Went down a mini rabbit hole about watches, rather two specific watch brands of A. Lange & Nomos, through the photography reddit. Here's my preliminary line-up of watches I'd like to own in descending order:
It wasn't very hard to come up with the list since there's not that many thin / small / relatively inexpensive watches / non-vintage models. I'd like to get the Tangente with my first bonus (and just save throughout my first year of working for my dear trench coat).
Man, taking ENV222 has not made me any bit less of a consumer, and actually more of a materialist. If I'm supporting a system of luxury goods that's screwing over most of the world's population, then it better be goods that I really, really like. Other things that fall on the list include:
- Clothing and shoes, moreso the latter since the only clothing category I'm super willing to spend on are outerwear and scarves
- Teapots
- Cosmetics
- Cameras
A good article on "
the improbable survival of the luxury watch business":
But why do we continue to buy these over-engineered and redundant machines? Why do so many people pay so much for an item whose principal function may be bought for so little? And how does the watch industry not only survive in the digital age, but survive well enough to erect a 16,000-litre salt‑water shrine to its continued mastery of an outmoded art? Far beyond the telling of time, watches tell us something about ourselves. And so the answers to these questions lie within our propensity for extreme fantasy, our consumption of dazzling marketing, our unbridled and shameless capacity for ostentation, and our renewed reverence for craftsmanship in a digital world.
And perhaps there is something else ticking away at us – a feeling that the acceleration of our daily lives may soon prove overwhelming. When watchmaking began, we had no concept of packed calendars and unbreakable deadlines, much less of “quality time” or “me time”. Our days were not ruled by the clock. These days, having brought this ungovernable storm of rush upon ourselves, we may be grateful for anything – not least a beautiful windable timepiece – that reinstates at least an illusion of control.
...
I never showed off my current watch, here is a belated photo:
Lessons learned: glass surfaces are very difficult to photograph / I see the limitation at f2 now, this is the first time I've actually ran up against a hardware limit. There was quite a lot of halo and was generally supremely difficult to focus at f2, these two problems pretty much disappeared by f4.
This is a photo that didn't turn out well overall but the dial looks pretty reflecting the flash, also a reminder to self to always wipe the surface:
