I’m going to ask you to look at your watch, and then I’m going to ask you two questions. Ready? Okay, look at your watch. Now, first question: what time does your watch indicate? Second question: what is the actual time? You might have guessed where I’m going with this.
A couple of weeks ago, an article appeared in GQ stating that true watch lovers rarely (the title actually uses the word “never”, but if you read the whole thing, it’s more nuanced) set their watches to the correct time. The writer, Cam Wolf, interviewed a number of personalities, mostly from the New York watch scene, and came to the conclusion that seasoned habitués of the horological world tend to be relatively cavalier about having their watches display time accurately.
Reactions to this article were deeply polarized, as you can imagine. The watch community is noted for its passion and level of emotional investment, and debates kicked off all over the internet. Which side are you on? Do you agree or disagree with Cam Wolf’s theory? And more importantly, why do you agree or disagree? Think about it. We’ll be circling back to this in a while.
I can add one more person to his list of names supporting this theory — myself. In fact, none of my watches are currently set to the right time. The one I’m currently wearing is running, because it’s an automatic watch, but its time display is sedulously, hilariously inaccurate. The one smartwatch that I do own ran out of juice half a day after I took it off. That was months ago, and I haven’t charged it since. Even my beloved Casio digital watch with calculator function isn’t set correctly (it’s still on summer time, because I’m in denial about the weather).
In general, I don’t see the need to set my watches, unless I think it will cause someone else consternation. I wear a watch for the pleasure of having it on my wrist, not because I require it to give me the time. And even if I have my watch set to the right time, it’s hardly ever set to the right date (I avoid watches with date displays for this reason). I’ve been told that this is bad for the overall condition of the watch — keeping your watch regularly wound is kind of like making sure you occasionally start and run your car engine even if you’re not going to be driving it for a while. Keeping your watch wound and set also allows you to see when its timekeeping performance is starting to suffer, so that you can send it for repairs as necessary. I can see a sturdy logic to all this; right now I wouldn’t have a clue if my watch was running fast or slow, since it’s not correctly set.
Some people are horrified when they learn this about me. They find it incomprehensible, especially for someone in my position. A watch editor who doesn’t set the time on her watch. But is that such a dissonant idea? Like a fashion editor wearing her shirt inside out, or buttoned askew. Like a food writer who doesn’t follow the cooking instructions on the pasta packet. Like the book reviewer who reads a novel out of chapter sequence. These are all behaviours and actions that would fall into the category of “Doing Things Wrong”. But people who have greater experience and expertise than average in a particular subject tend to take greater liberties with that subject. It’s not that weird, if you think about it.
At this point, you might think I’m firmly in Mr Wolf’s camp, being a prime example of the hypothesis that watch lovers don’t set their watches. I’m not, though. I don’t think that at all. There are plenty of watch lovers who can’t imagine wearing a watch that’s incorrectly set. They use watch winders, and they diligently correct all the indications on a calendar watch before they put it on. They see it as a mark of respect towards the watchmaker and the labour that goes into a timepiece. They want to honour that labour by using a watch for its proper purpose, in the correct way. And I completely appreciate that point of view. But I have chosen a different way to express my love and respect for watches and watchmaking, a way that involves my profession, that involves my relocation to the city I currently live in, that involves the words you’re reading right now.
