In a Watchmaker's Window
On a rainy Tuesday evening, the light seeping in through the window of the small watch atelier fell on the tiny wheels and lenses on the bench. The watchmaker Amelie was just about to close when the door opened. In came a man still carrying his suitcase, tired but with a gentle gaze: Marc. Someone who had flown from one city to another for work for years, and travelled half the world.
"I am looking for a watch," said Marc, "but not an ordinary one. My daughter moved to the other side of the ocean to study. Whenever I call her, either she is asleep or I am. I am forever working out the time difference in my head. If only I could see her hour too, just by glancing at my wrist."
Amelie smiled and took a slim, elegant watch from the window; above its midnight-blue dial a little moon, strewn with stars, was shining. "Then this is exactly what I should show you," she said. "This is the Oris Artelier Complication. Oris is an independent, family-run brand from the Swiss town of Holstein; it has made it a principle to build real mechanical watches for real people. And this watch carries two small miracles for precisely your problem."
Two Times, One Wrist
Amelie pointed to the small hand in the lower part of the dial. "Look here, at six o'clock," she said. "This small display shows a second time zone. While the large hour and minute hands at the centre give you the time of the city you are in, you can set this hand to the city where your daughter lives. So even if you are in a meeting in Tokyo, at a single glance you will see whether it is morning or night at her home."
"You will no longer need to do the arithmetic to call her," she added. "On the wrist, two cities, two lives flow at once. This is one of the most elegant forms of the complication we call a 'second time zone,' or GMT; and to see it on a classic, sober watch like the Artelier makes you feel it was born not of showing off, but of a real need."
format_quote"On the wrist, two cities, two lives flow at once."
Amelie
Under the Same Moon
"And what about that little moon up above?" asked Marc, his eye on the tiny window at twelve. Amelie's voice softened. "That is my favourite part. It is called a moonphase display. Like the real Moon in the sky, this little moon slowly waxes and wanes; from full moon to crescent, in a cycle of about twenty-nine and a half days. So this little moon on your wrist is a mirror of the very Moon you see in the sky at that moment."
"Think of it," said Amelie, "you in one city, your daughter in another, across the ocean. Your hours differ, your days and nights are jumbled. But the Moon is the same for you both. She, and you, can look at the same full moon on the same night. With that little window, this watch reminds you of it every day: whatever the distance, you still share the same sky."
Marc fell silent for a moment. "So this watch shows not only the time," he said quietly, "but a bond." Amelie nodded.
format_quote"Whatever the distance, you still share the same sky."
Amelie
Three Colours, One Elegance
"And there are three different moods to choose from," said Amelie, taking two more watches from the window. "This ivory dial in my hand is calm and classic, like morning light. This chestnut one is warm, like autumn; and the midnight blue I showed you just now, like the starry moon upon it, is a night sky."
"All have a 39.5-millimetre steel case; neither too large nor too small, a size that slips elegantly under a shirt cuff. Inside beats the Oris-developed Calibre 782, and once fully wound it runs for about forty-one hours. The beauty of Oris is this: it offers so poetic a complication, through an honest approach that trims the middlemen, at a price most people can reach."
"The design too is kept deliberately sober," she added. "Nothing showy; only two times, a moon and clean lines. Because the real story is not on the dial, but in the heart of the one who wears it."
Choosing a Night Sky
Marc looked long at the three watches and finally chose the midnight-blue one; the starry little moon upon it seemed to carry the sky of that distant city where his daughter lived. As he set the second time zone to her hour, his hands trembled slightly.
"Now, whenever I want to look at her," he said, "I will look at my wrist. I will know when she wakes, when she sleeps. And when there is a full moon, I will send her a message: look at the Moon tonight."
As Amelie placed the watch in its box, she smiled. Outside the rain had stopped, and the real Moon had appeared among the clouds; shining at the same instant both in the sky and at twelve o'clock on a small dial.