Why I’m Buying My First Watch
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If 2020 were a painting, it would be Salvador Dali’s Persistence of Memory depicting the dripping clocks. This past year, time seemed to have melted into itself, and eventually, we lost track of it. It flew by, and yet completely stalled. During this period, I’ve passed the time by staring into my iPhone, hypnotized by whatever was appearing on the surface of my LED screen. There’s no doubt that the digital abyss of Instagram and work emails has taken years off of my life, and this year, slowed or stopped time for me completely. To cope, I’ve been trying to take 30-minute walks during the day in order to alleviate the weirdness of the passing hours at home and conjure some sense of zen. But ironically, I track the time of these walks with my phone. When I see a Slack message pop up, I stop to reply. Sometimes, I have tech FOMO and want to see what’s going on, even if it is for a moment! The addiction is real. So what’s the point of trying to disconnect when my phone is still lingering in my pocket and I can’t help but monitor its digital clock and accouterments?
This is where my recent desire to buy a classic watch, and streamline my life, comes in. Lately, I’ve been imagining a whole watch-wearing alter ego for myself: a woman who is calm, poised, and tech-free. I’ve also thought of getting a blowout and a long, rich brown suede jacket. That’s how I, someone who’s never really worn a proper timepiece, envision a woman wearing a watch. To get specific, she’s Gwyneth Paltrow in the film A Perfect Murder. In the 1998 thriller, Paltrow, who stars alongside Michael Douglas, plays a beautiful philanderer, Emily, with a money-hungry, murderous husband (Douglas). She dons a timeless Cartier Panthère with a diamond bezel. She lives somewhere on the Upper East Side, dons pearls to her United Nations jobs, and has every strand of hair in place. Whenever Emily gesticulates in her tame way, that watch so elegantly slides up and down around her delicate wrists, sometimes peekaboo-ing from under the sleeve of a cashmere turtleneck. The glint has a “killer chic” appeal. In fact, any woman with a watch, a good watch, connotes some sort of otherworldly attitude of composure and taste. It’s the brazen display of having the luxury of time. After all, we’ve been taught that time is our most valuable asset, so to have the minutes and hours literally at your fingertips? That feels priceless, especially to me and especially right now.
It seems that I’m not the only one with watches on my mind. My friend sent me an Instagram posted by the Gen Z label Sporty and Rich that pictured a model in a sports bra wearing a Cartier watch. The caption read: “Vintage Cartier and a sweatshirt—our favorite look.” True, that’s sporty and, well, truly rich. There’s also Brynn Wallner, who worked on the editorial team at Sotheby’s and is a millennial sensei of all things horography. She has seen a lot of watches in her day and runs the Instagram account @dimepiece.co, which chronicles a bevy of sophisticated babes wearing watches. On her feed, you’ll find Princess Diana wearing a gold Cartier Tank watch, Kylie Jenner in a crop top with a Patek Philippe, and Serena Williams on the court with a Rolex. “As young women start to…grow up…we learn to prioritize objects of value—objects that will increase in value,” she writes. “Also, it’s nice to have something to look at that isn’t your phone. Analog. Not in, like, the Wes Anderson kitschy ‘I own a record player’ way, but in a refined, practical way.”