Part 1: (NOT) Down with the THICC-ness
Have any of you met DJ Zing? He’s a good guy. One might even say TOP MAN quality! But let me tell you a thing or two (or an open-ended part series) about his taste in wristwatches. They’re a bit… on the higher end of the price spectrum, often costing as much as your average McMansion home and usually decked out with carbon fiber, a moon phase complication, a double- or triple-axis tourbillon, and God knows what else to jack up that MSRP and prove to the world that you’ve made it, I guess.
As these “recommendations” have hit my Facebook timeline over the last few years, I’ve replied with a pithy retort here and there but recently thought it might be good to take another look at a few of the worst offenders. And while I may seem overly critical, it’s all in good fun!
For this post, I reread all of the articles that Zack posted at the time and then did a little more research into things like tourbillons. Until recently, I thought that a tourbillion watch was just a classification achieved when it hits a certain number of complications and/or price point, but that’s not correct! It’s in fact a special complication “to address an issue that many mechanical watches have with regards to the way physics affects the precision and accuracy of their movements. Gravity is a force that creates a drag on watch’s movement when they are in certain positions.” (PrestigeTime.com).
You learn something new every day! So let’s get started and in no particular order, allow me to give a more extended review on some of the various pieces of horological excessiveness that my good friend thinks I need more of in my life.
Let’s start big in every conceivable way with the Jacob & Co. Twin Turbo Furious Bugatti 300+ ($580,000). The first line of this article is, “The perfect watch to wear when breaking 300+ mph in a Bugatti.” Well then! I don’t own a supercar and while I did trade the Prius for a MINI Cooper back in 2016, I don’t often see the need to get up to 300 MPH for a trip to Starbucks. This is also the second most expensive watch on today’s list, likely due to the overabundance of carbon fiber and the “Double Triple Axis High-Speed Tourbillon,” which sounds like a gold medal-winning move at the winter olympics but otherwise doesn’t do anything for me. Oh and I guess the fact that Jacob & Co. only made three of them also does something to the price.
Another partnership between Jacob & Co. and Bugatti, the Chiron Tourbillon comes in a hair cheaper at ONLY $560,000! However for your money, you get a watch decked out with “190 baguette white diamonds, 109 baguette black sapphires and 42 baguette orange sapphires, which are all invisibly set in the 18K white gold tonneau case.” I suppose that’s something that some people are into, but my long-stated opinion on watches is that once they pass a certain price threshold, you’re essentially just paying for tons of gaudy BS heaped on top, or world-class craftsmanship underneath that’s ostensibly invisible to the untrained eye. Plus as I mentioned earlier, I don’t even own a Bugatti! So walking around wearing this thing would make me feel like kind of like a fraud.
We’re halfway through and… am I being too negative? I do actually have something nice to say about the Greubel Forsey Tourbillon 24 Secondes Architecture, in that it’s SLIGHTLY more my style and has the added bonus of not being based off of a supercar. But this $500,000 piece is indeed a chonky boi (as the kids say these days) and I’ve gotten into many a debate with Zack over whether the top is dome-like or not. (I swear, it looks that way to me!) And while I did say earlier that when you reach a certain price point, the craftsmanship becomes invisible, that’s definitely NOT what’s going on here. Trying to tell the time is like gazing into an abyss where you can see everything on the way down due to the complete and total lack of a watch face. WHERE’S THE WATCH FACE, ZACK?! All I see is a set of (admittedly pretty stunning) complications suspended under what may or may not be a big ol’ convex dome.
Wait, is this post sponsored by Jacob & Co. or something? This is their THIRD entry and with the New Opera Godfather Diamond Tourbillon, LOOK HOW THEY MASSACRED MY BOY! There can be little doubt that this one is domed, which is needed to cover the little figure of Vito Corleone and the TWO DIAMOND-STUDDED MUSIC BOXES which of course play the Godfather theme upon request. Then seemingly as an afterthought, they threw an actual clock up in the 12 o’clock position of this monstrosity, though to be fair, that’s a great feature to have on a watch.
If I were in the 1% income bracket and could afford a $660,000+ diamond mine on my wrist… I still wouldn’t come anywhere near this thing. Know what else can play the Godfather theme? My phone. Or better yet, consider this an open invitation to come and watch The Godfather on DVD at my house (which, side note, was less expensive than this watch). It IS one of the greatest movies ever made, though I regret to say it’s now come down a notch in my opinion for inspiring this terrible watch.
Ho boy… Remember how I said earlier that I was presenting these in no particular order? Well that wasn’t quite true and here we are at the worst of the worst with the Audemars Piguet New Royal Oak Purple Baguette Chronograph which retails somewhere between $81,900 and $300,000 according to various sites.
Good lord. I’ll accept that there are a lot of people out there who like gold (and that may even be the theme of a future post in this series) but it’s just not for me. What further sets this piece apart from all the rest and makes it our chronological criminal of the day is the purple and gold color scheme. If your eyes haven’t yet flicked ahead to the image below, then maybe consider closing this tab right now because the number one place this watch takes my mind to is that cursed bent-over sexy Thanos status which for whatever reason in the world IS AN ACTUAL THING THAT YOU CAN BUY.
You’re welcome for that. Oh and for what it’s worth, I think the 32 baguette-cut amethysts stuck in the bezel are kind of ugly too.
Keep those watches coming, Zack! See you in Part Deux!