Fast-forward 30 years into the future. You’re being chauffeured by your robot valet in your flying car on a trip to buy another pair of underpants made from laser-beam holograms (you’re not entirely convinced by them, but your cyborg wife thinks they look sexy). But when you glance at the watch on your wrist – yes, you will still be wearing one – what will it look like? Going by the vast bulk of watch releases over the last decade, the answer to that question is probably not that different. Not only does watch design move at a truly glacial pace, but vintage reissues and throwback homages have become ever more prevalent. In fact, if you try to think of a truly contemporary mechanical watch then it’s surprisingly hard. I was reminded of this fact recently speaking to Bani McSpedden, the venerable Watch Editor of The Australian Financial Review. “Nostalgia has been increasingly keeping the traditional watch industry alive,” he pointed out. “If you took away nostalgia, there are not a lot of people making a thoroughly modern product.” Bani conceded that some brands – Rolex and Omega, for example – remain tremendously progressive in terms of their horological engineering…
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