One Word Changed the Way I See Every Watch

A few Saturdays ago, I walked into the RealReal in Brooklyn content to browse aimlessly with no real goal in mind. But, like so many times in recent months, I was immediately drawn to the watches. I had no intention of buying, a fact I told the sales representative right away, but she was lovely and happy to let me try on as many styles as the store carried.

I had yet to try on a Rolex, so it was my first choice. I pointed to a small Datejust in the glass case, eager to see what it looked like in person. I thought I would love it, having seen it on others online. But the second I put it on, something felt off. It looked bulkier on my wrist than the Cartier Santos I'd borrowed from my father, the watch I told you last month I'd fallen for without being able to say why, even though the Santos's case was objectively much larger.

I tried to explain this feeling, but couldn't find the words. It was at that moment I learned a brand-new and very important term: lugs, the small arms that extend from the case to hold the strap or bracelet. The lugs on the Rolex stuck out more than they did on the Cartier watches, the saleswoman explained, giving it an overall wider appearance.

She walked me through what a lug was and how it differed between brands, but I couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed. I didn't even know enough to ask for what I liked. As I tried on a few styles, though, I started to pay attention. With each new watch I put on, I tested how it felt to say the word "lug" out loud, feeling a bit silly.

Such a simple word, just four little letters, had completely changed how I viewed watches. Suddenly, I started noticing lugs on every model in the case in front of me. I realized whether I liked something had more to do with how far the lugs stuck out than the actual millimeter width of the case. It finally explained the Santos: why I kept reaching for the biggest watch I'd ever worn.

The word reached back further still. On my first visit to the Patek Philippe Museum, nearly two years ago now, the films explaining how the movements worked might as well have been in another language, and I walked out with the first inkling that there was a whole vocabulary here I didn't yet speak. What I could grasp, even then, was the beauty. Moving through the storied exhibitions, I couldn't help but be awed by the centuries of history. The elaborate 16th century pieces, the earliest wristwatches: I couldn't get enough. These watches were of course used to tell time, but they were so much more than that. They were decorated in colorful jewels and intricate designs, molded into whimsical shapes like clogs. Walking through the displays, I slowly started to see watches not just as utilitarian pieces, but as art. It would be nearly a year after that visit before I even tried on a watch. The language took longer still.

Learning the term also armed me with something else. Knowing how to name what I liked, and what I didn't, let me walk into a store and ask for exactly what I wanted to try on, and at least appear fluent. That was license to keep exploring. Lugs was the first word that truly stuck, but it would not be the last. One term at a time, a vocabulary I had nodded along to for months was becoming mine.

I went home and picked up my Santos, turning it over in my hands, really studying it. For the first time, I focused on the reference number inscribed on the back. Typing it into Google, I was fascinated by the idea of being able to date a watch simply by looking at a few numbers and letters engraved into the back. I already knew it was a Santos Galbée. What I hadn't known was that those engravings could place roughly when it was made and lay out its details like a short biography, so I started studying the specs. The quartz-or-mechanical question I left you with last month was starting to resolve, too. I was learning what a movement is, the engine that drives a watch, and I had noticed that both watches I owned, a gold-tone Citizen and a slim Longines, ran on quartz rather than the mechanical heartbeat my father prizes. My watch knowledge was growing, and putting it to use was getting easier.

Recently, I went back to my father's collection and confidently picked out a vintage Concord Nine/Quartz. I held it up to him, asking if I could have it. With an amused smirk, he told me it was one of the first watches he had ever bought for himself, and nodded. Its age, and nostalgic connection to my father, was part of the draw, though no longer the only thing I could put into words. At 34 millimeters it was larger than anything I would have reached for in the past, but I understood why it worked anyway: how little its lugs extended, so it sat smaller on the wrist than its size suggested. Its lug width, the span where the strap meets the case, measured 18 millimeters. And the combination was perfect. I deftly turned it over to search Google for the serial number without thinking twice, tracing it all the way back to the early 1980s. And then I swiftly added it to my own jewelry drawer, excited to have one more option in what is becoming a rapidly blossoming collection.

One word still escaped me: complication. Collectors online used it, the museum videos I kept rewatching used it, and I couldn't have told you what one was.