This was published 8 months ago
From gangster gauche to loud ’n proud: return of the gold watch
By Luke Benedictus
In the 1992 film Glengarry Glen Ross, Alec Baldwin plays Blake, a real-estate sales manager devoted to hyper-capitalism. Arriving from head office, he disembowels his underlings with a spectacularly vicious diatribe, demanding they close more deals or face the sack.
“You see this watch?” he barks at someone who dares to question him. “That watch cost more than your car. I made $970,000 last year. How much did you make?”
Alec Baldwin shows off his bling playing real estate agent Blake in Glengarry Glen Ross.
It’s not hard to imagine the watch in question. Obviously, it’s gold and shamelessly conspicuous (a Rolex Day-Date, to be specific). The reason you can picture it so easily is that a gold watch is routinely used as cinematic shorthand to imply that a character is ruthlessly ambitious and morally suspect.
Remember mafia boss Tony Soprano, Sons of Anarchy bikie leader Clay Morrow, or Charlie Babbitt, the scheming brother in Rain Man played by
Tom Cruise? They all sported gold Rolex Day-Dates, too. A yellow- gold watch on a matching bracelet is a brazen emblem of wealth and status, communicated in a universal language. It’s not so much a timepiece as a power move.
Tudor’s gold watch with a pickle-green face
Now, gold watches are making a comeback – but in a different way. They’re no longer about visually bellowing what an alpha-male hotshot you are. Instead, they’re being worn with a more playful exuberance and a knowing sense of retro fun.
Take the Barbie film, for example, in which Ryan Gosling’s Ken wears three vintage Tag Heuer Carreras in gold. All at the same time. While shirtless and in a fur coat.
This jauntier vibe was also evident at the recent Watches & Wonders fair in Geneva, where Rolex and Tudor both released gold watches with brightly coloured dials in Smurf blue and pickle green, respectively.
Ryan Gosling goes for gold with his watch.Credit: Getty Images
These followed the pleasantly louche revivals that came earlier in the year, like the Piaget Polo 79, and the Bulgari Bulgari that George Michael paired with a dangly crucifix earring back in the ’80s.
Gold’s return is, in part, a reaction to the watch world’s recent mania for stainless steel. But it also feels like a response to the po-faced elevation of the stealth-wealth trend, with its more complex and self-conscious form of snobbery. Cheerfully unabashed and over-the-top, a gold watch sends a very different message – and it’s all about living out loud.
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