THE MATTER OF TIME
A meditation on materials and their significance in contemporary watchmaking.
Over the last few decades, we have witnessed a curious transformation in humanity’s relationship with matter itself—an alchemy not of base metal into gold, as pursued by the ancients, but of meaning into substance, of narrative into value. The Swiss watch industry, that peculiar intersection of craftsmanship and commerce, has become the most sophisticated laboratory of our age for this philosophical transmutation.
Consider the trajectory: towards the end of the 1990s, gold—that most ancient symbol of permanence and power—had begun to embarrass those who wore it. Not because it had changed, but because we had changed. The metal that adorned pharaohs and financed empires now carried with it a slight hint of vulgarity that the more sophisticated luxury consumer found unpleasant. Yellow gold became the watchmaking equivalent of announcing one’s wealth too ostentatiously, completely missing the mark of what luxury had come to mean.
White gold offered the first way out—gold for those too refined to wear yellow gold, achieving exclusivity through subtlety rather than exhibitionism. Patek Philippe’s Annual Calendar in white gold, Rolex’s white gold Daytona that looked to all intents and purposes like steel while retaining the prices of precious metal—these were not mere aesthetic choices but fundamental recalibrations of the values of luxury. The difficulty of execution became narrative value; the complexity of manufacture became compelling storytelling.
Yet white gold was only a prelude. Platinum entered the scene, rarer than gold by orders of magnitude, almost twice as dense as lead, endowed with a natural whiteness that required no binding substances. Here was a material so exclusive that explaining its value became part of its seduction. The Swiss positioned platinum not as an expensive alternative but as an entirely different category—one that transcended traditional hierarchies entirely.
The obstacles to working with it—melting points approaching 1,800°C, work-hardening properties that destroyed tools, extreme density that created surprising weight—became selling points. The craftsmen at Vacheron Constantin spoke reverently of “platinum’s resistance to the craftsman’s tools,” transforming difficulty into a mark of nobility. Every challenge was presented as a demonstration of exclusivity. Platinum’s resistance to processing became proof of its value.
But note the parallel development: while the industry was obsessed with precious metals, stainless steel was quietly revolutionising itself. Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak had demonstrated in 1972 that steel could command luxury prices if the story was compelling enough. By the 1990s, the industry as a whole understood the implications: the value of the material had become completely detached from the cost of the raw material. A steel Nautilus could outsell elegant gold watches from lesser manufacturers. The industry learned that context mattered more than content—that steel from the right manufacturer, in the right design, with the right story, could transcend traditional hierarchies entirely.
This legitimisation of steel opened the door to an era in which industrial materials, space alloys and synthetic compounds could command luxury prices, transforming humble origins into value through storytelling.
The space race provided the next chapter. Titanium—the backbone of aerospace engineering, the material of spy planes and spacecraft—reached civilian wrists. IWC’s 1980 Titan Chronograph, in collaboration with Porsche Design, employed titanium as a distinctive aesthetic element: bold, lightweight, unmistakably modern. Each watch became wearable aerospace history, transforming technical properties into cultural myth.
The genius lay in understanding that materials developed to reach for the stars could be recontextualised as expressions of human technological transcendence. Citizen’s parallel innovations, Richard Mille’s developments in Carbon TPT—each represented not merely lighter alternatives to traditional materials, but entirely new aesthetic vocabularies. When titanium cases commanded prices higher than gold despite lower material costs, the lesson was complete: narrative often mattered more than substance.
The path of ceramics proved equally illuminating. Rado’s 1962 DiaStar offered scratch-resistant promises decades before ceramics reached cultural maturity in watchmaking. The 1960s celebrated wear and tear as proof of a life fully lived; the immaculate permanence of ceramics seemed artificial, even dishonest. But in 2000, Chanel’s J12 achieved what technical excellence had failed to do: it made ceramics desirable rather than merely functional. Jacques Helleu’s design was resolutely sporty yet unmistakably luxurious, positioning ceramics as a new luxury material that happened to be indestructible.
The technical results were genuine—six to eight times harder than steel, corrosion-resistant, hypoallergenic. Yet the real breakthrough was philosophical: ceramic represented luxury’s answer to the growing planned obsolescence of consumerism, promising objects that would retain their appearance indefinitely, outliving their owners to become heirlooms in an era that had given up on the idea of permanence.
Hublot’s 2018 Big Bang Unico Red Magic demonstrated the chromatic liberation of ceramics—vivid, saturated colours baked into the molecular structure during sintering at 1,500°C. The hues were so intense that they seemed supernatural, belonging more to digital displays than mechanical timepieces. Colour achieved not through surface treatments but atomic integration, essentially permanent, immune to fading or wear.
The silicon revolution was quieter, almost invisible. Ulysse Nardin’s Freak in 2001 introduced escapement wheels manufactured using semiconductor photolithography—computer chip processes applied to the oldest of human mechanical arts. Silicon was perfectly elastic, magnetically immune, required no lubrication, and could be manufactured with tolerances that exceeded traditional machining. Patek Philippe’s Spiromax hairspring in 2006, Omega’s Master Chronometer movements that could withstand 15,000 gauss—these represented industrialisation finally reaching the heart of mechanical watchmaking.
