Credits: Article and images by Joshua Munchow @ Quill & Pad. See the original article here - https://quillandpad.com/2024/02/04/heres-why-a-watch-strap-is-more-than-just-an-accessory-2/
Watch straps, the ubiquitous “accessory” to a wristwatch that has the almost god-like ability to completely change a person’s feeling about said timepiece. It is as if the soul of a wristwatch lies as much in the strap as it does in the mechanics; the strap is the single most functional component on a wristwatch that you interact with.
Straps: more than just an accessory
Rubber, wings, a shutter, and a watch strap are all intimately related.
“How,” you ask?
They are all “function critical” components for specific machines.
A car can have an absolute engineering marvel of an engine, the most sensitive and responsive suspension ever, and a slew of cutting-edge electronics governing all aspects of performance. But that car is going absolutely nowhere − ever − without a set of rubber tires. The tires are the most functional aspect of a car because it is the same across all platforms: the tires allow the car to get from point A to point B.
The same goes for the wings of an airplane. No matter what style of plane, some sort of wing to create lift is required. Almost every other component can be a variety of designs or concepts, but a wing needs to be a wing if liftoff is desired.
Cameras follow too. The most basic camera in the world, a pinhole camera, only needs one moving component, and that is a shutter slide. Without the ability to open and then shut a hole that allows light (or other electromagnetic radiation) to hit the light-sensitive media, no camera would ever work.
Now it could be argued that in these examples there are many “function critical” components, and even my stated components can be worked around. But as soon as you do this, it simply creates the need for a different “function critical” component.
In many machines, there is always one, or yes, maybe a few, components without which the machine becomes something fundamentally different.
And so it goes in a wristwatch. You might have noticed that I do not say “watch” and instead say “wristwatch.” This is entirely deliberate as a pocket watch and a wristwatch are two different machines. They share a large amount of components and are definitely related, but one “function critical” component sets them apart.
You can see where I am going with this: it’s the watch strap.
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Credits: Article and images by Joshua Munchow @ Quill & Pad. See the original article here - https://quillandpad.com/2024/02/04/heres-why-a-watch-strap-is-more-than-just-an-accessory-2/