If you have a taste for irony, though, and for this sort of aesthetic maneuvering, these watches can be extremely appealing, especially in their rejection of the sometimes stiflingly stuffy atmosphere that fine watchmaking in particular, and luxury in general, can evoke. This is not without its own irony, of course. There is another French expression that’s apropos: épater la bourgeoisie, which means, more or less, to shock the middle class. As it turns out, sticking it to the man, horologically, can be a somewhat expensive proposition – Ochs Und Junior watches are certainly not priced to the aggressive if-you-have-to-ask-you-can’t-afford-it (you peasant) costs that characterizes so much of luxury watchmaking, but they ain’t exactly cheap either – one is reminded of the successive iterations of -isms that characterized a lot of 20th century modern art, each one of which originally was a rejection of a previous established order, and each one of which was rapidly assimilated to the profit-seeking rapacity at which the art market has long excelled. At its worst, going back to basics and celebrating simplicity ends up with irritating nonsense like Marie Antoinette and her ladies-in-waiting playing at being milkmaids at the Petit Trianon; genuine iconoclasm is appropriated by poseurs with alarming rapidity.
from Best Watches For Men https://ift.tt/2LRWxQO