ll meet a thirty-four-year-old creative director renting a one-bedroom apartment and somehow the watch makes you think his family probably owned railroads at some point. They don't.

• Did you even have the patience to watch the moon landing on YouTube?

  Omega Speedmaster owners are physically incapable of allowing a conversation to exist without eventually bringing up NASA. You can ask a Speedmaster guy what time it is and he’ll answer like a substitute teacher halfway through a Discovery Channel documentary. “Well, actually, this was the first watch worn on the moon…”. There it is. Right on schedule. Just give me the time man. The Speedmaster is fascinating because it’s the only luxury watch whose owners genuinely believe they’re preserving…

• Is the Rolex Submariner really a dive watch, or an office master?

  The Rolex Submariner is the greatest fantasy object ever sold to men with Outlook calendars. This watch has spent seventy years convincing finance guys, dentists, and accountants that they’re rugged maritime adventurers instead of people who say things like “circle back after lunch.” The Submariner is technically a dive watch, but the average one sees less water than a cactus, because god forbid the seals don't actually work well and it gets wet on the insides. These things spend their lives…