The Conversation: Window Dressing

The editors of Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia discuss the virtues and drawbacks of the exhibition caseback. In this 14th instalment of The Conversation, they have finally found something worth really disagreeing about

- ASHOK SOMAN, DANIEL GOH AND RUCKDEE CHOTJINDA

You might recall a famous scene from the 1923 silent film Safety Last where the great actor and stuntman Harold Lloyd dangled from the side of a New York skyscraper, at one moment hanging on for dear life on the hands of a clock. You almost certainly known this image, even if you do not know the film or Lloyd, and as a watch-loving person – as you certainly must be – you might have wondered how in the world was the actor able to grab hold of the clock’s hands? Were they not shielded by glass or something? Depending on your age and how strong a grip watches have on you, you might have even wondered that before thinking about how this scene was shot.

Indeed, in ages long past, one might adjust a watch by turning the hands themselves, as you might also have noticed from films and other depictions and recreations of the past. Movements, all mechanical back in these periods, were a little better protected but not by much. The clockwork was protected by doors, through which servicing was done, and the largest ones were walk-in (or climb-in) engines. Pocket watches were much the same, with the movements of key-wind and key-set watches needing to be accessed directly to, well, wind and set them. The invention of the keyless works by Adrien Philippe (of Patek Philippe) in 1843 went a long way towards resolving this issue, and other advances in winding and setting the time generally made watches safer and easier to use. That is to say, the machine itself was less at risk of unintentional damage from handling and from the influence of the outside world.