Less egology. More horology.
I was at a networking event last week, standing in a plush hotel lobby, listening to a slightly over-cocktailed man explain how exceptionally busy and successful he was. He had mastered that particular wrist movement through which a shirt cuff withdraws just far enough to contribute to the conversation. There it was. The crown. The King’s crown. A Rolex. More golden than a rapper’s teeth in the mid-nineties. A few meters behind him, another man was performing approximately the same maneuver, with approximately the same watch, while a third had dispensed with sleeves altogether. Sensible. Remove the friction. Lay bare the Crown.
Around me, the soi-disant elite were networking industriously, congratulating one another on having arrived, arriving, or nearly killing the arrival. Of monetary life, of course. Judging by the wrists, quite a few had arrived by the same route. I took a sip of my drink and looked down at my own watch, which seemed, reassuringly, to have been designed for someone whose plans involved leaving the planet.
Someone, somewhere, always asks why I do not have a Rolex. There is most often a small pause after the question. The concerned kind. As though my otherwise respectable collection contained a serious plumbing problem. Surely, after all those Breitlings, Panerais and other manifestations of insufficient adult supervision, I would eventually acquire the correct watch?
Apparently, even my wrist is expected to have a detailed career plan.
I have nothing against Rolex’s ability to make a watch. Let us establish that before somebody’s Oyster goes down the wrong way. They make excellent watches. A steel Submariner is a serious piece of equipment. The Sea-Dweller and Deepsea have engineering credentials that deserve respect, regardless of the person currently using them to time the arrival of his valet.
My difficulty begins with the unhealthy social apparatus attached to the shiny bracelet.
Industry estimates put Rolex’s 2025 volume at around 1.15 million watches. Estimates, admittedly. Geneva does not send me its production spreadsheet, and I have resisted the temptation to establish a relationship with whoever does. But more than a million is a considerable number of objects with which to express how difficult you are to imitate.
Of course, well over a million watches can still fall short of demand. Of course, particular references can be difficult to obtain. But, do not talk to me about exclusivity, scarcity, luxury or limited access if your yearly market is, give or take, Brussels. I understand supply and demand. I also understand the magnificent commercial achievement of making industrial-scale recognition feel like membership of a secret society. A secret society whose members can recognize each other from the far end of an airport lounge. Storytelling is my trade. Respect where respect is due.
And then there is the buying process. Or, depending on the watch and the retailer, the process of establishing whether you might eventually, maybe one day, who knows, be considered suitable for the buying process.
Rolex says its retailers independently manage the allocation and sales of watches, and experiences vary. Some people buy a watch without first completing a minor diplomatic posting. Good for them. But most often, you do not. You need to earn your watch, not just the card-melting amount of money, but a whole pilgrimage that makes a stroll to Santiago de Compostela on your bare knees in winter pale in comparison. The well-meant advice in your search for the holy crown grail is enough to make me want a shower: cultivate your dealer, visit regularly, demonstrate commitment, develop a purchase history. Perhaps buy something else, some other Rolex watches. Perhaps something for your wife. Let them see that you are serious. For a Daytona: up to three years.
I am standing here with the money. That used to be a fairly compelling indication.
The suggestion that I should purchase something I do not particularly want to improve my chances of being allowed to purchase something I do want strikes me as an expensive misunderstanding of who is working for whom. I already spend enough of my professional life managing delicate relationships. I will not add a man with a velvet tray to the list.
And what happens when the dealer finally calls? Grown adults announce it with the trembling gratitude normally associated with a successful kidney transplant. I got the call. Congratulations. A shop has agreed to sell you something. Do sit down until the dizziness passes.
I think of the surrounding status ritual as a m’as-tu-vu Ponzi scheme, with admiration as the currency. Every participant needs the next participant to believe admission was a triumph. The waiting becomes part of the value. The inconvenience becomes evidence of desirability. The customer emerges from an entirely avoidable ordeal and starts explaining to other customers why they should want the same ordeal. They ship 1.15 million watches.
Professionally, I find this magnificent. I have worked in communications long enough to appreciate a business that gets people to brag about how difficult it was to give it money. Personally, I would rather negotiate with a Belgian tax inspector with a nagging ulcer.
Even if the watch were readily available, however, I would still have the hotel-lobby problem.
The crown is exceptionally efficient. It tells strangers something immediately, without requiring the owner to develop an interesting sentence. Money. Success. Arrival. It slides out from under the cuff and delivers a little financial introduction while its human is still looking for the word “synergies.”
For the wearer interested principally in recognition, this is the entire appeal. Nobody needs to ask what it is. Nobody needs to know anything about watches. The signal has been standardized across continents. You can land in almost any major city and resume being visibly successful before your luggage arrives.
Of course, you are the exception. You bought yours for the movement. I could tell from the way you made sure I saw it.
Pair it with an outrageously monogrammed Louis Vuitton handbag and the two of you become a coordinated communications campaign. The wrist establishes purchasing power; the handbag provides repetition. Between you, there is very little risk that someone at the next table will accidentally underestimate the household.
