Page 102 - Sharp Winter 2024

102 WINTER 2024
SHARPMAGAZINE.COM
LETTER
ARE WE
HAVING FUN YET?
A SK ANY ENTHUSIAST WHAT THEY LIKE ABOUT WATCHES AND CHANCES
are you’ll get an answer that combines elements of nostalgia, history, engineering, and plain old aesthetic beauty. After all, what is a watch but an ornate piece of jewellery that also happens to tell the time? As such, I’m often surprised by the solemnity that pervades the culture of watches. Make no mistake, watchmaking is an incredibly serious business, requiring many years of study by people who dedicate their lives to this centuries-old craft, and it commands serious money at its highest levels. But just because there aren’t a lot of laughs to be had in the places where watches are made or sold doesn’t mean we have to take them so seriously the rest of the time. Quite the contrary. Watches are miraculous, beautiful, and endlessly fascinating creations, so shouldn’t that make them a source of joy and wonder to those who covet and collect them?
Fortunately, things are starting to change. As the culture of watch collecting continues to grow, it’s becoming increasingly inclusive, more diverse, and — most importantly — more fun. As more people get into watches, the historically conservative watch industry is starting to create products that speak to a wider variety of tastes, cultures, and passions. In this edition of SHARP Watch, our annual supplement dedicated to the many wonders of the timepiece world, we’ve dedicated our main photoshoot to this idea. My favourite piece from this story is the Citizen C3PO, a watch that combines the form of a 1970s bullhead chronograph with a creative homage to the foppish Star Wars droid. Not only is this watch much easier to pair with a suit than your Boba Fett t-shirt, but it’s also a perfect example of how watches at every level are shedding their seriousness and embracing fun. Fortunately, for those of us who don’t know a Jedi from a Jawa, there are plenty of other watches (many of them included in these pages) that are equally smile-inducing. Life is full of serious things. Your watch doesn’t need to be one of them.
— JEREMY FREED
Watch Editor
PHOTO BY MATT BARNES.W