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EditorsApr 30, 2012
The Swiss Guard
Lots of talk cropping up again about the "Swiss-made" label. As most in our business are aware, there are set criteria for determining what level of “Swiss” labeling manufacturers can claim for their watches. Like other magazines, we publish and...
Lots of talk cropping up again about the "Swiss-made" label. As most in our business are aware, there are set criteria for determining what level of “Swiss” labeling manufacturers can claim for their watches. Like other magazines, we publish and discuss those on a fairly regular basis, especially at the beginning of the year, around the time the BaselWorld timepiece lollapalooza heats up.
As on many issues, the whole idea of “Swiss-made” generates a host of conflicting opinions. At one extreme, there are those who consider the whole thing to ring of elitism. On the other, there are many--perhaps even most--who recognize the system’s value.
From a broad perspective, watches are somewhat of an antiquated product. We’re surrounded today by innumerable gizmos that not only tell us the time, but add a legion of functionality that not even the most ambitious of grand complication watches could ever hope to match. More and more, the real value of watches resides in their roles as conceptual fashion accessories. They’re man-jewelry, making statements about personal tastes and denoting identification characteristics from economic status to lifestyle preferences.
Further, like classic cars—physically and psychologically a very similar contemporary collector and investment category—much of the attraction of top-end brands lies in their levels of mechanical precision and performance. Often, it’s a workmanship issue. In a world where so much seems so often to go so wrong, a highly accurate mechanical watch can stand as a symbol of the human potential to forge order from chaos.
In a global culture that teeters increasingly toward the politically correct, many would agree that it’s a vast pleasure to find oneself in the purely absolute: i.e. This is good, period. And while there are always the unscrupulous who would seek to demean watches by stretching or outright cheating in describing their origins, it is clear that true value for luxury timepieces--and their
reputations--resides with those who would defend an immutable set of defined quality standards.
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