The Painter's Bed

A homage reproduces the Daytona’s design with increasing precision, yet still fails to transfer desire—revealing that collectors were never really buying the watch itself.

There are fourteen watches on the table in front of me. I am at a micro-brand fair in Milan, one of those events that occupy the borderland between entrepreneurial optimism and quiet homage. Every watch on this table has a tri-compax dial. Every one has a tachymeter bezel. The proportions are familiar in the way a cover version of a song is familiar — y…