The Art And History Of The Aviator Watch

The art and history of the Aviator Watch

- Sam Tipton

Is it possible to be a pilot if you’re not wearing Ray-Bans and a fancy watch? And does wearing a fancy watch make someone a pilot? “Yes” to the former, and “no” to the latter. A watch does not a pilot make. And yet given the last century of the “great aviator watch race,” in which complexity has become style, it could easily be assumed that the quality of the pilot can be judged by the size of his watch and the number of buttons it sports. The vast majority of aviator watches, however, are bought by nonaviators, most of whom don’t realize that the genre existed long before Top Gun’s Maverick was born and that those watches were almost never fancy. Functional yes, fancy no.

There is some debate as to who actually invented the first wristwatch. Was the “arm watch” delivered to Countess Koscowicz of Hungary in 1868 by the Swiss watchmaker, Patek Philippe, first? Guinness World Records says “yes.” Or was the egg-shaped, jewelencrusted beauty ordered for the Queen of Naples on June 8, 1810, and crafted by Abraham-Louis Breguet of Paris number one? That’s how the incredibly detailed Breguet company records tell it. The who-was-first question will always be debated, but there is zero question as to the birth of the first aviator watch.