But our tastes develop, and along the way, we learn what we like, and even more importantly, what we don’t. A few things that have become clear to me as I’ve gone in and out of watches over the years is that big, oversized watches don’t wear well for me, literally and figuratively. I’ve become kind of bored with blacked out watches – they just aren’t very versatile in my view, and I rarely feel like they’re an appropriate complement to whatever I’m doing or wearing. And butterfly clasps. Oh man, there isn’t a strap buckling system I deplore more than a butterfly clasp, particularly when that strap is integrated to the case, making a switch to something a bit more graceful impossible. I’m also finding that in the strictest sense, the traditional “tool watch” is probably not as much in my wheelhouse as I once thought. Selling my Tudor Pelagos, maybe the tooliest tool watch I’ve ever owned, and wearing something decidedly more refined (but still fairly robust) on a daily basis has reshaped what I think of as an ideal watch for my lifestyle, which, let’s face it, doesn’t involve a ton of time underwater, on the side of a rock wall, or huddled in a tent somewhere in the New Hampshire wilderness.
This is a rather long windup just to say that the Porsche Design 1919 Globetimer UTC (just Globetimer from here on out) is a watch well outside the parameters of my own personal preferences, which is something you’ll have to consider as you take in my personal reaction to it. Criticism of any kind, though, is about more than a personal reaction, but really should be an evaluation of how successful something is at being exactly what it set out to be in the first place. If you don’t love a very specific type of horror movie, for example, you might think Malignant is total trash. But even if you don’t personally enjoy it, you have to give it credit for evoking 1970s Italian giallo in a unique and contemporary way, right? Right!
In that spirit, let’s take a look at the latest creation from Porsche Design, a watch that’s wrong for me on every level, but does exactly what it says on the tin, which happens to be a genuinely clever party trick that anyone who counts themselves a fan of the travel watch will enjoy quite a bit.
