A guide for the gentleman who wishes to be received in any boutique, salon, or forum as a person of taste, without the inconvenience of forming an opinion. Master these entries and you need never again risk an original thought before a dealer. The author guarantees that no possessor of this volume will ever again be caught saying anything that has not already been said, approvingly, by everyone.
Accuracy. The supreme virtue. Demand it to within two seconds a day — of a machine outperformed by the telephone you silence in order to admire it. (see Quartz)
Allocation. A grace bestowed, never a sale transacted. To be offered a watch is a benediction; to walk in and buy one outright is vulgar.
Artisan. Always singular, always at a bench, always alone. Do not inquire how the one man produced the forty thousand of them.
Auction. The ceremony where overpaying becomes winning.
Bracelet, integrated. The defining innovation of 1972, and also of every year since. (see Timeless; see Trend)
Box and papers. Worth more than sentiment, occasionally more than the watch. Mourn their absence as you would a relative’s.
Chronograph. Bought to time things. Used to time nothing. Praise the “feel” of the pushers.
Complication. The more useless, the more sublime. A device that gives the date of Easter until the year 2100 is a triumph of the human spirit; a device that gives the time is a commodity.
Condition. Discussed in the vocabulary of medicine and the morals of chastity.
COSC. Pronounce knowingly. Never explain.
Date window. An affront to the dial’s symmetry, consulted hourly by the most affronted.
Daytona. Cite as proof that watches appreciate. Do not mention the remainder of the catalogue.
Discretion. The truest luxury. Achieved by spending a year’s salary so that three strangers in the world may silently recognise what you are wearing. (see Whisper)
Diver’s watch. Rated to depths you will reach only in the bath. Call the helium escape valve “reassuring.”
DNA. The brand’s. Invoked to explain why this year’s model resembles last year’s money.
Ébauche. A shameful word. Apply it only to other people’s watches — never to the vintage grails that happened to run on them. (see In-house)
Entry-level. A phrase used exclusively of objects costing as much as a car.
Fast fashion. Deplore it sincerely. Then turn to the question of this season’s dial colour.
Grail. The last watch you will ever need. Reclassify quarterly.
Green dial. Was always going to age badly. Was always the one to buy. Hold both convictions at once and deploy whichever the room requires.
Grey market. Where the watch the boutique could not spare you appears within the hour, costing more.
Heritage. Invent it where absent. A “since 1860” is much improved by having been untrue only since 1995.
Heirloom. “You never truly own it; you merely look after it for the next generation.” Recite this while trading yours in for the new reference.
In-house. A sacrament. Omit that the hairspring, the silicon, and the supplier were shared all along. (see Ébauche)
Invenit et fecit. “Invented and made it” — in words he did not invent.
Investment. Never your motive. Always your justification. (see Passion)
Limited edition. Limited to however many sell.
Moonphase. Accurate to a day in roughly a century. Set it incorrectly; no one will live to contradict you.
Passion. The only respectable reason to collect. Profess it warmly while refreshing the index. (see Investment)
Patina. Honest decay, and therefore priceless. Distinguish it scrupulously from dishonest decay, which is worthless. The distinction is made afterward, by the market.
Polishing. A crime against originality — except when performed by the manufacture, where it becomes “restoration.”
Production figures. Always record-breaking, always proof of a maison’s vigour. (see Scarcity)
Quartz. Keeps perfect time, and is therefore beneath contempt. (see Accuracy)
Rare. Said of anything produced in quantities you happen not to own.
Scarcity. The soul of the thing. Lament that your favourite maison makes so pitifully few. (see Production figures)
Sold out. The highest compliment a product can pay itself.
Timeless. Said of a design altered every year. (see Bracelet, integrated; see Trend)
Tool watch. An instrument of survival in extreme conditions. Worn to lunch.
Trend. What other people’s watches follow. Yours are classics.
Vintage. Older, therefore better — except where newer, therefore better. Decide according to what is currently for sale.
Waitlist. Proof of desirability. That the identical watch may be had at a premium tomorrow is not to be mentioned.
Whisper. What true luxury does. Best done loudly enough to be overheard. (see Discretion)
Author´s Note
A note on the form. The title and method are borrowed from Gustave Flaubert, whose Dictionnaire des idées reçues catalogued the opinions a respectable man was expected to hold. The entries here do the same for the watch. None records what the compiler believes; each records what one is supposed to say. The distinction is the entire point.
About the Author
Sergio Galanti is a Swiss-based independent writer specialising in the luxury watch industry, and an advisor to private collectors and investors. He is the editor of WatchDossier (watchdossier.ch), a publication exploring the cultural and philosophical undercurrents of contemporary horology, and the author of Against the Grain: A Cultural History of Swiss Independent Watchmaking.
No compensation or brand affiliation influenced this essay. Opinions are the author’s own.
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