Time Travel

An update from Watches & Wonders… 1971

This week, the eyes of the watch world focused on Geneva, and the big Watches & Wonders show. As I observed the proceedings from my armchair, my mind wandered. What was it like when some of my own vintage watches were introduced? Was there the same buzz, the same sense of awe and excitement? So I decided to go back… to a fictional Watches & Wonders, circa 1971.

By the time the TWA Boeing 707 touched down at Geneva’s Cointrin Airport, the excitement was palpable. I pulled off my Accutron and reset the hands for local time, then shuffled down the aisle to the jetway. This airport had only started receiving jumbo jets the year before and everything still smelled fresh and new from the expansion. At the Customs desk, I noticed the officer stamping passports was wearing one of Omega’s new professional dive watches, the one people were calling, “Ploprof.” It didn’t come close to fitting under his uniform’s sleeve. I smiled as I presented my documents and pointed to his wrist. 

“600 meters, eh?” I said, awkwardly, speaking slowly and loudly to compensate for my lack of French. 

The officer smirked, and replied, proudly, “600 at least,” in a heavy accent, then passed back my passport. Clearly they pay their border guards better in Switzerland, I thought, or else this guy moonlights as a Comex diver. The Ploprof had only gone on sale publicly a few months earlier. 

I collected my rather battered valise from the baggage carousel and caught a taxi to my hotel. Traffic was bad on the Rue du Rhône, and my driver muttered under his breath as he maneuvered the big Citroën DS past the cause of the jam—a broken down Alfa Romeo, hood up, radiator steaming. I told him I was in town for the big watch fair, and his mood changed. He proudly pulled back his sleeve to reveal a faded old Patek Philippe Calatrava. It was handed down from his father, he told me in halting English. In Geneva, even the taxi drivers wear Pateks.