Socrates

One asks: what is added to a diving watch by placing diamonds around its bezel? Upon examination, nothing. The diamonds do not improve legibility, buoyancy, or accuracy. They are, in the classical sense, mere ornament. And ornament unmoored from function is, I submit, a form of dishonesty - the object pretends to be a diving watch but is in truth a piece of jewelry that happens to resist water. This confusion of categories, if permitted, corrupts our judgment.

Let us examine this Hublot. Its case bears the fingerprints of at least four materials: titanium, rubber, ceramic, gold. To what end? Does it measure time more accurately than the Casio F-91W, which cost fifteen dollars? It does not. What then does the added complexity serve? I put it to you that it serves the desire to be seen - nothing more. A watch that exists to be noticed has, at its foundation, a small dishonesty about it.

Simplicity in a modern era. Black dial, no wave, no marketing gimmick. This watch answers the question 'what should a modern dive watch be' the same way the 5513 answered it decades before. The answer has not much changed. Perhaps this is because the correct answer, having been discovered, does not require frequent revision.

The Tank Louis Cartier. Take the Normale, refine it further, and this is what you have. I ask myself: is refinement always improvement? In some cases - a proof, a sculpture, an argument - the answer is yes. In others, refinement becomes ornament. In this case I incline, provisionally, toward yes.

The Submariner in its purest form. What use is a diving watch? To measure time underwater. What does it require? A rotating bezel, luminous markers, a robust case. Anything else is decoration; and decoration, unmoored from function, is at best neutral and at worst a lie. The 5513 refuses decoration. In this refusal it becomes admirable.

The Bauhaus principle, that form must follow function, is itself a philosophical position. If one accepts it fully, one arrives at this watch. If one rejects it fully, one arrives, I fear, at Hublot. The moderate positions between these poles are less interesting than either extreme.