M’as-tu-vu? Oui. From the car park. The bag was particularly helpful.
Then we come to the two-tone Submariner, an object that has always made me suspect a disagreement between the engineering department and someone’s drunk brother-in-law. A diving watch, a tool watch, in steel and gold. A contradiction in terms, aesthetically speaking. The equipment wants to explore a wreck; the bracelet wants to discuss the refinancing of the marina. It has the air of a thoroughly competent man who has been persuaded to wear his wedding shoes on an expedition.
Yes, it still works underwater. A gold-plated shovel would still move soil. You have nevertheless made a peculiar decision about a shovel. I look at a two-tone Submariner and see a tool that has been told it needs to dress for the position it wants. Apparently, that position is regional sales director.
The rainbow Daytona takes the argument several geological layers further. Here is a chronograph that appears to have survived an explosion in a very expensive confectionery shop. I have no doubt that selecting and setting those stones takes extraordinary skill. Extraordinary skill can produce something I would still describe as a crime against my eyeballs.
I am colorblind. Imagine how strongly I must feel about this.
It belongs in that increasingly crowded world of rappers, footballers, trophy spouses and people photographed disembarking from boats, where every possession is expected to outperform the previous possession in public. The watch has to compete with the car. The car has to compete with the yacht. The yacht has to compete with the new watch. Eventually, a man can no longer order lunch without looking like the prize pool.
The football trophy wife, I suspect, is frequently the most intellectually honest person in the photograph. She chose jewelry because she liked the jewelry. She is wearing it because it looks expensive and beautiful to her. She has not detained three people beside the champagne bucket to explain that her necklace reflects a lifelong interest in motorsport. Her husband could learn something from this. Several things, probably. But we have limited time.
Wear diamonds if you love diamonds. Wear gold if gold makes you happy. Strap a small chandelier to your arm and illuminate the cheese course. I can enjoy a bit of glorious excess. What exhausts me is the accompanying attempt to pass a balance-sheet announcement off as an intimate relationship with mechanical engineering.
If you know the authorized dealer price, the 47th Street grey-market price and the likely resale premium better than you know the movement inside the watch case, I have a fairly clear idea of what interests you. If you can describe the appreciation of your Submariner over dinner but cannot explain how you would use its diving bezel, the sea has been brought into this conversation under false pretenses.
You enjoy the jewelry. You enjoy being recognized. Perhaps you enjoy thinking about what the next buyer will pay. Say so. We can then spend the rest of dinner discussing something you actually like. Your next stop is Jacob & Co., where the watch at least has the decency to look as though it was designed to interrupt a conversation. Once there appears to be a small planetary system operating under your cuff, the claim that you were simply looking for a reliable way to check the time becomes pleasantly unnecessary.
“I’m not judging; you’re flaunting.” All right. I am judging. But you did bring a visual aid.
Before someone opens my collection article and starts assembling the prosecution, yes, I know. There are watches in my drawer large enough to affect the movement of my shirt. I own a Panerai Carbotech that satisfies a naval fantasy for which my actual qualifications are approximately zero. There are space watches, aviation instruments and enough imaginary adventure to keep a therapist occupied through retirement.
And Panerai owners can be insufferable. I know because I have heard myself explaining Panerai.
I have no tasteful little hill from which to address the vulgar masses. My own watch buying involves childhood dreams, disproportionately large cases and the lingering conviction that, if I cannot become an astronaut, I can at least own something they might let into the capsule. This is an expensive way of negotiating with disappointment. I am aware. I have bought into stories. Expensive ones, sometimes. The fact that mine involve spacecraft and deep sea treasures gives me no exemption from being marketed to.
It does, however, give me something to talk about beyond how much the thing costs. That is what I want from a collection: some evidence of the person who assembled it. A strange enthusiasm. A bad decision with a good story. Something that makes its owner smile before anybody else notices it. I would happily listen to a Rolex owner tell me why his father’s old watch matters to him. I have considerably less appetite for another briefing on what somebody had to spend to qualify for a Daytona.
And if you wear a steel Submariner because you love it, have worn it for years, know it intimately and actually let it accompany you through life, you have my complete respect. Same for a Sea-Dweller or a Deepsea. There is something immensely satisfying about good equipment in the hands of someone who appreciates it.
You do not need a commercial diving license. Given the amount of aerospace equipment I wear to meetings, I am hardly entitled to demand professional credentials. Swim with it. Travel with it. Turn the bezel. Time the pasta. Maintain it properly. Let it acquire a few scratches without treating each one as a personal attack on your estate.
Use it hard and often. Rolex made a capable watch. Give it something to do.
A much-loved, properly used Rolex can be a beautiful object. I might well ask to try yours on. Particularly if the story begins with where it has been, or who wore it before you, and takes a good long while to get around to what it is worth.
Until then, there will be no crown in my drawer. I can admire the engineering without wanting to join the ceremony. At the next networking event, I will probably still be wearing something unnecessarily large that suggests I took a wrong turn on my way to a launchpad.
Ask me about it if you like. Order another whisky first, it’s gonna be a long evening.
