What attracts men to luxury watches even in the digital age?

How did the luxury wristwatch become almost the only gadget to survive the digital age, and what does this say about the human need for control?

1. No watch has yet been invented that can stop time

Once a year, for eight days, Basel becomes the center of the watch world. The fair's organizers say that 150,000 paying visitors attend, and 1,800 brands are spread across 141,000 square meters. A one-day ticket costs 60 Swiss francs.

The fair is a celebration of our expertise in timekeeping, and of the refinement and many years of training required to create items of beauty and precision. But it was also a celebration of excess and abundance, of watches that exist simply because they can, like animal acts in a circus. Many of them worked at the highest levels of complexity to perform actions beyond utility: there were watches with a calendar for the next thousand years, and some that displayed moon phases in different time zones. There were items like Franck Muller's Aeternitas Mega 4, composed of 1,483 parts, which announces full hours and every quarter hour by sounding the sequence of chimes from Big Ben in London. At its launch event, its creators said it was the most complex wristwatch ever and a grandiose work of art. In addition to 36 "complications" — a complication is essentially a nice gimmick — the watch also tells the time. Another complication was its price, £2.2 million.

Herein lies the mystery of the modern watch. Nowadays, no one buys a Swiss watch, or any other watch, to tell the time. The time displayed on our mobile phone or any other digital device will always be more accurate than that shown on a watch, even the most engineered and reliable in the world. And yet, this industry still has a prominent presence in our lives, through the shop windows of the world's most expensive shopping streets, newspapers and magazines survive to some extent thanks to watch advertisements, and without them, airports would become empty shells.

The most complex watches, released in limited editions, sell for a million pounds or more. They have a waiting list, as the world contains only a limited number of assembly artists who can produce them, and even they haven't found a way to extend the day beyond 24 hours.

Why do we continue to buy these over-engineered and repetitive machines? Why do so many people pay so much for an item whose primary function costs far less when it comes in other devices? And how can it be that the watch industry not only survives in the digital age but also builds a sanctuary of 16,000 liters of seawater to worship the enduring expertise of an outdated art?

Watches don't just tell time; they also say things about us. The answers to these questions lie in our attraction to extreme fantasy, the way we consume dazzling marketing tactics, our uninhibited and shameless boasting ability, and the renewed reverence for craftsmanship in the digital world.

And it may be that something else influences us — the fear that we will soon lose control over the accelerated progress of our lives. When watches were first created, people didn't know about the concept of busy calendars and deadlines that must not be missed, let alone concepts like "quality time" or "me time." Our days were not controlled by the watch. Today, having brought upon ourselves the storm of uncontrolled acceleration, we are grateful for anything that provides an illusion of control, like a beautiful watch that can be adjusted.

2. Innovation disrupts Switzerland

In the last century, we witnessed the breaking of the sound barrier and the invention of the atomic clock, the radio clock, the internet, and pixelated clocks displayed on computer and phone screens. Yet none of these inventions threatened the dominant position of the Swiss watch industry. Its exports flourished even during World War II; while the rest of Europe underwent severe upheaval, the reliability of neutral Switzerland regarding time became even more important. For example, International Watch Company (IWC), a leading manufacturer located on the banks of the Rhine in Schaffhausen, sold its Big Pilot model to both the British and German Air Forces. While trying to intercept each other, the Germans and British appreciated the large hands of the watch, the crown that could be operated even with gloves, and its ability to continue functioning even during sharp drops in air pressure.

The Swiss never stopped working. They bought prominent companies in other European countries, established trade bodies, and set regulations that further enhanced the industry's reputation for quality and integrity. In the 19th century, they became experts in creating flat operating mechanisms, which allowed traditional pocket watches to become wristwatches: a watch worn like a bracelet was particularly practical when riding a horse. The Swiss fully exploited other new inventions. Initially, they enthusiastically replaced old methods of winding and setting the watch with a key with the modern crown mechanism – the lever usually installed near the numeral 3. In the early 20th century, they also combined the best local handcrafting methods with the new American system of conveyor belt mechanization.

Today, the specific qualities that allow a watch to be defined as Swiss must meet strict legal definitions, carefully monitored like those defining Champagne or Parmesan cheese (according to tradition, which began in 1890, the definition is "Swiss made" or just "Swiss" and not "Made in Switzerland"). To qualify for such a definition, the watch must meet several stringent criteria:

1. It must have a Swiss movement, meaning a basic mechanism composed of springs and gears that make it tick.