Reply With QuoteYou are not alone
Sadly I mostly look at stainless steel stuff....
I had an unexpected amount of unallocated time in Copenhagen, Denmark yesterday and today. Enjoyed the city, and spent quite a while in the watch shops.
Rather than doing my usual, finding out more about the watches that have caught my attention, I decided to be totally open minded and take a closer look at a really wide selection of ("premium to luxury") watches.
There were a lot of pure jewellery designs. Not for me. This accounted for perhaps 80% of prominently displayed watches. The tool watch era is over.
There were a lot of forced variations of a once successful theme. Not for me. Unsurprisingly, this would account for the majority of reminding displays.
There were downright ugly pieces of quasi-bold design, with no attempt to create lasting elements or designs. Not...
So what was and what is left for a grumpy, jaded watch watcher?
I did like what IWC has done with genre extension. I did like a few JLC designs that I was not aware of previously. I did like a few minimalist dress watches, and a couple of really basic but harmonic chronos. And a few classics - well, they are classics for a reason.
Am I alone in my negative feeling about a lot - a LOT - of current watches? Have the forcibly widened selections and production optimization (cost cutting in watches designed for a preset retail price) resulted in a market where thoughtful design, truly high physical quality and any remains of value have been replaced by the usual luxury brand marketing engine?
There are surely dozens if not hundreds objects of desire out there for myself. It's a pity that rather few can be found in the current selection.
You are not alone
Sadly I mostly look at stainless steel stuff....
There was an era?Originally Posted by hako
You're not alone, but it makes life cheaper!
It's the size of watches that I find off putting. I'm not small, over six foot , 180 lbs. 7.5" wrist. Yet I find about 40mm to be ideal 42mm with some designs. There again, it's not only the diameter it's how thick some modern watches are, just so clumsy. Maybe it's a sort of association of a macho sporty image, bit like overweight middle aged men wearing football strips to go to the supermarket.
True. I'm six feet, 200 lbs with some physical stuff in my past. I really do not like these clocks strapped to wrists. I mostly wear smallish watches by current standards, with 42-43 mm pretty much the limit. Some wrist shots are rather confusing to say the least. OTOH, some ladies wear very strange shoes, and get complimented...
This size craze will surely be a passing fad, as with most fashion trends. However, who knows what we'll be wearing instead!?
Some form of wearable ubiquitous computing apparently.
http://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.ph...ghlight=iWatch
I think you are far from alone in that opinion. I like very, very few watches that you would find on the high street and even fewer from the established 'luxury' brands. But they are not really marketed to us are they? Plenty of 'normal' people buy them, or they would not be so popular.
Don't forget that most watches are bought as statements of wealth.
I am 6ft 3 16 stone and am the opposite. I find many designs too small.42mm a minimum for me
It is certainly true that flashing expensive items is a very understandable need / want for some people. But why on earth must it be something ...gly in form? There are all these PPs and Voutilainens for presenting thick wallets without the eye hurt. Deliberate statements of bad taste? It sure does get attention...
I like a pound for every time I've read that large watches are a fashion fad and won't last long
It's clearly a very long lasting fad, or the writers of such words are new to watches.
I find myself looking for unheard of micro-brands. I have to admit that I've had some good success finding some real gems, and usually excellent value for money too. It's also fun doing the research.
There's also some damn fugly watches about, including some shown on here.
Quite often someone posts a picture and my immediate reaction is WTF?
Then a few others post saying how fabulous it is - clearly there are lots of different tastes even here amongst enthusiasts.
Also not keen on stupid over-sized watches but you can be sure that when someone posts a picture showing something ridiculous some others will chime in saying it looks great.
I think I may be getting too old.
Ok, I'll go and lie down now.
I don't think you can say that the tool watch era is over just because you don't see them in mainstream jewelers - the forums do not reflect the high street and never have done.
If you're looking for somewhere for a beer while you're there I can't recommend the Bo-Bi bar enough.
http://unlike.net/copenhagen/after-dark/bo-bi-bar
In the Sotadic Zone, apparently.
Thans for the tip, but I am already being dragged from pub to dinner to bar to club...
An excellent barbeque in Fredriksberg, and faint memories of someone presenting "Oskar something" fashion(?) watches... Thank you and good night!
