Horological Meandering

bernard cheong
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If one day, all the watches had women as their MAIN customers (Part 5 of 33)

Apologies and thanks for being patient with me.

Also, Vianney, if you are reading this...thanks for the mention!!! i am honored.

But it was you who did seriously make me think, that summer at St Croix, that women and men should be equally looking at watches...to sort of bring them together on a single interest to share.

Like all of Vianney's work....his watches have no gender.

There are so many "men's" watches that if one were to STOP and wonder: "Are there really ANY watches that ONLY a man could really wear?"

These last two years, I have championed, known to all at the Geneva Grand Prix, the "de genderization" of watches that are male.

Meaning we should have "watches" and "ladies watches".

Many women carry the Rolex and the Panerai VERY well indeed.

I struggle to carry my Birkin 50cm BUT...mine is a true blue navy one made in the early days, before the Birkin became a ladies' handbag.

Those watching AMC's latest series of Madmen and PanAm will know what I am saying.

The Birkin taught me that by removing gender from the male bag, the women's market carried it to a level. A new level that is and will prove VERY interesting to men like us who collect watches.

I mean, imagine a day when ONLY the gay or the ladies were to be found in watch stores.

Imagine that watch collecting is a 99% women's hobby.

Imagine what the complications and the finish levels will become?

I look at Van Cleef and I look at Cartier...that is the meaning of reaching for the ladies.

Without forgetting men.

A two pronged attack on the market.

But before that:

Here is proof that SOME watches can only be worn by men.

BTW..some of the VERY best users of the Leica are women.

Anyway, I was trying out an inexpensive Nokton 1.1 50mm on my trusty Leica M8.

I found it VERY hard to go back to the rangefinder way of doing the focus...and 10 out of 11 times, I could not get it pin/tack onto the watch.

BUT...I discovered color and bokeh.

This is also something not all women photographers talk alot about.

I also suspect that IF...and only IF...women became the superior collector..we will see much more color aka MBF3 owl and Van Cleef as well as much more LV tourbillons.

And many RM tourbillons with/without diamonds..they are really very popular with the girls here.

And to your surprise...Antiqua!!!

The part I personally like, and women do not, (generally speaking) is the way the Leica has a way of loosing their black coating of paint...and revealing hand made brass.

If you look at the De Grisogono, and man...am I going to find 33 ways to say something about this watch that I like so much...

I like these graphic novels.

I highly recomend these two I just bought...plus another called "The Filth".

But seriously:

Habibi by Craig Thompson, who also wrote "Blankets" is wonderful.

So is "Forget Sorrow" by Belle Yang.

These books touched me. I am now writting for Ulysse Nardin...Rolf's story...and am spending much time in a some places so private and so full of courage, vision and work, that I am being rewarded by simply finding out the meaning of being unselfish.

BTW...Ronald. I am serious. Do you wish to come to Singapore?

Here, I placed the watch next to a work by Britto.

How crazy and how commercial can one get?

But I see not wrong, but a vision and a sense of how to do a business.

Well done Britto.

Here, the watch is place...no it is NOT done by photoshop...on a piece of top grade quartz, the VERY thing that ended and gave birth to a new world of watchmaking...mechanical watches.

It taught me how Rolf learnt his lesson when he was my age...

It also taught me how to make the VERY best of what may just about to seemingly be the very end.

Here is the watch on an oil skin hat that I used to wear when I was in the armed forces.

Yes...a relic from 1976.

This is leather from down under. Australia.

Who knows, which may one day, be the capital of watchmaking!?!?

Now...can a woman wear the de Grisogono?

And really carry it off without looking as if she is wearing her husband's watch?

Will the industry carefully cultivate, and seriously and covertly, do so...a woman's watch interest platform?

From me, I hope they do.

It will double the sales or more....and save many marriages and create new ones!