I started Hodinkee from my cubicle at a large Swiss bank in 2008, when I was 25 years old. I soon left that cushy job to try to make a living writing about mechanical watches for selfish reasons—I feared for my sanity thinking about a future that held nothing but spreadsheets and status reports. I quickly realized that there was something so important, so poignant, about mechanical watches and everything they represent.
It’s easy to proclaim, “The wristwatch is dead!” which some tech geek on the West Coast does about once a month. But if you’ve been to New York (or Paris or London or Dubai or any other major city) in the past five years, you know that the mechanical watch is anything but dead. In fact, it has come to take on a much deeper meaning than ever before. Right now, in 2015, the mechanical watch has become a physical manifestation of longevity, style, performance, and masculinity. In a world where $17,000 will buy you a digital watch that might be obsolete within 24 months, a mechanical watch—at any price—is an instant heirloom. A mechanical watch ties us to our past physically, intellectually, and emotionally and allows us to grasp our future.
It is my belief that the days of a worldwide understanding and appreciation of mechanical watches are just beginning, and that is why we at Hodinkee are so excited about this partnership with Details. Now, our world, in which we revel in the details, revere hand-craft, and extol longevity, will be shared with millions more, creating a new breed of consumers who understand what it takes to be great—a greatness that has come to be defined perfectly by a mechanical watch.
