WEIGHT WATCHERS

Is there an ideal weight for a watch? While there is a cheery race towards the lightest possible watch, there are some important caveats. We find out what industry leaders and experts think

- JOSHUA SIMS

Jean-Paul Suchel, the technical director of Bell & Ross, spends a lot of time studying people choosing a watch. And what strikes him every time is the way they often cup a selection in their palm. “They stand there in the shop and they weight the watch in their hand. They want to feel it there,” he says. “The fact is that watches are part of the jewellery world, and with jewellery there’s a direct correlation between weight and value, because of the historic use of precious metals. That’s only helped to solidify the association between heft and quality. A watch may be a small piece of material really, and yet prices are quite high, so unconsciously people feel if there’s no real weight to a watch, then there’s no value.”

That is a conundrum for the watch world, especially as lighter weight materials the likes of titanium, ceramic, and latterly the more experimental likes of silicon nitride and carbon composites are embraced by the watch industry, if often for qualities such as scratch-resistance and durability. Panerai has its Carbotech, IWC its use of boron carbide, also an extremely lightweight material, and a ceramic-titanium relationship on the side; Roger Dubuis and others have explored cases in silicon; you may recall that one sort of silicon is already in wide use as the balance spring, otherwise known as the hairspring. Silicon is half the weight of titanium.

Indeed, much as aluminium has entered the mainstream for chassis design in the car industry, thanks to the pioneering work of Jaguar and Audi, so titanium looks to be on the brink of entering the mainstream in watchmaking, not least because it is now only around 15% more expensive than steel. If you are coming to this story right after our titanium extravaganza, this will not surprise you.