The "Old" New
Horology is Greek for time, the study of.
Horologists may or may not have professional training; the occupation, horology, if in fact it is one, has to do as much with disposition as with history and detail and the dogged accretion of information.
Perhaps no one (but a horologist) loves time-it's what most of us dread-but, the display of it, of time, well, that's another matter altogether.
The objectification of our days and moments, that's time.
And it's time told in any number of ways-or in any manner of ways in which we choose to display it.
So time is round or rectangular; analog or digital; visible or not, depending on quirk and preference.
It is plain or gaudy.
It shouts or whispers.
It is leather or plastic; it is stainless steel or elastic or canvas or mineral.
It is pretty much whatever we want it to be; that's the only way we lord over it and not the other way around.
The Bulova Accutron once had a "standard" look, most often associated with the double-pronged tuning fork display in the jeweler's window, the oversized watch "mannequin" not so much glaring at us as waving us in.
The Accutron spoke of technique, of precision-and, not so oddly, of beauty: the beauty of the remote and new and the visual outside of what we were used to.
It was an early, and quite successful, marriage of form and function, the latter being the characteristic that Bulova built its Accutron story around.
(Note: Bulova paid $9.
00 for the first television commercial in 1941, a marketing vanguard as well.
) The Bulova Accutron was first made available in October 1960, the same year in which laser technology was developed.
For historical reference, Dwight D.
Eisenhower was the country's President; the Supreme Court, five years earlier, ended, nominally at least, public school desegregation; and five years later Bob Dylan would write possibly the greatest rock song of our time, "Like a Rolling Stone.
" The Accutron figuratively sucked the air out of the watch promotion space.
Its development was a great act by a grand company, and no other brand, for a historical moment or two, wanted to follow that particular act.
Over fifty years later, it may be hard to understand the impact of the Bulova Accutron.
But even the quickest of overviews reveals a watch creation that was startling in its newness and in its embrace of what was vaguely technological (space-age-y), certainly different, and absolutely compelling.
It still is.
The Accutron no longer has one particular look; it has morphed in every respect possible around function (see yachting, diving) and image.
But it hasn't lost its soul, which is why the Bulova Accutron is one of the great watches of all time.
Horologists may or may not have professional training; the occupation, horology, if in fact it is one, has to do as much with disposition as with history and detail and the dogged accretion of information.
Perhaps no one (but a horologist) loves time-it's what most of us dread-but, the display of it, of time, well, that's another matter altogether.
The objectification of our days and moments, that's time.
And it's time told in any number of ways-or in any manner of ways in which we choose to display it.
So time is round or rectangular; analog or digital; visible or not, depending on quirk and preference.
It is plain or gaudy.
It shouts or whispers.
It is leather or plastic; it is stainless steel or elastic or canvas or mineral.
It is pretty much whatever we want it to be; that's the only way we lord over it and not the other way around.
The Bulova Accutron once had a "standard" look, most often associated with the double-pronged tuning fork display in the jeweler's window, the oversized watch "mannequin" not so much glaring at us as waving us in.
The Accutron spoke of technique, of precision-and, not so oddly, of beauty: the beauty of the remote and new and the visual outside of what we were used to.
It was an early, and quite successful, marriage of form and function, the latter being the characteristic that Bulova built its Accutron story around.
(Note: Bulova paid $9.
00 for the first television commercial in 1941, a marketing vanguard as well.
) The Bulova Accutron was first made available in October 1960, the same year in which laser technology was developed.
For historical reference, Dwight D.
Eisenhower was the country's President; the Supreme Court, five years earlier, ended, nominally at least, public school desegregation; and five years later Bob Dylan would write possibly the greatest rock song of our time, "Like a Rolling Stone.
" The Accutron figuratively sucked the air out of the watch promotion space.
Its development was a great act by a grand company, and no other brand, for a historical moment or two, wanted to follow that particular act.
Over fifty years later, it may be hard to understand the impact of the Bulova Accutron.
But even the quickest of overviews reveals a watch creation that was startling in its newness and in its embrace of what was vaguely technological (space-age-y), certainly different, and absolutely compelling.
It still is.
The Accutron no longer has one particular look; it has morphed in every respect possible around function (see yachting, diving) and image.
But it hasn't lost its soul, which is why the Bulova Accutron is one of the great watches of all time.
