Horological Meandering

An77n1
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Vintage Design Trend

I have been an avid reader of this forum and others for a decade now. I have not posted but read with a lot of interest those individuals with a lot more knowledge than I. Today I decided to register and post this thought. I am happy to continue learning from you smarter people out there.

Being a simpleton looking into the watch industry, I cannot help but notice a trend of vintage re-interpretations across the entire watch industry. Long gone is the pre-financial crisis, pre-October 2008 era when more was more i.e. precious metals with more tourbillons than design-thought and ostentatiously big watches.

Watch brands use words like heritage today to re-interpret simple 3 hand designs of their past with the most complicated watches having a date function. This allows them to re-align themselves with the reality of their customers' current disposable income or search for value but ultimately what is "cool" today. Whether we buy a watch for the way it looks or the man-made mechanical machine with the tiniest parts that work together to move three hands that allow us to read the time to the nearest second, we buy watches because they are "cool".

People were buying vintage watches because it told people around them that they were "cool". Cool, because vintage watches are no longer in production which makes them rare. It's obviously more rare than a run of the mill watch you can buy at any mono-brand boutique today. It's cool because this watch has a story to tell. It's cool because you knew what it was amongst millions of other watches you could have bought. It's cool because you knew enough to find it. Now you are cool because you are part of a small group of people that have such a piece and have this knowledge.

What plays in favor of watch brands pursuing the vintage inspired watch trend is that mankind likes to look at the past with nostalgia. However vintage watches come with a price. They can be expensive in some cases, but one can additionally face the risk of having paid a lot of money for a doctored watch or franken-watch. They might not be in the best condition, run as well as current production watches or original parts might be hard to find in other cases. Therefore until the next boom, watch brands will milk the vintage three hand design. Hopefully they will not go back to making watches with 4 tourbillons but bring real innovation. Post 2009 we saw watch brands going back to making complicated ultra-thin watches. That is innovation. To make a complicated watch movement small enough to fit in a normally sized case.

I am all for the return to simplicity, less cluttered designs and especially smaller sizes. What I appreciate more is value. I cannot define value as something universal. To each his own definition in his decision to buy a watch or another instead.

If a re-interpreted watch has an innovative movement using a silicone balance wheel and the entire movement is antimagnetic then that is a useful clin d'oeil to the brand's "heritage" i.e. Omega SM300 1957. The watch has a lot more innovation like liquid metal, ceramic bezel, etc...On the other hand a watch that I find esthetically very pleasing Omega Speedmaster 1962 "first omega in space" at 39.2mm and without crown guards made in 2012 as a limited edition, missed an opportunity to be great. They could have re-introduced a column-wheel instead of the use of a calibre 1861. There was absolutely no innovation in the calibre which was a let-down. This is just one example and a counter example that came to mind. Please don't read too much into this specific company.
I love that brands like Breguet and now Omega are doing NATO straps.