I was on a recent Clubhouse chat which, nominally, was about today's Tag Heuer X Hodinkee release. To set the stage, these collaborators announced the Carrera 'Dato' Limited Edition For HODINKEE reference CBK221D.FC6479. The watch was available in a limited run of 250 examples and priced at $7,250. My use of past tense is not an error. The watch promptly sold out in three minutes and I'm sure, any day now, we'll see how much the flippers profit from the shortage on the secondary market.
A prominant collector and artist was in the Clubhouse room and expressed the sentiment that, while reissues are obviously well-received by the market, the lack of design innovation is disappointing. I see his point and agree with it. There is a flourishing space of design innovation among a certain class of brands. Most notably, independent brands and microbrands are arguably at the forefront of design innovation.
We also see design innovation among established brands such as Rolex, with the recent rainbow of stella-inspired OP dials, as well as Audemars Piguet, with the Code 11.59. Archeological evidence that the 5711 waiting list began in ancient Greece. JK, Muse reading a scroll What empowers established brands to make bold design moves?
I've previously discussed the idea that risk management motivates a lot of what we see in the watch industry. If you are a CEO, and you're looking at rolling out a bold new design, I'd imagine you lose some meaningful amount of sleep asking yourself, "what happens if this is a dog?" Actually, you probably don't lose any sleep if you have a network of ADs and a "flagship unobtainium" reference, such as the Submariner or the Royal Oak.The watch CEO's secret formula for empowering creatives and getting a good night's rest. The reason is this: the waitlist for that kind of reference allows you to force the hand of collectors. Authorized Dealers can simply move undesireable designs by essentially bundling the dog with unobtainium. Do you want the hottest reference? Then you need to buy a reference that we thought would sell, but really didn't.
In essence, if you have a waitlist, you're walking the design tightrope with a very big and robust safety net.
It is very important to note that, to my knowledge, eCommerce does not offer this safety net. Suppose that Tag had rolled out the Carrera 'Dato' LE through its AD network and it had been in equally short supply. The ADs could have built the waitlists. This would, no doubt, have been reassuring in the event that the other major recent release from Tag Heuer, the reference CBN2A1F.BA0643 Chronograph Special Edition with Porsche, does not sell through. There are earlier indicators this might be the case: we're 18 days from release and the "Add To Cart" button is still live. Imagine the other branch of the multiverse in which ADs could say "Do you want the Carrera 'Dato'? Well let's get the Porsche Special Edition in your watchbox first."*
In conclusion, I'm not going to claim either version of reality is more preferable, I'd just like to point it out. I'd also like to point out a few corollaries to the "waitlist-as-design hedge" idea. A nice hedge that has nothing to do with risk. First, if more eCommerce means fewer wait lists, then we may end up seeing stagnation in design. The safety nets will be increasingly scarce. Second, these observations mean that Thierry Stern's decision to eliminate the Nautilus reference 5711 is even ballsier than is commonly understood. The guy is throwing away his own safety net and we know he's walking the design tightrope (he's hinted as such). In fact, the elimination of the 5711 has a silver lining for buyers. They will not face pressure to buy a reference simply as a gateway to that unobtainium.
*I've learned that Tag Heuer may have reserved half of the Carrera 'Dato' Limited Edition For HODINKEE timepieces for their own boutiques, which means they may, in fact, plan to bundle the Porsche LE with Carrera 'Dato.'
I applaud the effort by watch manufacturers to minimize their contributions to climate change. Globally, we've made some progress towards "bending the curve" of greenhouse gas emissions, which is the good news. This figure from climateactiontracker.org shows that, even under an optimistic scenario, some increase in global temperatures is unavoidable. The bad news is that we clearly need to do a whole lot more to get to a point where we halt the growing cost of environmental degradation. As the graph I've presented here shows, existing policies are not enough to ensure a healthy planet for our children, their children, and all future generations. As Elizabeth Doer's outstanding coverage on Quill and Pad shows, the watch industry is discussing the challenges ahead and developing contributions to the fight against climate change. These include the use of recycled and recovered materials in manufacturing as well as requiring transparency in how raw materials are
Today, I learned a new term from an Instagram post by @ebaywatches. That term is "closet currency." No, this doesn't refer to someone stacking bills in some dark corner of their wardrobe. Instead, closet currency is the value that is stored in items that you put in your closet. At least, that's what I think it means. I arrived at this conclusion since eBay's post featured YouTuber Jose Zeniga describing the monetary value of different luxury watches. Zeniga also described a "luxury exchange" that eBay set up in NYC. In essence, you could take something out of your closet, go to the exchange, get an appraisal value, and then use your item and its appraisal to purchase another item that was available on the exchange. The formal definition of money is anything that is generally accepted as payment. In essense, eBay set up a NYC micro-economy in which almost any closet item could be used as money. Money is actually a pretty complex topic. It took a lo
Just before the US Thanksgiving holiday, I received a direct message on Instagram from the account @secondhand.secondhands. Al Worden's official NASA portrait from 1971. He's wearing the watch in question on his left wrist. They were looking for help identifying a watch on the wrist of an astronaut in a photo from 1971. The astronaut in question is Al Worden, pictured here. Worden was the command module pilot for Apollo 15. He orbited the moon 74 times during that mission. To this day, he travelled farther from Earth than any other person. Worden was a 1955 West Point graduate but he commissioned in the US Air Force (the Air Force Academy was not yet commissioning graduates so USMA and USNA graduates were able to commission in the Air Force). Before NASA, Worden flew the F-86D Sabre and the F-102 Delta Dagger. He then earned a Master's degree in aerospace and instrumentation engineering just before enrolling in a test pilot school in the UK. I've included a scree
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