This article was born from a study from a word observatory. In connection with this observatory, in this year 2024 a complementary analysis targeted on the words of the time in luxury fine watchmaking was designed.
The pages of screens and magazines buzz with multiple messages about fine watchmaking. Are we that obsessed with time? In everyday language we hear about “real time”, “long time”, “sustainable time”… But does fine watchmaking tell us about time?
Watch brands don’t seem to tell time with creative words. Time escapes us, passes, is elusive. But it is also precious and wonderful. The major fine watchmaking houses rarely tell us this. They measure it and assure us of the reliability of their timepieces. How can the customer feel about time thanks to them? We don’t know. It is only in the telling of their successes and their stories that luxury watchmaking brands make time emerge.
So, Omega describes itself as the official timekeeper of the 2024 Olympic Games and announces that it owns the first watch to have gone into space. In this regard, the link established with time is conveyed by the surprising term “spatial sustainability”.
Jaeger Lecoultre takes on the challenge of measuring time and distills its own story through key stages : “our manufacture through time”.
Tudor refers to its naval “heritage”. Rolex tells the progress of his creations : “in 1926, a major milestone was reached with the creation of the first waterproof and dustproof watch. Named Oyster“.
Baume&Mercier also lists its successes with dates: “the story begins in 1830“, then takes place the creation of its flagship model : “Riviera made in 1973”.
Paradoxically almost all the brands studied emphasize the notion of timelessness : “timelessness is a fundamental valuee”, “Reverso, timeless since 1931″. Isn’t it surprising when we measure time that we use the word “timeless” so much?
So which are the Haute Horlogerie Maisons that sometimes celebrate time outside of their own stories?
Audemars Piguetlisten to the flow of time dictated by astronomy and nature and goes back to the origins of time. So in one of the brand’s latest advertisements, Vincent Cassel, through a question and answer game, helps us begin to understand time.
Vacheron Constantin celebrates “celestial time”. For the brand “time and space have always been closely linked“this is why “ses Cabinotiers” decided this year to pay homage to the astronomical origins of time measurement thanks to the collection entitled “Le Temps Céleste”.
Hermès, with the Arceau watch, creates a feeling of suspended time. Hermes even claims “transform timepieces into real good time charms”. Nice play on words!
But, when these houses connect to time, it is mostly through tired expressions like: “over time”, “over the years”, “for a long time”, “from all times”, “decades of experience”, “through time”, “from generation to generation” , “ancestral know-how”, “heritage“. Little creativity tickles our eye or ear!
Another disappointment, the verbs which are the kings of the heart of the sentence, real carriers of meaning, are not very inventive. Repeatedly we read: “measure”, “transmit”, “cross”, “persevere”, “last”, “perpetuate”, “advance”, “master“.
If the lexicon of professions and workshops is constantly scanned on social networks, he again refers little to time. We read words as eloquent as they are esoteric on expertise such as “working on milling marks”, “chamfering”, or even “crimping” and “guilloch锓.
As for the names given to watches or collections, they are eclectic. If we have detected some that are somewhat linked to time such as “l’instant”, “rendez-vous”, “Heure H”, “Navitimer”, “Top Time”, the others are linked to various universes such as the art of living with “Riviera” or “Hampton”. “Icon”, “vertigo”, “promise”, “omen”, “pasha”, “Coco code” are names that could be the names of so many other precious objects!
A single favorite word seems to obsess luxury watchmaking brands. It’s the word “precision”. This is the key word that wants to prove high quality and performance.
Bretiling tells us to have always been “ahead of its time” and to have designed a chronograph with a precision of two fifths of a second, unheard of at the time. On the Seiko website, we can read that “the Seiko manufacture has built a reputation for precision”. Likewise, Tag Heuer plays on precision: “Heuer Carrera Chronograph” offers unrivaled precision thanks to its next generation movement.
But where is the time in these high-performance adventures?
Finally, smartwatches were born. They are our storyteller of life and record even the beat of our heart. Few stories on this subject! The metaphorical universes chosen by the major luxury watchmaking houses follow one another: from aviation to automobiles, from diving to art, from cinema to space, from nature, to golf, to music. But no metaphor about time.
In this treasure hunt, we were only able to unearth the word “eternity” at Audemars Piguet and see them “open the doors to the history of time“Or discover that Vacheron Constantin wanted us to be heard.”the music of time“But this is a very meager quest. Indeed, the range of emotions that the client feels all the time is immense. It’s never a question of it. It is as if what the client experiences in the different moments of his life is left aside by those who measure time.
