On Time

(My new-to-me “vintage” watch.)

I’ve always liked watches.  They aren’t just a fashion statement to me.  I think there’s something so amazing about the tiny pieces and mechanisms working continuously to keep time in a small device you wear on your wrist.  Secretly, I wish I knew how to repair them, because I think it would be a fun hobby.

I started wearing a watch in middle school, I think, and I’ve worn one ever since.  In high school and college, I wore Timex pieces, since they were reliable and I could afford them.  After my first year of teaching, I treated myself to a Citizen watch and wore it for the next ten years, until James was born and I began my new job as a mom.  That watch stopped working last year, and I’ve been trying to charge it, but I think it might need some professional help at this point.

My current favorite is by Tokyo Bay, and I switch out the band, depending on my mood and the seasons.  And recently, I purchased a “vintage” 1990s Fossil watch from a very sweet seller in England, and we had a lovely conversation via Etsy about watches in general.  My watch arrived this week, an early Christmas present to myself, and I am daydreaming about its previous owner (who is not the seller) and who she might have been.  I’m thinking she lived in London and worked in an office, or maybe she was a teacher like me.  Her wrist was the same size as mine, because the hole I selected on the band is well-worn.  You can tell the watch was worn a lot, but also loved and cared for.  Maybe the previous owner loved watches as much as me, too.  And the dual dials are so pretty and romantic.

I like the idea of vintage watches because, a watch, if loved and cared for, can last for years and years.  And the idea of sharing a literal piece of time with someone from another era or decade is fascinating, too.

There aren’t many American-made watches these days, and it seems to be a dying art, in some ways.  Most people rely on their phones to keep time, and watch parts usually come from Switzerland and are expensive, or from China, which brings up the issue of ethical treatment in factories there.

I did a bit of research on watches and discovered that, for a watch to be considered “Swiss-made,” it only has to contain 50% Swiss-made parts.  At the same time, the Swatch brand holds a monopoly on Swiss-made parts and is, in many ways, forcing other Swiss watch companies to look elsewhere for basic pieces of watch mechanisms.  It’s a very strange situation.

There’s a great new watch company in Detroit, called Shinola, that is training its workers in the art of watchmaking and hoping to revitalize the now bankrupt city.  Their watches are beautiful and very expensive (the Gomelsky Collection is so elegant), but some of Shinola’s mechanical parts come from Switzerland and China, because they have to.  Nobody else is making them.  This also holds true for the sustainable wood and eco-friendly watch companies that are springing up these days.

I find this very interesting and a little sad, too.  Hopefully, watchmaking won’t become a completely lost art as long as people continue to care for their watches.