The wrist watch is a fairly straightforward device. It’s a machine, that can keep time, and find many ways to convey it. It is worn on the wrist (usually) and, well, that’s about all there is to it. Simple, I know, but we also know just how much goes into making all this look “simple”. From the complicated movements (even the quartz circuit board, in spite of our capability to mass produce it today, is fairly complex) housed within cases of different shapes, the dials and the bezels, and the many choices of straps, from the way the hour and minute hands are designed and decorated to the way the entire setup is presented, there are so many options that even within the given constraints, there are innumerable combinations possible.
The Brief History of Watch Design
Watches were first made not in jewellery shops but in the medieval equivalent of a laboratory where monks tinkered away most of the time with weights and measures. Even earlier, timekeeping was based on the movement of the sun across the sky so timekeeping was, technically, an ‘outdoor’ activity. It was only once mankind had managed to shrink the entire setup into a size no larger than a modern-day cookie that we decided to carry it around with us. This would have then posed other challenges, since the accuracy of those early movements relied heavily on whether it was carried parallel or perpendicular to the force of gravity. In plain English, a watch lying flat on a table would keep time differently from one that was carried vertical in a waistcoat pocket. Once we had solved for that, along came the notion that we could wear these contraptions on our wrists and now the manufacturers had to factor in the jerks, bumps and dings that came from being exposed at such a perilous extremity of a limb.
What we can see is that all along this evolutionary journey, while design was surely along for the ride, the problem of keeping time correctly was more important than the lesser idea of how it was displayed. Which is why wall and table clocks reflected design far quicker than wrist-adorned pieces. But once wrist-watches had been perfected to a point of quotidian reliability, design caught up fast.
The Skeleton Case, Bareboned
Most conventional watches have two sides – a front, where the time is displayed, and a back, which is where (a) the battery goes, (b) there is a metal case-back to seal the system, or (c) there is a transparent backplate to put the entire movement on display. Now imagine, at a time when everyone is generally discussing just how to finish the watch-front cases and dials, along comes a watchmaker who decides that there was no shame in hiding the main body of their work, i.e., the movement, springs, cogs, et al. After all, this was the 1760s and watchmaking was as much science as it was art, and said watchmaker (a certain Andres-Charles CARON) was out to impress the king Louis XV no less. So, a novelty as risqué as this could either have him banished from the land or buy him favourably into the king’s good books like nothing else. He took a stab at it – making a watch was already a complicated matter, so why not put all that work and effort to display, instead of hiding it behind a bland plate which had a few boring hour and minute markings at most. And, he may have reasoned, there are only that many gilded angels and cherubs in the clouds or Biblical scenes represented in relief that even a king wants to see before they start feeling royally blasé about the whole thing. Monsieur Caron was about to turn the watchmaking world on its head with his cheeky idea and he didn’t even know it.
Luckily for him, the king approved. It was a first in many ways – the first watch to not have traditional hour markers but, mechanics and aesthetics aside, it was also a philosophical first – the notion that what were the lousy entrails could be dolled up to become the mains was a hitherto uncharted idea.
He had unleashed a new sub-branch of watch design and every watchmaker worth his balance wheel was not engaged in finding new ways to not only measure time precisely but to showcase their prowess with the most flourishing of finishes. It was gritty, it was edgy, and yet, it was a new apogee in the world of design to conquer. Now, the watchmaker wasn’t just responsible for making sure the watch told time, they had to even play a role in the design language of the final product, and simply painting over things wasn’t going to fly.
A Timeline of Skeletons
What started in the late 18th century as an idea of highlighting and showcasing transparency in watchmaking, slowly evolved over time. The next 100 years saw a lot of decorative elements being used to embellish movements – Filigree (twisting fine threads of metal into ornate patterns, which are then soldered together to create lace-like designs), Guilloché (precise, repetitive pattern engraved using a rose engine lathe), Perlage (tiny overlapping circles applied to flat surfaces, often on the base plate), Côtes-de-Genève (Geneva Stripes, parallel wave-like stripes applied to bridges and rotors), Chamfering (bevelling and polishing the edges of components), Frosting (matte finish achieved by brushing or chemical treatment) and Flame-Bluing (not explaining this one!). Mind you, this is not accounting for the way the parts could be positioned with decorative bridges and screws, all to showcase the movement behind the time-telling. Fast forward to the late 20th century and brands were picking up this lost form of expression and revisiting it with a modernised take which introduced a certain minimalist accent. It wasn’t anymore simply about leaving it all barefaced for everyone to see but to use elements to subtly highlight what the maker wanted to be shown while letting others softly sink into the background.
In a good modern-day skeleton movement, the void must reveal depth and substance, not a hodgepodge clutter of cogs and gears falling over each other. The design must trace an imaginary line through the movement, and as the eye follows the trajectory, the viewer should feel a sense of immersion, of falling into the folds of the design, much like the works of Miró.
High Art or Overkill
Now that we know what a skeletonised movement entails, let’s also ponder whether we truly like it or are just too timid to call it out. Well, as with all endeavours and expressions artistic, there can never be one simple straightforward answer. I have spent time with skeleton watches from some of the top names in watchmaking, which are veritable objets d’art and then there are others, from brands no lesser, which served no other purpose than to obscure the time reading experience.
In the hands of an experienced and wise watchmaker, a skeleton is a form of expression of not just design but also intent. A pretty construction of something that is, at its core, so primal and visceral, is meant to elevate the setup to level of an aquarium that is mesmerising and captivating, where every time one looks at it, one notices some new subtle detail which was always there hidden in plain sight. And yet it lets you read the time with just as much as a fleeting glance.
The popularity of skeleton dials and the exclusivity that they held for a while has inspired many lesser brands to commercially pursue this design strategy so now we have industrial movements being used without any covers, designs (or pretences) and people are queuing up for this budget bangers.
But irrespective of price point, anybody can make a bad skeleton wristwatch. A poor version of this technique would involve either skeletonising a movement which is either crudely finished and not worth putting on display, or one which deploys too many design elements thereby making the overall effect visually jarring, one that obfuscates the hands and consequently, negatively impacts the time-reading quotient.
But, and this is the sheer honesty of the situation, for the layman, to be able to see even the workings of a generic Swiss (or Chinese, or Japanese) without any embellishments or decorations whatsoever, can still be quite a visual treat so it can be hard to cast a discerning eye about the aesthetic quotient and its relative acceptability.
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