Inclined to agree. Could the interest in larger watches be merely because people are bigger now? The availability of calories is greater now than ever before which will some are, er, huskier than in generations past but it also has an effect on bone structure. And height, for that matter.I like a pound for every time I've read that large watches are a fashion fad and won't last long
It's clearly a very long lasting fad, or the writers of such words are new to watches.
So the trend is unlikely to pass any time soon.
Agreed.I like a pound for every time I've read that large watches are a fashion fad and won't last long
It's clearly a very long lasting fad, or the writers of such words are new to watches.
I couldn't agree more, both with the OP and the comments on large bulky watches.
Not long ago I had a good look round an airport shop that had most luxury brands in one place, and to my surprise realised I liked virtually none of them. To a lesser extent the same thing happened at SalonQP, where there was much I enjoyed admiring in a display case but very little I'd actually wear - Nomos and GS standing out as honourable exceptions (Zenith and JLC had for some reason brought a strange selection that avoided their simpler and more attractive designs). On another airport visit, things went further still - I went from liking very few of them, to actively disliking almost all of them. Perhaps it was the selection on display, maybe a touch of poor lighting, but they suddenly looked like giant tasteless baubles belonging to an era that has already passed.
I suspect being 'into' watches actually means being quite discerning about them, in the same way that being into fine cuisine means disliking most restaurants. There are only a very few future classics among the current crop. The main trends have been size, bling, ostentation, plus the odd cash in on self consciously retro styles, in which case I'd prefer the genuine vintage version.
There are a few encouraging signs though, with a few more 40mm and under offerings appearing. It seems inevitable to me that the pendulum of fashion will swing from oversized and blingy to discretely elegant and classy, but I thought it would have happened already and the change is slow in coming. Perhaps only truly expensive watches can achieve this effect, and only a minority will ever appreciate the subtle and sophisticated.
I feel that watch companies are just running out of ideas...I mean they keep rehashing old designs, which in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, like the AP Royal Oak 40th, the Seiko 100th etc With updated materials, movements, its ok. But most of the times, the watch just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and I see ridiculous sizes like 47mm, 50mm watches!! It just doesnt look right unless youre Arnold but even then it looks quite big!! Seriously there seems to be alot of choices but in fact alot of the watches I dun even like.
I think there was a war to stand out in the display case, where bigger watches do look good as you don't need a loupe to appreciate the details, and bigger might somehow equate to a bigger price tag in certain people's minds. But on the wrist... Well, I guess the whole 'look at me look at my huge gold watch' thing works for some people. Pimps, mainly.
I'm just off to Copenhagen tomorrow but I know that the watches I find most attractive there are the classic modernist designs from Ole Mathiesen, Georg Jensen and Arne Jacobsen (now marketed by Rosendahl):
http://www.olemathiesen.dk/
http://www.georgjensen.com/uk/watche...FRMRtAodxyYAsw
http://www.rosendahl-timepieces.dk/A...ID=Datasheet83
I agree most watch "designs" (really stylings) are gross - especially by comparison to the clean, minimalist lines of the above.
Never found much love for them on this forum though.
I don't like most watches either. Here's one that is "not to my taste";
I don't have a problem that much with the large sizes (although some are ridiculous), but with the size of the mechanisms - much too small for the huge case.
As for the design, I feel lucky as I'm not tempted whatsoever by most of the typical current choices, so my meager finances are safe.
Cheers,
Christian
Was there ever a tool watch "era"? There are surely as many watches of that type now as there have ever been. As for quality, just look at the likes of JLC and GO (or brands such as Nomos and Sinn in the mid-price range) to name but a few - are you seriously saying that there's nothing you actually like, because if you are then you really are one jaded watch watcher.
I think there's been plenty of innovation in recent years, but perhaps the expectation that designs will never change is at the root of the problem. Not many things look like they did 30 or 40 years ago, after all.
You only need to look at a copy of "Wristwatch Annual" from about 10 years ago to see both how much has changed and how great is the capacity for watch designers to come up with something new.
Looking this week at the 200 edition of that journal was an incredible revelation. Some great names were barely significant, and many who were in favour then, are now barely present. Even speaking totally post renaissance the market is in constant change and development. New things happening all the time. Changing fortunes all over the place. Whatever some people may choose to strap to their wrist, be it some kind of phone or computer. The wrist watch has plenty of mileage yet, IMO.
