Almost a hundred years ago, in 1926, my great-grandmother owned a watch that had been passed down through generations. This past summer, after staying with my relatives in a small German town near Frankfurt, I was gifted that same watch. I was also given instructions on how to set it and change it back to match Eastern Standard Time. It took me almost three months to finally set the correct time, despite the fact that I was wearing it almost everyday. This sparks a question: Are watches worn more for fashion or function?
In modern day, we don’t need a watch in order to know the time; our phones conveniently display it at every moment. As shocking as it should be, it’s no surprise that a decent portion of high school and college students can’t read an analog clock. Considering the circulation of technology along with AI and society’s reliance on it, analog clocks might as well cease to exist. Why try to decipher one when you could just ask Siri or check your phone?
Last month, while digging through a pile of vintage watches covering a fold-out table at the Brooklyn Flea Market, my friend and I started picking up watches at random and tried to identify the city that best matched the aesthetic of each. A silver watch with a band made of silver hearts chained together was obviously Paris, and a smooth, silver band, its face wrapped in a thin frame, was Berlin.
Whether we are fully conscious of it or not, our world, specifically cities like New York City, Paris or Berlin, run on clocks. Everything about a city relies on time. Just focusing on transportation, New Yorkers rely on the subway and buses to get everywhere, and those transportation methods rely on time to function. Business, museums and events couldn’t exist if everyone followed a different time. Time connects us.
What also connects us as a society is fashion. Watches have always been part of fashion, even if their function was still the utmost of priorities. There is a reason that some watches go for thousands of dollars, they are as much of a fashion and wealth statement as a tool. The table at the Brooklyn Flea Market stacked with vintage watches is successful because there is a market for watches, especially fashionable, trendy ones. Many people even own a multitude of watches, possibly one for work or different ones to match different outfits.
What I find interesting, is that in the three months I was wearing an essentially broken watch, not one person asked me what the time was. A lot of popular shows and movies depict scenes in which a character asks a stranger for the time, but that question doesn’t really come up anymore. Honestly, if someone were to ask me, my instinct would be to check my phone, not a watch. Even though I treasure my great-grandmother’s watch, it’s more of an accessory or connection to my family history, than a tool to tell time.
In my great-grandmother’s era, a watch was necessary and, at times, probably the only way to know the time unless you were at home or perhaps walking by a bell tower in the town square. I probably look at my phone to check the time at least 20 times per day, and then again after I realize I’ve forgotten it already. It’s how I make sure to show up to class, clubs and plans with friends on time. Checking the time isn’t just looking at the numbers, it’s also seeing notifications and reminders. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that time controls, or sometimes even whips me around. Most of college is timing when to leave your dorm or apartment.
My great-grandmother also didn’t live in a city. In fact, she lived in such a small German village where she had to go to the next village over in order to go shopping or get groceries. She didn’t have the same pressures that a bustling city like New York has. It’s possible watches are outdated, more of a fashion statement than a functioning tool for life, but time is always moving and one day even our phones might be the next items sitting in a pile at the Brooklyn Flea.
