Will who designed a watch become more important than who made it? It seems a ridiculous idea, when the most sought-after watches are still those made by individual watchmakers, whether working under their own names or for larger brands the more complicated watches from the top maisons are almost always made by a single watchmaker.

However, two forces at play are changing the picture. The first is that, for most watches, more of the actual watchmaking than ever before is done by machine, a direction of travel that improving technology and a tougher business environment is propelling more surely than ever. The result is that the difference between one watch and another is owed more to the engineering design than the skill of the watchmakers doing the assembly its who designed the system that made the watch rather than who made it.

The second is that the watch industrys traditional approach to design is simply out of date. In a design-literate world in which we know who designed everything from our chairs to our shirts, to accept that our watches simply come from this brand or that maison no longer makes sense. The watch industry takes its own good time to adjust, but design is now part of the conversation in ways that would have been unthinkable in earlier decades.

Ceramica by Rado, 1,705. rado.com

The watchmaking world was actually relatively quick to adopt the idea of brands in the modern sense Longines, in 1889, was one of the first to register a trademark and the winged hourglass is the oldest extant registration at WIPO (the World Intellectual Property Organisation). At a time when precision and quality were much more variable than today, brands focused their marketing on those qualities almost to the exclusion of everything else. For most of the 20th century, only a few brands had a consistent look across their collections and the design of a watch might owe as much to external suppliers (of cases, dials and hands) as to any directed aesthetic. Instead, the priorities were functional both in terms of the retail product offered and the manufacturing process. Jack Heuer, himself an acknowledged devotee of mid-century architects such as Oscar Niemayer, revealed that the 1963 Carrera owed its most identifiable feature (an angled inner flange on which the tachymetre scale was printed) to a new method for fixing the crystal in place. From almost the same period came what is generally accepted as the finest watch design of all, the Rolex Cosmograph Daytona, for which there seems to be no evidence at all as to who designed it.

There were exceptions of course: Louis Cartier, whose Tank is a century old this year, clearly had a strong vision for the watches he designed. Similarly, Hans Wilsdorf of Rolex and Henri Stern of Patek Philippe were detail obsessives that allowed nothing to pass without their approval. Nevertheless, the actual business of producing final designs was left to draughtsmen working to order and, as Jaeger-LeCoultres Reverso or even early Panerais demonstrate, having anonymous designers didnt mean poor design.

Edge by Movado, 800. movado.com

Nevertheless, the post-war rise of the designer was inevitably going to reach the watch world. That it did so first in the United States probably shouldnt be a surprise. Movados Museum Watch, with its dial being defined by a solitary dot at 12 to symbolise the sun at high noon, was designed in 1947 by the Bauhaus-influenced artist Nathan George Horwitt. (NB: it was first made by Vacheron & Constantin-LeCoultre Watches Inc, and only later produced by Movado.) The Museum Watch might have been an anomaly, or at least a rarity (Warhol also designed a watch for Movado) had Hamilton not followed suit a decade later.

The company had been experimenting with a new electronic movement since 1946 and wanted the watch to have a suitably futuristic design when it was finally ready in 1957 it turned to Richard Arbib, an industrial designer with a reputation for ideas that captured the space-age zeitgeist. The result was the Ventura, a watch unlike anything before, though its fame owes as much to Elvis Presley wearing one as its futuristic lines.

TYPE 3 B in titanium/black matt pvd by Ressence, 33,500. ressencewatches.com

Matthew Beedle

If the next decades most famous watches were, effectively, unsigned, it was a jobbing watch designer, Grald Genta, that would change the terms of engagement with a string of highly recognisable and still sought-after designs for Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe and others. And while it was only once collectors began to value his work that his name escaped the industry and he achieved recognition in his own right, it was his reputation in the industry that allowed him the creative freedom to make sure it was his ideas that saw the light of day.

Gentas path was followed in relatively quick succession by Jorg Hysek who designed the 222 for Vacheron Constantin (from which the contemporary Overseas is derived) and went on to produce key designs for Breguet, Seiko, TAG Heuer and Tiffany & Co. By 2005, when Dior planned the launch of a new mens collection it was unthinkable that the watch would be designed without the houses then artistic director, Hedi Slimane, being closelyinvolved.

Octo 41 mm by Bulgari, 5,800. bulgari.com

Matthew Beedle

Now its simply a matter of strategic choice, there are brands that emphasise design and brands with other stories to tell. For Patek Philippe, the maisons identity must come first, second and third, but no one at Patek pretends that design is irrelevant (you might even hear a whisper to the effect that Mme Christine Stern likes to keep a watchful eye on proceedings). Similarly, the house styles of both Panerai and A. Lange & Shne are so central to their brand identities that it is, effectively, the brand that signs the watches. Rado, meanwhile, has long made design a priority, regularly working with outside designers such as Konstantin Grcic.

Smaller independents are naturally somewhat freer to produce designs that challenge and with several having come into existence from the wider design world rather than watchmaking, its been no surprise to see some fairly radical takes on the basic form of a wristwatch. Of the more successful, Benot Mintiens Ressence project and Martin Frei, the co-founder of Urwerk stand out for having introduced designs that have come to be seen as almost natural. Pushing hardest at the envelope of the past 20 years has been Maximilian Bsser. Firstly through the Opus series that he created for Harry Winston and then through his MB&F project, Bsser has encouraged designers, watchmakers and, crucially, collectors to embrace a much more liberal approach to design. Theres a fine line between the intriguing and the ridiculous though, which is why Bsser (a) is clear about his intentions and (b) works so closely with Eric Giroud, the industrys go-to designer.

HM8 CAN-AM in wg by MB&F, 78,000. mbandf.com

Matthew Beedle

Even for maisons where it is the brand that takes centre stage, theres been a much greater acknowledgement of design as part of a brands identity. Jaeger-LeCoultre is a serious watchmaking Grande Maison first and foremost, but have long given equal billing to Janek Deleskiewicz, the brands artistic director for the past three decades. More recently, Bulgari has elevated the director of its Watches Design Centre, Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani, to a starring role in the development of its products. Meanwhile, Deleskiewiczs former boss was Jrme Lambert, has moved to Montblanc where hes appointed Davide Cerrato to give life to the vision that Lambert has for the brand. The critical and commercial success that Montblanc has achieved owes much to the partnership Lamberts created, pointing to the critical role that the CEO plays.

So should you now care more about the designer than the watchmaker or the brand? On occasion yes, but it isnt a binary question. Design matters, even in the most horological of spheres Vacheron Constantins 57260, the most complicated watch ever made, certainly tested the watchmakers and engineers, but Vacheron were right to emphasise the achievement of the maisons design team in making visual sense of such a dense package of indications and dials.

Styling by Grace Gilfeather

This was first published in GQ magazine. Subscribe now to get 6 issues of GQ for only 15, including free access to the interactive iPad and iPhone editions. Alternatively, choose from one of our fantastic digital-only offers, available across all devices.

The GQ watch guide 2017

The best watches under 500

Why are watchmakers taking things to extremes?

Continue reading here:

Does it matter who designed your watch? - GQ.com