WHY SWATCH IS PULLING BACK JOSE SANTOS III WATCHES FROM ABROAD
The Filipino artist’s design is a landmark piece, not trite or derivative, that demand is so high among collectors
Many people don’t realize how truly out of the box the watch company giant Swatch truly thinks, whether at the start or even in today’s world.
The Swatch company itself was founded in 1983 as a way to survive the “Quartz Crisis” that began in the 1970s. It was a small flexible group using new thinking and materials and processes to go against the onslaught of primarily Japanese digital watches.
It went on to grow into a conglomerate that now owns many of the brands it helped save, in the industry it arguably helped save as well. Thanks are owed to the vision and tenacity of Nicolas G. Hayek during a very challenging time.
The thinking continues today, even in a segment that they already are in. Swatch has made “art watches” in the past, and indeed they are a very popular line within their diverse collection. But with the choice of the first artist, and the first piece, and indeed the first country to be involved when introducing the first “Art Watch” made with their new Bioceramic (also innovative, with the use of ceramic and biosourced plastic), the company proved they can still surprise and delight.
Art watch
I was contacted about giving my views of this first Swatch Bioceramic Art Watch a few months ago, and I honestly wasn’t expecting much. Most art watches would simply use the face as the artwork and the dial and strap as the frame, which is fine, but something we have seen before.
When I opened the bag that contained the box, however, I was surprised. It looked like cement, it
looked like part of a road. It had the white zebra markings of pedestrian walkways covering what looked like a block of tarmac. I already liked it.
Opening the box and seeing the watch for the first time, I saw ... texture. I saw creativity that went past the simple idea of putting an interesting face in a nice case. An interesting choice, using cement and other products as a starting point for a watch that is meant to show the world how to properly use recyclable and sustainable material. In that case, it does what art does. It generates discussion.
The artist chosen for this piece was Jose Santos III. He was classically trained at the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts, where he taught and produced his first figurative oil pieces. He is now known for being a multimedia artist, and his creations bring forth the textures of everyday items and materials as they are and have been used.
The cement shows wear, the metal shows fatigue, the paper is crumpled, the plastics scuffed. While many may identify with the images in the watch from a pedestrian’s point of view, the artist actually points to a car ride as the time and place when and where the idea for the original artwork began.
The specific piece chosen for this project was created in 2016, and is titled “Crossing Over Yellow And Black Stripes.” It is a long linear work, and follows the exaggerated elongated format he has used previously in the exhibition “Distance Between Two Points.”
Innovative vision
As a car enthusiast, I was delighted with the use of everyday sights like barriers and road markings and No Parking signs (though I dislike the signs themselves) as they were integrated into the piece itself as well as the watch. This is quite different from most Swatch Art Watches. There are some that make use of the strap in an integral way, but none that were so interesting.
As a longtime enthusiast of Swatch, developed at a time that was what I could afford, I have a long history with the brand. Who remembers the Happy Fish Dive Watch, or the Wall Street Chrono? Both landmark pieces that introduced a new vision of fun into those two rather conservative segments.
Watch enthusiasts still seek out special Swatch watches when they travel. Yet this very innovative vision, another landmark piece, is a watch that heralded a Philippine artist. It isn’t trite or derivative or just putting a local icon on the face and being done with it. It is, oddly perhaps given that the materials portrayed all show signs of age, use and patina, very refreshing.
It is a globally available piece, or at least it was. Demand has been so high that the Philippine market is trying to pull back as many as it can. Which, of course, in the so-interconnected international watch world, is creating even more interest and demand.
I always say that watches should be worn. They belong on your wrist, peeking under a nice suit sleeve perhaps. But this is one of the few watches that I think may well be best appreciated in full view, just as the original art piece itself.
This, of course, brings forth the answer of many watch collectors and enthusiasts: “That means you need to buy two.”