In the early 1960s, Japan was well known for producing shoddy, crummy, inexpensive electronics. The Swiss saw this and rather than fighting against it, which is what the British industry did. They combined mass manufacturing with luxury and put luxury marketing into mass made watches. This was still in the rain of the pocket watch but wristwatch was seen as being quite a feminist,. There are emerging markets right now who had been dismissed for making cheap knockoffs that are becoming so high quality even experts are struggling to tell the difference.
Called "a poem in clockwork," the self-winding Breguet watch made for Marie Antoinette was meant to be the most beautiful example of mechanical art in the world. Yet when she was imprisoned in the Tour du Temple, she wanted only a simple watch that would mark the passing of the hours until her meeting with the guillotine. Listen as Rebecca Struthers, the watchmaker, antiquarian horologist, and author of the Hands of Time talks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about how our need to keep time has shaped watchmaking history, and how, in turn, the development of watches has shaped human culture and society. Other topics include the precise and painstaking craft of bespoke watchmaking and the challenge of restoring watches from another time.