46 5 august 2019watch-making since 1846 and became part
of the Kering luxury conglomerate only
in 2014, and audemars Piguet, founded
in 1875 and unusually still a family busi-
ness, that is not so. For Khatri, watches are
as much pieces of art as they are of jewel-
lery and status symbols, all rolled into one.
they are also a deeply personal form
of expression, she points out, and refers
to her recent obsession: an audemars
Piguet millenary rose-gold watch with
diamonds. “It’s different as it has an ellipti-
cal shape, off-centre disc. more than that, it
has a mechanical winding, which creates
a special relationship with the wearer,”
she adds. In the new rich India, women
have been building their own watch col-
lection to match their social appearances
with equal fervour. Bejewelled watches
for weddings, gold strap for everyday use,
a coloured dial to go with whites and other
assorted exigencies.
But Indians love their gods more than
their watches perhaps, and not everyone
is ready to customise luxury timepieces
for them. enter Gaurav mehta, a former
risk-insurance expert who saw an oppor-
tunity in this market and set up the Jaipur
Watch Company in 2013 by blending his
passion for collecting coins with his love
for horology. the watchmaker offers be-
spoke watches to his high-value clients
and the opportunity to celebrate special
moments in a more meaningful way. at
a cost of over Rs 2.5 lakh a watch, he has
been giving clients options, such as engrav-
ing Lord hanuman inside the watch dial
or inscribing ‘ya ali’ in the Kufic script on
another. each task requires considerable
research. the Kufic script, for instance, is
the oldest calligraphic form of the various
arabic scripts and was developed in 7th
century Kufa, Iraq. “It is believed the origi-
nal Quran was written in it. I had help from
a friend in Rampur for this. there is no way
I could get it wrong,” says mehta.
he’s produced special watches for all
kinds of memorable moments: from a cor-
porate couple’s 25th wedding anniversary
to a CeO celebrating a big deal. his favou-
rites? a classic silver body embedded with
a pre-Independence-era King George VI
coin from 1944, marking the year of am-
itabh Bachchan’s birth with his signature
encrusted on the flip side of the watch,
which he presented to the actor. and a
made-to-measure timepiece for Gaj singh
of Jodhpur, which had the maharaja’s coat
of arms and the official polo emblem.
those are the emotions associated with
the timepieces. Indeed, as the legendary
Patek Philippe ad says: you never actually
own a Patek Philippe. you merely take care
of it for the next generation. as Geneva’s
oldest family-owned watch company,
founded in 1839, that tagline is emblem-
atic of the brand in practice as well. the
narrative around these timepieces is whattempts those with money to spend, and
with India continuing to grow at around
7 per cent annually, discretionary spend-
ing in the top 25 per cent will continue to
rise disproportionately. It is this market
that the luxury watchmakers’ innovative
narratives are aimed at.
take Breitling’s Cinema squad, for in-
stance—Brad Pitt, Charlize theron and
adam Driver tempting you to buy a time-
piece that has a history that began in 1884.
Or, take the 171-year-old Omega’s strategy
of taking women seriously. When the
watchmaker launched the latest models
of the Constellation manhattan women’s
watch collection, they did so in shanghai,
China last year with their models and
brand ambassadors—actresses Nicole
Kidman and Liu shishi, and models Cindy
Crawford and alessandra ambrosio.shunali Khullar shroff, mumbai-based
writer of Love in the Time of Affluenza, be-
lieves watch collection in India is happen-
ing in a Gatsby-esque way so as to buy an
entry into a certain club or class of privilege.
“aspiration is a natural human trait. We
all want to own that one nice watch, but to
own a drawer in your closet that you call a
watch drawer because collecting timepiec-
es is your brand new hobby, then is about
fulfilling some other greater need within
you,” she says. People have their own ideas
about how they want to enjoy their newly
acquired wealth and perhaps they try ev-
erything their money can buy, including
social status, she adds. “We should grant
them that. the Vanderbilts and Rockefell-
ers are known to have been exactly this ac-
quisitive when they first came into wealth
a century ago after all,” she adds.
history and myth, fashion and func-
tion, art and engineering, sentiment and
synchronicity, these luxury watches have
it all. From Buzz aldrin’s Omega apollo 11
speedster (which has been missing since
1970 when it disappeared while in transit
to the smithsonian) to the Rolexes gifted
to edmund hillary and tenzing Norgay
before their ascent of mount everest, there
are few instants in time that have not been
captured and savoured by the finest time-
keepers to the world.
“the invention of the mechanical
clock in medieval europe...was one of the
great inventions in the history of man-
kind.... One can think of few objects that
have played so critical a role in shaping
the character of life and work as clocks
and watches.” so wrote economist and
watch historian David s Landes in Revolu-
tion in Time. he tells the story of clocks and
watches from su sung’s astronomical
clock made in China in 1086 to the quartz-
watch revolution of the 1970s. he wrote
it in 1983. Otherwise, he would have, no
doubt, included the return of the mechani-
cal watches and the rise of the smart watch.
and he would have marvelled at the irony
that mechanical watches are far less accu-
rate than battery-powered quartz watches,
but often far more expensive, because their
bearings are more intricate.
and that indeed is the hallmark of great
artistry. We, like our watches, are made
more beautiful by our imperfections. npranav saboo currently finds
himself torn between his two
loves, the rolex daytona, of which
a mere 30 pieces are made every
year, and the parmigiani
kalpagraphe chronomètreluxury