A microbrand is voted off the island…

(Apologies to my Escapement Room co-conspirators. This was meant to be a Round Table discussion, but it got long, and it would be unfair to expect others to write such a disquisition on what was supposed to concise.)

During the Pandemic (remember that?), with time on my hands, I settled into watching an unhealthy amount of reality television. I watched season after season of Survivor. I had caught the original season when it first aired, but I had lost interest and had not followed it at all in the intervening years. By Spring 2020 I could have told you way too many details about how Boston Rob, Russell, and Parvati played the game and why they succeeded, or didn’t.  I daydreamed about how I would handle the challenges of insufficient sleep and comfort and a bunch of frenemies around me.

(Celebrity in the modern media age.)

What fascinated me was the psychology of the interactions and decisions. Certain types of players always rose the top. Certain types of personalities could only get so far. Also, in the course of the first 20 or so seasons a cultural and sociological shift occurred. I don’t place too much emphasis on the differences between generational cohorts, I think the distinctions are fuzzy and the dates are arbitrary, but clearly something was happening as the game and the players aged. By the time that I stopped watching it was clear that the Generation X players that dominated the first seasons were now the first ones voted off the island. The Millennials could not agree on much, but they instinctively banded together to take out my generation.

I stopped watching when they took out Jimmy Johnson (not my generation). Jimmy was a fan and approached the game with humility. He was too old to physically compete in the most arduous challenges. He was never going to win. He didn’t need the money. He decided to become the best supportive teammate that he could. He was organized and task oriented. He did not panic. The shortsighted Millennials immediately punished him for it. He was considered a threat for not appearing as a threat. The psychology of the game had turned back on itself in a way that was not healthy. It was also clear that from that point on that competent middle-aged men were going to be the first ones eliminated by the next generation. It was their competency that was their crime for younger men. It was their maleness that was their offense to younger women. I stopped daydreaming. I knew that I wouldn’t last long enough to get injured or even a sunburn. The boat would come for me.

Recently, I started watching Million Dollar Secret and saw a competent middle-aged man introduced. No need to invest in “Harry.” I knew that he was going to be the first to go. I watched Celebrity Bear Hunt for the sins of my past. I am of two minds about Bear Grylls, there are times that I think he is an upper-class cosplaying fraud, others a genuine adrenaline junkie. Without giving away too many spoilers, let’s just say that Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen and Boris Becker never stood a chance. They were interesting, self-aware, and thoroughly middle-aged and male. (As an aside, I am disappointed by the state of affairs when it comes to British “celebrities”. This was a weak group. Llewelyn-Bowen aside, there were no eccentrics, and this group was particularly dour and emotionally needy. The rest of the English-speaking world relies upon Britain to be the “weird uncles” of our shared culture. The Canadians are overly nice, and the Americans and Australians are brash and loud. We play to type.)

(It is hard for the old guys out there.)

So immersed as we have been for the past few decades in reality television, that we forget how deeply silly its tropes and conventions can be. Each contestant or player turns to the camera and explains what action we just saw or are about to see, and how it makes them “feel”. We get a scripted inner narrative. I wonder if that hasn’t spilled into the culture at large. It may explain “main character” syndrome. We turn to our inner camera to explain how the middle-aged man’s gentle criticism of our fallen souffle makes us feel. (“I knew that I may have over-beaten the egg whites, but Rupert really hurt my feelings when he suggested that I had.”)

Another trope is the tribal council where we earnestly explain why Boston Rob is mean, or sneaky, and has to go from the island. And here I lift my ballot to the camera and show you for the first time who I have voted off of the island of the watch world. What follows will be the cut away back at the shelter where I explain myself, first to the camera, and then to the others. Who is on my ballot?

Henry Archer

Let’s get the irrational reason out of the way. I don’t like brand names that are people’s full names: Elliot Brown, Christopher Ward, Raymond Weil, Frederique Constant, Richard Mille, Franck Muller, you get the idea. I don’t mind just the surnames: Gruen, Bulova, Breguet, etc. I don’t know why this is. This is not one of my well-reasoned opinions. It is a “feeling.”  (Turns to the camera…)

Except Henry Archer isn’t someone’s name, not their real one anyway. As the Henry Archer website helpfully explains: “The name “Henry Archer” is a direct translation of the name of our founder and product designer Henrik Schødt.” Cool, huh? Except that it isn’t, is it? The Henrik to Henry part is easy, but the rest seems jarring to the ear. English is a weird Germanic language. It is related to Old Norse and to modern Danish, with way too many French words brought in by the Vikings that settled on the Northern French Coast and became the Normans. There are many easily accessible tools available to translate English into Danish and vice versa. It turns out that “schødt” translates to “shot”. Of course it does, these languages are first cousins. An archer in Danish is a “bueskytte”, a “bow shooter.” The brand takes a little license with translation to make their name more euphonious to the English-speaking consumer.

https://henryarcher.com/en-us

Is that a major transgression? No, it is not. Brand websites are not the watches themselves. They are often contracted to third parties that put all sorts of nonsense content on the web that the brand may not be tracking closely. After all, they are about the craft of watchmaking, not website creation. Except that in this modern e-commerce microbrand world the website is king. You are not walking into Macy’s to try on a Henry Archer.

The Henry Archer website is filled with a sort of gobbledygook. We get this:

“A timeless design

We are proud of our Danish design heritage, which is the source of inspiration behind our designs.

Danish design is characterized by a clear connection between function, design, and the use of quality materials.

Together with our passion for quality watchmaking, these are the very keywords that define our company’s DNA.”

Parse that paragraph and tell me that it means anything. I too “have a passion for quality watchmaking.” It is this “passion” that requires me to remain at least 500 meters from the Kenissi factory in Le Locle and to stay on my medications pending further court order. “Passion” is the most overused word in advertising. It has been rendered meaningless.

For the sake of contrast, after meandering through the new age nothingness of the Henry Archer website take a gander over to the Sheffield website. If the honesty and transparency of Sheffield doesn’t make you want to reach for your credit card, then you do not have a heart. Sheffield’s openness about sourcing and materials should be the model for microbrands. However, if they were named “Gary Sheffield” I might think differently.

https://sheffieldwatches.com/

Finally, the most important part: the watches. Danish furniture design was not boring. Henry Archer is boring. Round or stick lumed indices: who has ever done that before? Colorful dials, aventurine? Is that groundbreaking or original? No. They look like knock-off Zelos. Except that Zelos really does have interesting dials that don’t look like they were picked out of a catalog. (For all I know, Zelos is the white label that makes these watches.) The most interesting thing about any of these watches are the Nordic names, a comforting IKEA Easter Egg for those of us habituated to wandering through big blue stores.

Taste is personal. I can’t claim to have the definitive opinion. Maybe these are really exciting designs for you. Maybe you put an extra dollop of mayonnaise on your tuna sandwich when you are feeling especially frisky. This brand is not for me.

Oh, and boring? Hold that thought as you listen to Henrik Schødt’s other creative outlet. Boring watches are not his only jam. Like a somnambulist playing with GarageBand, he has given us this: