It all started with a conversation in the office. An office thats full of people who are crazy about watches, what they are, and what they can do. The functional core of a watch is, of course, telling time as accurately as possible. The ultimate goal of any watchmaker is to build a watch that tells time perfectly. This was the case in the past when a watch served an essential purpose, but it also does so in the present, as watchmaking is founded on ancient principles that are still upheld, even in times of atomic clocks. Nowadays, a mechanical watch is both a functional and emotional object. Does the emotional element outweigh the functional one? Is the ancient quest for accuracy a noble one that still makes sense in 2022? Or is it a fool's errand? These questions lead me to ponder precision and what it means to me.Just a couple of days after the question arose at Fratello HQ, Rob Nudds came to the office in The Hague. Rob worked, as you might know, as a watchmaker at Omega. I asked him if it was still a watchmaker's ambition to build the most precise movement possible. He answered with a firm yes. From a watchmaker's perspective, building a movement that runs as accurately as possible is a way for a watchmaker to distinguish him- or herself. Rob told me it was almost like a competition in the manufacture to tune a movement close to perfection. And he also tuned the movement in his own watch to chronometer standards, a time-costly but doable feat. But the watchmaker Rob Nudds is not the person that wants to catch the train to Dresden. That Rob Nudds sets his watch a few minutes early to make sure he catches his train.
