{"id":5670,"date":"2013-12-05T00:00:15","date_gmt":"2013-12-05T06:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.walkingwithcake.com\/?p=5670"},"modified":"2014-07-15T12:37:27","modified_gmt":"2014-07-15T17:37:27","slug":"on-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.walkingwithcake.com\/?p=5670","title":{"rendered":"On Time"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Walking<\/a>

(My new-to-me “vintage” watch.)<\/p><\/div>\n

I’ve always liked watches.\u00a0 They aren’t just a fashion statement to me.\u00a0 I think there’s something so amazing about the tiny pieces and mechanisms working continuously to keep time in a small device you wear on your wrist.\u00a0 Secretly, I wish I knew how to repair them, because I think it would be a fun hobby.<\/p>\n

I started wearing a watch in middle school, I think, and I’ve worn one ever since.\u00a0 In high school and college, I wore Timex pieces, since they were reliable and I could afford them.\u00a0 After my first year of teaching, I treated myself to a Citizen watch and wore it for the next ten years, until James was born and I began my new job as a mom.\u00a0 That watch stopped working last year, and I’ve been trying to charge it, but I think it might need some professional help at this point.<\/p>\n

My current favorite<\/a> is by Tokyo Bay, and I switch out the band, depending on my mood and the seasons.\u00a0 And recently, I purchased a “vintage” 1990s Fossil watch from a very sweet seller<\/a> in England, and we had a lovely conversation via Etsy about watches in general.\u00a0 My watch arrived this week, an early Christmas present to myself, and I am daydreaming about its previous owner (who is not the seller) and who she might have been.\u00a0 I’m thinking she lived in London and worked in an office, or maybe she was a teacher like me.\u00a0 Her wrist was the same size as mine, because the hole I selected on the band is well-worn.\u00a0 You can tell the watch was worn a lot, but also loved and cared for.\u00a0 Maybe the previous owner loved watches as much as me, too.\u00a0 And the dual dials are so pretty and romantic.<\/p>\n

I like the idea of vintage watches because, a watch, if loved and cared for, can last for years and years.\u00a0 And the idea of sharing a literal piece of time with someone from another era or decade is fascinating, too.<\/p>\n

There aren’t many American-made watches these days, and it seems to be a dying art, in some ways.\u00a0 Most people rely on their phones to keep time, and watch parts usually come from Switzerland and are expensive, or from China, which brings up the issue of ethical treatment in factories there.<\/p>\n

I did a bit of research on watches and discovered that, for a watch to be considered “Swiss-made,” it only has to contain 50% Swiss-made parts.\u00a0 At the same time, the Swatch brand holds a monopoly on Swiss-made parts and is, in many ways, forcing other Swiss watch companies to look elsewhere for basic pieces of watch mechanisms.\u00a0 It’s a very strange situation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There’s a great new watch company in Detroit, called Shinola<\/a>, that is training its workers in the art of watchmaking and hoping to revitalize the now bankrupt city.\u00a0 Their watches are beautiful and very expensive (the Gomelsky Collection<\/a> is so elegant), but some of Shinola’s mechanical parts come from Switzerland and China, because they have to.\u00a0 Nobody else is making them.\u00a0 This also holds true for the sustainable wood and eco-friendly watch companies that are springing up these days.<\/p>\n

I find this very interesting and a little sad, too.\u00a0 Hopefully, watchmaking won’t become a completely lost art as long as people continue to care for their watches.<\/p>\n

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