Everything Old Is New Again

Vintage items and traditional techniques add an analog soul to a digital world

- Boyd Farrow

As the world becomes more and more saturated with digital content and virtual reality, there is a growing desire for authenticity and tangibility. And as consumers crave physical contact and experiences, businesses in all sorts of sectors are offering them ways to connect with previous eras. Below, we highlight five notable companies that have all seen their profits soar by enthusiastically embracing the analog world.

Turning Back Time Many people turn their hobby into a business, but 39-year-old Joshua Shapiro has a far bigger ambition—to crank up America’s once great watchmaking industry after its half-century slumber. In 2015, after skeletonizing watches for fun, he began making engine-turned dials for a handful of elite professionals, including his mentor, David Walter, widely regarded as the Scorsese of horology.

In 2016, he was confident enough to launch his own business, J.N. Shapiro, making $30,000-plus timepieces from his own complicated designs. The debut collection displayed both his mastery of ancient techniques, such as guilloche, the ultraprecise engraving of repetitive patterns on dials, and his eagerness to experiment, making watchcases out of the rare metal tantalum for the first time outside of Switzerland.

Sales were so brisk that last summer the company moved into a 7,300-square-foot studio in southwest L.A., which houses nine employees and an assemblage of special equipment. One machine, used to make teeny wheels, costs $500,000 and has its own dedicated operator.

Shapiro’s latest statement model is the Resurgence—priced at $85,000 in gold and $70,000 in steel. Even more attention-grabbing is his claim that the watch is the first to be fully “made in America” since 1969, when Hamilton produced its last timepiece in Pennsylvania.