And therein lies the mystery of the modern timepiece. These days, no one requires a Swiss watch to tell the time – or a watch from any country. The time displayed on our mobile phones and other digital devices will always be more accurate than the time displayed on even the most skilfully engineered mechanical watch, yet the industry has a visual presence in our lives like few others. The storefronts of the world’s big-money boulevards glow with the lustre of Rolex and Omega; newspapers and magazines appear to be kept in business largely by watch adverts; airports would be empty shells without them. The export value of the Swiss watch trade fell by 3.3% last year, due primarily to a downfall in demand from the east Asia. But it is up 62.9% compared with six years ago. In 2015 the world bought 28.1m Swiss watches valued at 21.5 billion Swiss francs. [...]
But why do we continue to buy these over-engineered and redundant machines? Why do so many people pay so much for an item whose principal function may be bought for so little? And how does the watch industry not only survive in the digital age, but survive well enough to erect a 16,000-litre salt‑water shrine to its continued mastery of an outmoded art? Far beyond the telling of time, watches tell us something about ourselves. And so the answers to these questions lie within our propensity for extreme fantasy, our consumption of dazzling marketing, our unbridled and shameless capacity for ostentation, and our renewed reverence for craftsmanship in a digital world. [...]
But accurate timekeeping has long ago ceased to be the point. And this, with deep irony, is another reason why the global watch industry survives. Once you can afford to spend even entry-level prices for a Patek Philippe or a Hublot, your watch has begun to represent status and one-upmanship. A watch is a statement of achievement, and also of intent. (It is also one of the easiest ways to export money from one country to another.) Something glittery on your wrist says something about your earning power and your taste, much as an expensive car can do; it is not always an attractive trait. It’s a delusion, of course, but the fatter and more complicated and expensive the watch, the more the wearer may assume control of the universe, the still centre of a spinning wheel.
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