Rosneathian
1471
+1
Apr 18, 2021,17:52 PM
It has upset some watch people because a beloved line has been used as a canvass to produce something altogether different. I find this rather odd. It doesn't change the Royal Oaks the same people like and even cherish. It's just another iteration. That's all. Nothing more. Outré? Yes. Reason to lose one's poise? No.
There will be people who will this watch at different levels. Specifically, BLACK PEOPLE.
There's nothing patronising about this observation. The Black Panther is a powerful popular culture symbol, and not just today. When I was reading Marvel comics as a boy in the 1970s and 1980s, the character stood out for precisely the reasons he was conceived: to capture the zeitgeist of civil rights and post-colonial politics. The Black Panther offered something black kids didn't have much of in popular culture back then.
Going back further, into the 17th and 18th centuries, clocks and pocket watches were used as vehicles for ornamental and symbolic art that had little to do with timekeeping (in fact they were often better as pieces of art than they were for telling the time). The iconography was typically religious but also mythical and natural. Yes, most of it was rarified stuff and completely inaccessible to most people. Well, with this watch, we suddenly see the juxtaposition of something popular and 'common' with something rare and 'haute.' That is evidently too much of a mash-up for some.
It's amazing to witness the conservative reaction to this watch today (and it's still going on weeks after its launch). Today it's the Black Panther. In 1985 it was the Pink Panther on one of Gerald Genta's creations. There have been others and there will be more in the future. But it's only a watch, so what exactly is going on here? I think a dispassionate analysis of why people are responding the way they are will reveal some watch-related as well as some non-watch related factors.