Apparently the people who follow me on Instagram @wei_koh_revolution are amused each time I go on a rant. If that’s the case, sit back, strap in and prepare to hopefully be entertained. Let’s get this straight, so we don’t have to waste that most precious of commodities: time. Yours and mine. The date window in Breguet’s new Type XX in both the military and civilian versions not only doesn’t bother me, but I like it. Why? First of all, it is a practical feature on any modern timepieces meant to be worn 24/7 in the real world. When I check into a hotel, or when I am planning my week, I like being able to check the date on my wristwatch. What’s that you say? How dare I? The addition of a date is an affront to the design purity of a military timepiece and its pure instrument-like iconography?
Well, that’s my point. I don’t need a military instrument because I am currently not serving in the military — though, like all Singaporean men, I did my two-and-a-half years of national service, performing duties critical to our national security. Like bayoneting papayas, endlessly cleaning my M-16, and trying to avoid ghosts in the bunkhouse. But today, I am not engaged in some vital occupation like launching fucking rockets where I need an incredibly precise, pure time-measuring tool watch. What I am is a watch nerd whose eyesight is increasingly failing, and who’s battlling a body that wants to balloon into Botero-like proportions.
As I live in the real world, my desire is for a contemporary watch. Sure, it’s nice if it’s steeped in military- or tool-watch lore, like the Blancpain 50 Fathoms MIL-SPEC I wear. But I feel no need to intentionally discard the date because, let’s face it, I am not in the fucking Special Forces. Or some crazed survivalist who sleeps with a cocked Les Baer .45 caliber 1911 pistol under my goose duvet. I am a fat, middle-aged journalist with a bum ankle and a sausage dog. And, I like my contemporary watches to suit my existence in the real world.
That’s right — I just championed that most wrongly vilified of horological indications known as the date, and I stand by it. Because I grew up in the ’80s and ’90s, before the era of the iPhone — thank God for that — and the things I witnessed in the seedy but transcendent nightclub scene in New York are far better off as memories than compressed video files waiting to rear their possibly libelous heads. Back in the day, having a date on your watch was hugely pragmatic. And even now, it still saves me the effort of having to reach into the chest pocket of my Cifonelli blazer to fumble with my phone.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that the date window and I have had a love affair that stretches back to very first wristwatch I was ever given: my uncle’s 1950s Rolex DateJust. That’s right, don’t forget that the world’s mightiest watch brand owes a large part of