As for the whole tool watch thing. I doubt they were, post renaissance, very frequently used for purpose. I have a sneaking feeling that they somehow address an excuse to own a particular kind of watch. Personally I like watches with functions, although it is rare that I would use those functions. I rarely even look at my watch to know the time. I can't be very bothered to set them colser than a few minutes to right.
Last edited by java; 10th August 2013 at 23:05.
The true WIS is moving toward classic cars & property, the nouveau WIS is spending his money on flamboyant holidays while he invents pathetic names for new Rolex models.
RIP the watch world- thanks to the machines that explode the myths of hand made watches...
What dress watches/ which chrono sand which classics did you like ?
In my opinion, you can't draw an imaginary line in the sand and say that cars (or watches) of a certain era are "the best". What's classic for one generation is vintage for another and antique for another generation.. The "nouveau" will always spend to impress others regardless of the item in question; this is the paradigm.
Cars & watches share many similarities, the biggest one, perhaps, being that ultimately it all boils down to personal taste. The big difference between watches and cars would be that in cars, laws, safety, efficiency and ultimately consumer preference have dictated that mechanical is clearly being replaced by electronic where possible. Watches, however, for the time being are still more prestigious when mechanical.. [interesting thread here on upcoming watches perhaps "threatening" future mechanical timepieces]
IWC are lovely but they are all too big.
Zenith are 90% perfect then they put unnecessary details on.
Some Rolex are great, but some look clunky.
JLC are too Swirley .
Bremont are trying too hard.
Omega have either wrong hands or wrong indices, but the AT is very nice.
I like the old Heuers and find myself currently drawn to the porche design reissues, which look a bit like old Heuers.
.... I am in so much trouble now.
i kind of see your point.
my tastes are very plain these days.. in fact my list of "do not wants" is much longer than my want list on a watch.. ive arrived at this after years of trying all sorts.
basically i want - auto, decent WR 1-300m, stainless steel, date at 3 or 6, stick markers only, under 40mm, monochrome only, no subdials bar small seconds, screw down crown.
that really does narrow the field.
verv, it looks like an aquaterra midsize does what you require, in different colours also
Sad but true. There seems to be a whole section of the market geared to appealing to people who don't look far beyond the price tag to tell how good a watch is...
I think the fundamental challenge is that the watch scene became commoditized.
For long the watch was quite exclusive, the market small in volumes and "much of it was not yet invented". Then the industrialization and digitalization made the production cost drop by magnitudes. Soon, the market was flooded by every imaginable creation, and since mechanics were no longer the limitation, horological advances were replaced by fashion.
Now we have a huge number of people at least remotely aware of what once made watches so special, but the oversupply of information and commercially tinted misinformation ("marketing") has drowned the genuine discovery of most people. Combine this with the consolidation of the market to luxury goods players and the dynamics involved - money talks, and the money is in uneducated consumers' pockets.
Yes, there is more skilled people working in watch business than ever before. Yes, it is now possible to create movements or decoration that could not exist before. Yet it takes a huge effort to capture anything meaningful in the flood of cash flow optimized season premieres. There is a reason - which is not only that the cash strapped want to be flash - for homages to be so popular: good things are only invented once. Iconic designs might become such because of ubiquitousness (BMW anyone?), but many are classic just because they got it right.
From fashion point of view, I understand that a watch is a limited design opportunity compared to a car, a kitchen, a something. Probably I should be glad as there are still totally committed watchmakers trying to advance the timepiece. I just know that most of what is available is not worth it for myself.
I'm with you on this, although I'm yet to see a new JLC I like. I find Seiko screw up a lot of their GS models with unnecessary detail and I only want a date at three or six, or not at all. Which also rules out a lot of Zeniths for me.
Tudor are making nice watches but they're all reissues of iconic designs. Most of my watches are from the late 1960s to the late 1970s, from the first automatics and electronic watches through the 1000M Seamaster to the quartz Marine Chronometer (so ugly it's great). Three new technologies - automatic, electronic and quartz, all coming out within a few years of each other and companies like Omega bringing out some fantastic designs far away from the small watches and conservative designs of the 1950s. I wonder if things have become a bit stale and these new electronic watches, linked to your phone, are going to kick design up the bum again? What if Tag Heuer (for example) linked up with Vodafone? I don't know if they have already btw, but I'd be interested to see how the big manufacturers react.
"A man of little significance"
yes.. i used to have a black dial 2504.50.00
i think they discontinued them a few years ago and went bigger.
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