This allows them to be more commercially viable, while also increasing their output. Similarly, in the art world, a big-name artist might have a whole team of assistants to help them create their vision. Smith helping George Daniels assemble his final pieces to Philippe Dufour creating commissions for Audemars Piguet. Students and apprentices, while learning, will often gain experience by making pieces for more established names. There are also very similar strata to each profession. This system of apprenticing goes back generations in both professions, and is one that has seen a sharp decline, especially in watchmaking, as commoditisation of the industry has led to the need for a more formalised education structure. While there are schools that one can go through to learn the prerequisite skills for each, there is still a tradition in both worlds of younger, more inexperienced craftspeople being taken under the wing of an older master. There are also some remarkable parallels in the way each learns their trade. While Levin seems to argue that a watch can never rid itself of its functional origins, however hard it tries, Lang reminds us that many watches are still made and purchased for their timekeeping purpose. Meanwhile, no one is consuming art out of a need. While some argue that the usefulness of watches has largely subsided, and that they are increasingly being appreciated for other reasons, they do remain tied to their core function for many people. “A lot of watch consumption is based on someone needing to tell the time,” he says. No matter how abstract the design may be, they are still literal.” This view on the functional difference is also shared by artist – and self-confessed watch obsessive – Wes Lang.
Whereas watches, no matter how abstracted they are – even if you take the something like the Haldimann H9, with no display at all, where all you can hear is the tourbillon going round – still have a functional component to them, which is their raison d’être. “People will often think of art in very abstract ways because it’s not utilitarian. “Watches have a functional component,” says veteran art advisor Todd Levin, who collects independent watches from the likes of Philippe Dufour and George Daniels. If we look at the objects in their entirety and boil them down to their most basic of functions, they are arguably very different.
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