The irony: a material developed for the digital age became essential to preserving the relevance of pure mechanical timekeeping. Silicon saved traditional watchmaking from obsolescence by fundamentally transforming it, proving that sometimes the most radical innovations seem to change nothing.
Surface treatments added another dimension. Diamond-Like Carbon (DLC) coatings from aerospace applications created hardnesses of 2,000-3,000 Vickers on ordinary steel. Physical vapour deposition (PVD) enabled virtually any colour through molecular-level deposition. Bronze-coloured PVD on stainless steel achieved visual warmth without the unpredictable patina of bronze—the appearance of materials without their intrinsic behaviours. The surface often mattered more than the substrate; thin molecular layers defined the entire character of luxury items.
Yet observe the counter-movement: the unlikely rebirth of bronze. Panerai’s bronze in 2011 offered not perfection but controlled decay, materials designed to change, age, bear visible evidence of interaction with the environment and owner. This too was a philosophical revolution—where exotic substances promised technological transcendence, bronze provided authentic connection with the passage of time.
The explosion of the vintage watch market revealed the cultural shift. Scratched cases, faded dials, worn bezels—previously defects—became desirable features that commanded premiums. Bronze watches resonated across market segments, from the sub-$900 Hamilton field watch to the luxurious Panerai. Younger consumers, raised in digital environments where perfection was routine, found deep appeal in objects that would develop character through use.
The authenticity revolution established imperfection as a legitimate luxury positioning. Consumers would pay premiums for objects designed to age rather than withstand time. The industry recognised that consumers were seeking relationships—ongoing connections with objects that evolved alongside their owners.
Then came exotic materials: meteorites, fossilised dinosaur bones, materials whose value derived not from properties but from irreproducible authenticity. Gibeon meteorite dials bearing cosmic imprints of four-billion-year journeys, Louis Moinet’s 145-200-million-year-old fossilised bone—these were commodifications of geological time itself. No manufacturer could replicate what only deep time could create.
But the boldest transformation was yet to come: waste as a luxury material. Panerai’s 2021 Submersible eLAB-ID achieved 98.6% recycled content—a £60,000 timepiece that made waste more exclusive than meteorites. The 52mm EcoTitanium case, the 100% recycled Super-LumiNova dial, the ocean plastic components—this was authentic materials science transforming environmental responsibility into the ultimate luxury.
Breitling’s ocean plastic straps made from recovered fishing nets, Oris watches that funded ocean clean-ups, ID Geneve’s Circular 1 with a 100% recycled stainless steel case—the industry discovered that in an age of climate awareness, true scarcity could only be achieved through virtue. When recycled ocean plastic reaches luxury prices, when ethical sourcing becomes a premium feature, environmental responsibility becomes a status symbol.
The sustainable revolution of 2019–2025 achieved something unprecedented: the transformation of collective environmental benefit into individual status signalling. Traditional luxury materials created exclusivity through scarcity; sustainable materials created exclusivity through consciousness. This represented the ultimate sophistication—recognising that in an age of abundance, true rarity lay in moral authority itself.
What we see, stepping back from these decades of innovation, is not merely technical achievement but the systematic transformation of the periodic table into a vocabulary of human desire. Each element was assigned specific emotional, cultural, and aspirational values that do not exist in nature. Titanium did not naturally signify aerospace conquest until the industry decided it should. The promise of ceramic perfection was constructed through sustained storytelling. The technological associations of silicon required educational campaigns.
The assignment of temporal categories proved particularly sophisticated. Gold and platinum became materials of ‘eternal’ time—substances that maintain their properties indefinitely, connecting owners to timeless values. Bronze represented ‘lived’ time—evolving alongside its owners, bearing evidence of shared experience. Silicon embodied ‘technological’ time—the cutting edge of human achievement, bringing the future into the present. Sustainable materials created ‘regenerative’ time—transforming past waste into future luxury while promising environmental healing through consumption.
The genius lay in recognising that in an age of material abundance, scarcity could be manufactured through storytelling rather than supply constraints. When every material could theoretically be obtained, true luxury became access to the most compelling narrative about why particular materials mattered. The industry taught consumers how to think about materials, how to appreciate properties, how to understand meaning within broader conversations about luxury, technology, human achievement.
Future luxury will extend this evolution further—timepieces that actively clean the air they encounter, cases that sequester carbon through their existence, movements powered by good environmental deeds. But the fundamental transformation is complete: we have learned to make every atom a statement, every alloy an aspiration, every material choice a mirror reflecting our highest hopes for humanity’s relationship with the world that sustains us.
About the Author
Sergio Galanti is an independent brand strategist and writer in the luxury watch industry. He is the editor of WatchDossier, a publication devoted to the cultural and philosophical undercurrents of modern horology.
No compensation or brand affiliation influenced this essay. Opinions are the author’s own.
Further Reading
The Case Is the Message: How Materials Became the New Complication
How to Identify Hand-Finished Watches: Five Signs of Genuine Craftsmanship
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