Why I Wanted This Watch to Age

Most people spend a lot of time trying to keep a new watch looking new. I built the Positano Notte V hoping it wouldn’t. The case is bronze, which means the watch you see today isn’t really the watch it will be six months from now. Or five years from now. That was exactly the point.

A Watch From a Trip

The Positano Notte V was inspired by a trip my wife and I took to Italy for our fifth anniversary. Rome. Positano. Florence. But when I started thinking about turning that trip into a watch, Positano kept winning.

Maybe it was the espresso. Maybe it was the red wine. Maybe it was sitting along the cliffs looking over water that didn’t quite seem like a real color. Probably all three.

The brown tones of the watch came from the espresso and wine we consumed more than responsibly throughout the trip. The little hit of yellow and gold on the bezel reminds me of the lemon trees everywhere around Positano. And the domed sapphire crystal was my small nod to the dome of the Church of Santa Maria Assunta sitting right there in the middle of town.

I could have stopped there. But I wanted the case itself to be part of the story.

Bronze Doesn't Stay Put

Stainless steel is predictable. Bronze isn't. Expose it to air, moisture, your skin, different climates and everyday life, and the surface slowly begins to develop a patina. It darkens. It changes. It becomes a little less perfect.

Which sounds a lot like every good trip, marriage and life in general. Two bronze watches can leave the workbench looking almost identical and eventually become completely different watches based entirely on the person wearing them. I love that.

The Scratches Are Supposed to Be There

I've never been particularly interested in owning watches that have to be babied. I like seeing a scratch and remembering where it came from. A mark from a golf cart. A ding from a desk. Something that happened while wrestling one of my kids into a car seat. Whatever it is.

Eventually the watch becomes a record of the life happening around it. Bronze just takes that idea a little further. The entire case changes with you.

Positano, 7 Years Later

There's another reason bronze felt right for this particular watch. The trip that inspired it already looks different in my memory than it did while we were there. The photos haven't changed. But we have. Our family has. Life has moved forward.

That's what memories do. They don't disappear, but they take on a different color with time. So will this watch.

Fresh out of the box, the bronze is bright and warm. Eventually it'll become darker, richer and completely its own. And somewhere underneath all that patina will still be the same watch that started with an anniversary trip to Italy.

I think that's pretty fitting.

The Positano Notte V

40mm bronze case
NH35 automatic movement
Domed sapphire crystal
20 ATM water resistance
20mm lug width
14mm thickness
Soft retro cowhide leather strap
Handmade bronze buckle

It wasn't built to stay new. It was built to wear the memory.