Rolex
Recommended ReadingThe Man Who Sees Watch Stories In The Numbers
Using data and analytics to look at watch design.
Most watch writing is purely observational. We use primary sources when researching stories that involve necessary historical context, but for the most part, raw data isn't part of the equation. When I came across the blog of Goldammer Vintage Watches, a small vintage watch shop in Germany, I was impressed with the way the author, Marcus Siems, used raw data to back up – and in some cases, find – the story. Siems is a neuroscientist with over a decade in the field, but he uses his methods on watches just for fun. "I'm personally fascinated by data analysis – even without a clear hypothesis; if there's a clear trend in the data, you'll see it and can visualize it," Siems says.
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In his most recent piece, he charts the rise and fall of various case-shape trends throughout the last century. He lands on the conclusion that cases, for most of the modern history of the wristwatch, have been round. But there's one exception: The '70s. He mines data from Chrono24 and manually adds and classifies design features to the data set. Ultimately, he seeks to answer a much larger question using data points: How has the watch world evolved over time?
Read how Marcus makes the case for changing shapes in watch design, here.
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