Why let what’s in your pants decide what’s on your wrist?
Unless otherwise stated, haute horlogerie refers to luxury mechanical watches for men. That is not to say that they can only be worn by men, but there is little to no doubt for whom they have been crafted. Unfair, yes, though it’s not at all difficult to imagine why things have turned out this way.
Constantly perpetuating values such as heritage, craftsmanship and patrimony, the luxury watch industry is nothing if not patriarchal. Let’s also not forget the fact that historically only men carried watches; women didn’t have access to them until much later. And it’s the same for everything else: education, employment, voting rights… So the prevalence of men’s watches today is merely one of the many vestiges of that deeply prejudiced past.
When mechanical watches made their glorious comeback in the mid-1990s, the market was practically 100 percent male-skewed. Apart from the occasional jewellery watch, there was hardly anything made for women that could be considered haute horlogerie. Over time, women began to appreciate luxury timepieces, but what was available to us between the early and mid-2000s were mostly simplified versions of existing men’s pieces which patronised the consumer. Unsurprisingly, that found little success.
This story is from the May 2018 edition of Esquire Singapore.
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This story is from the May 2018 edition of Esquire Singapore.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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