A case of taste or an aberration of taste
As a watch person, technology geek, car freak and mechanics nerd, you have a lot to do when you open Instagram. The Pandora’s box of our time. It soaks up everything. I follow quite a few watch accounts, pilots, car content …
But that’s not the point, because it’s up to us what we do with our time.
I’m more concerned with the topic described in the title.
When I took a quick look at Instagram this morning at 6 a.m., I saw an advertisement for a watch brand claiming that you can buy a piece of “World War II” for your wrist. I understand that airplanes have a lot to do with watches in the cockpit or on the wrist. It is immensely important for navigation to have a watch with you, in the Second World War and today, if computers should ever fail. Aviation and watchmaking belong together. Space travel too, just think of Apollo 13: without the Omega Speedmaster, the astronauts would not have returned to earth. The story in detail here: NASA
The watch manufacturer HEUER (now TAGHeuer) launched its most legendary models in the 1960s and has since called them AUTAVIA – Automotive & Aviation, because they produced timepieces for racing car cockpits and pilot’s watches, where timekeeping was important as well as time.
Aviation is something that man has conquered for himself. A dream that certainly not everyone shares. I love air shows, helicopters, seaplanes, microlights, propellers, jets and rocket planes.
War and Innovation
“War is the father of all things and the king of all. It turns some into gods, others into men, some into slaves, others into free men.”
Heraklit (550-460 v. Chr.)
With the Messerschmitt Me262, Germany developed the first jet aircraft as a war machine around 1943. From then on, propeller-driven aircraft were disrupted and decommissioned. You could say that this was a milestone in aviation. Just with a bad “connotation”.
I’m slowly drifting away from the clocks, so just one more thought: war is a source of new things, but destroys everything beforehand.
I caught myself thinking, maybe you’ll make a watch out of submarine steel? But on the one hand, that already exists and on the other, I now think that wreckage doesn’t belong in watches.
That is my very personal opinion. I can understand that anyone who was there or is patriotic for their country is rightly happy that a victory has been achieved or a war won. There is always a war somewhere, at the moment there are a lot of them and they are very close. War of disinformation, war for resources, war for land, religion, power or simply because an idiot is in power.
I just felt very bad when I read that you should, could or may wear a piece of world war on your arm. I think it’s somehow out of date. And we have so many innovations in the watch industry, even without the war. So many beauties, witty details, artists.
Und nun: ein Plädoyer für das Positive. Eine Hommage an die Schönheit, den Witz und das Leiden der Uhrmacherei
I myself am just about to create a watch myself and communicate this to the world. I am naturally receptive to such messages around me. It takes courage to do what we are convinced of. Even if some people think it’s crazy. For me, this sign on Instagram means that I’m focusing on how I’m going to continue with my baby, FLOW Watches. With wit, charm, passion, a bit of humor and with watches that set positive anchors in our brains.
Let it flow! www.flow-watches.at (there’s not much to see yet :-P)
