“Why do we wear mechanical watches today?” asks Bruno Belamich , co-founder of watchmaker Bell & Ross . “It’s certainly not for function. Then it would be enough to wear a quartz watch or an Apple Watch. Is it the pleasure of owning and wearing a beautiful object? Of course. But let’s be honest, it’s also about satisfying one’s ego and impressing those around them. Whether it’s expressing financial power, associating oneself with heroic figures, associating oneself with a certain horological nobility, or finding a kind of legitimacy by becoming a member of a community, owning a watch is a matter of status.”
It's always been this way, of course. Once upon a time, simply owning a wearable timepiece of any kind—extremely complex, extremely expensive—was an indicator of your place in the hierarchy, while also suggesting your literal mastery of time. Add precious metals to the mix, and the financial power these watches represented was even more evident. It's an idea we've held onto for centuries: the big gold wristwatch tells us more than just the time.
"We tend to believe we'll be treated better if we can display status through the objects we wear, such as watches," says Dr. Russell Belk , a marketing professor at York University's Schulich School of Business in Canada. "And that's especially important because most of us no longer live in villages where we're personally known by the locals."
It's no coincidence that the stratified world of investment banking, for example, enthusiastically delineates seniority not by the cut of the suit—which can be hard to read, especially as dress becomes more casual—but by the watch code. According to one report, the analyst typically wears the Submariner ; the vice president, a Vacheron Constantin ; the director, a Breguet or Jaeger-LeCoultre ; and the managing director, an A. Lange & Söhne or a Patek Philippe . Wearing a watch above one's rank is not a thing to do.
But while a watch may have the advantage of being a wearable status object, we're on increasingly shifting sands, not least because, according to Dr. Belk , our relationship with status objects has been upended by lockdown: if you're not interacting with others, you don't need to flaunt your status. Similarly, many of us have come to understand more clearly the importance of love and relationships over material possessions.
What's more, Dr. Belk speaks of a broader movement from what he calls vertical to horizontal signaling. Increasingly, it's less about signaling one's social standing to everyone with, say, the famous Rolex brand, and more about broadcasting it to specific members of one's peer group. This is especially important if one shares a passion for watches. "That's where watches and more obscure objects come in, because they can only be decoded by other cognoscenti, by other people in the know," he explains.
There was a time when wearing a Roger Dubuis or Ressence watch was considered an investment in a less effective status item. According to Dr. Silvia Bellezza , of Columbia Business School , and former brand director of Chaumet , the notion of cost is inherent in status items. In the past, this simply meant financial outlay: one of the roles of your watch was to signal how much you were spending. But with increased wealth, increased availability of materials and increased production, and therefore greater access to more common status items, the value of this cost has changed. The rarity of vintage watches can be seen as more desirable than an item that simply cost a lot of money.
“Now the cost is that you’re giving up the visibility of that mainstream signal by making a more esoteric choice,” she says. “Your Rolex was the gateway to status watches—when you want most people to recognize what you’re wearing—but you’re moving higher and higher into the niche and running the risk that only some people will, but the right people.”
In other words, while for most people, status objects are about keeping up with the group and fitting in, for a few, they're about standing out. This is why brands balance the benefits and perils of mainstream cultural cachet: perhaps Patek Philippe , often considered the pinnacle of watchmaking craftsmanship, rued the day it supplanted Rolex as the subject of rap lyrics. "I had to find other ways to invest / 'Cause you rappers found every way to ruin Patek ," complains Pusha T in " Hard Piano ."
This also means that some people will look closely at your cuff. With the peacock power of precious materials in watches replaced by the appreciation of its maker's name, you now have to get up close to a watch to understand its message, believes Mr. Benoît Mintiens , founder of Ressence .
“Of course, there’s always a demand for more ostentatious watches, like those from Richard Mille , whose clever shape makes them so recognizable on the wrist,” explains Benoît Mintiens . “But we’re not a well-known brand, and it’s hard to impress someone with something they haven’t heard of. But wearing a Ressence is perhaps less about projecting wealth than knowledge—and there’s status in knowledge. All of which raises the question of whether a watch is for the wearer or really for others.”
Indeed, because our conception of status is so shifting today, merging with shifting ideas of cool or shifting ideas of social status, we are deeply involved in unspoken psychological games, and what Mintiens calls "the watch as avatar." For some, status signaling is conflated with virtue signaling: your watch is gold, the extraction of which can have a profoundly negative environmental impact; mine is a Panerai made from mostly recycled materials. For others, signaling is about signaling understatement or "good" taste: your watch is loud; mine is minimalist, à la IWC . And for still others, status signaling sends the wrong signal: the online journal Premier Christianity debated whether it was morally dubious for preachers to wear expensive watches.
As environmental psychologist and author of Why We Buy , Paco Underhill , notes, "post-Covid conspicuous consumption is, for some, simply bad manners, and people are starting to trade whimsy for anonymity." Perhaps the competition for status is now about being seen as living more simply, not more expensively, more as an individual. For some, moving away from consumerism is a status symbol: the "I could wear a Patek , but I choose to wear a Swatch " mentality, says Dr. Bellezza .
But perhaps this is the special privilege of those whose status is so high that they have no need to signal it; so they wear a simple Shinola , like Mr. David Solomon , the CEO of Goldman Sachs , or - like the chairman of JP Morgan , Mr. Jamie Dimon - they don't wear a watch at all.
“That’s the question I find interesting: If status signaling is no longer simply about choosing to wear the traditional big gold watch, what do you choose? It’s an ever-changing dynamic,” adds Dr. Bellezza . “But it’s clear that we’ve been concerned with status signaling since we could accumulate anything, and it’s going to stay with us forever.”
Illustration of Mr. Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street , 2013. Photo: Paramount Pictures/Alamy
Text by Mr Josh Sims
