Pourquoi portons-nous des montres-bracelets ?

Si vous avez un certain âge, vous considérez probablement une montre-bracelet comme une pièce essentielle de votre garde-robe. Mais seriez-vous surpris d'apprendre que cela n'a pas toujours été le cas ? Si c'est le cas, préparez-vous à être époustouflé : en fait, les montres-bracelets sont largement portées depuis moins de 100 ans.

Certains observateurs de tendances pensent que les montres-bracelets sont peut-être déjà démodées, reléguées aux poubelles de l'histoire par la technologie de pointe. Après tout, qui a besoin d'une montre-bracelet lorsque nos téléphones intelligents - et même les téléphones portables les plus élémentaires - nous indiquent l'heure avec une précision plus constante ?

Les montres-bracelets ne pourraient-elles représenter rien de plus qu'une phase technologique relativement brève devenue une curiosité historique, quelque chose comme des magnétophones à huit pistes et des cabines téléphoniques ? Ou les horlogers trouvent-ils des moyens de continuer à acheter et à porter des montres au poignet ?

L'avenir de la montre-bracelet autrefois essentielle peut résider dans les raisons pour lesquelles nous portons des montres en premier lieu - et ces raisons peuvent ne pas être les mêmes aujourd'hui qu'elles l'étaient au 20e siècle, lorsque les montres-bracelets ont gagné en popularité.

Comment les montres ont-elles trouvé une place aussi honorée à nos poignets ? Continue de lire.

1. Il était temps
2. Mode et guerre
3. L'âge d'or de la montre-bracelet
4. Est-il temps de dire au revoir à la montre-bracelet ?
5. Note de l'auteur

Le temps presse. Nous manquons de temps. Nous avons peur d'être en retard. Le temps, c'est de l'argent.

Vous entendez ces mots tous les jours. Le temps est si central dans nos vies qu'il est difficile de comprendre que jusqu'au 18e siècle, la plupart des gens ne pensaient pas beaucoup au temps. Pendant une grande partie de l'histoire humaine, nous avons marqué le temps par le changement des saisons et la position du soleil dans le ciel. Les gens utilisaient des signes naturels pour garder une trace de ce qu'ils avaient besoin de savoir et de faire. Lorsque des groupes de personnes avaient besoin de se rassembler à certains moments pour diverses raisons - des services religieux, par exemple - ils avaient des horloges publiques , peut-être avec des cloches à main, pour les alerter. Il y avait peu de sens que la plupart des individus avaient besoin de suivre de près le temps, ou au moins en minutes et en secondes, comme nous le faisons aujourd'hui.

Les choses ont commencé à changer à mesure que la société avançait à travers la Renaissance, le siècle des Lumières et finalement la révolution industrielle. À mesure que de plus en plus de personnes trouvaient du travail loin de chez elles et de leur ferme, elles devaient être au travail à l'heure. De plus, l'essor des transports en commun signifiait des horaires et des horaires qui devaient être respectés.

Le temps est devenu plus important pour les individus, mais il a fallu des développements scientifiques et technologiques pour que le temps soit disponible pour les gens ordinaires.

Les premiers chronométreurs étaient des cadrans solaires , des horloges à eau, des sabliers et des horloges mécaniques encombrantes avec des poids, des ressorts, des leviers et des cloches. Les horloges à pendule , développées au 17ème siècle, étaient plus précises, mais leur encombrement n'incitait pas vraiment les gens à porter des montres.

Le développement des ressorts hélicoïdaux pour déplacer l'aiguille (les premières montres n'avaient que des aiguilles des heures) a permis de rendre les horloges plus petites. Ceux qui étaient suffisamment petits pour être transportés étaient appelés montres. Il est généralement admis que les premières montres, fabriquées dans les années 1500, étaient encombrantes et lourdes. Certains étaient portés sur une ceinture autour de la taille et, plus tard, en pendentifs. Finalement, les montres de poche sont devenues populaires.

La révolution industrielle a rendu possibles les pièces interchangeables et la production de masse d'horloges relativement peu coûteuses - et, plus tard, de montres. Les montres personnelles sont devenues plus largement accessibles aux gens ordinaires, qui en avaient davantage besoin à mesure que la société changeait. Dans le même temps, les grandes maisons qui fabriquaient des montres chères et finement travaillées ont pris de l'importance.

Continuez à lire pour savoir comment la montre a migré vers le poignet.

Many sources credit Swiss watchmakers Pierre Jaquet-Droz and Jean-Frédéric Leschot as the first to make a watch to be worn on the wrist, in 1790 [sources: Tourneau, Jaquet-Droz]. They attached a watch to a woman's bracelet, but the idea didn't catch on.

Another fine Swiss watchmaker, Patek Philippe, is more widely credited with making the first wristwatch, in 1868. These watches were also for women, and were considered as much jewelry for wealthy women as accurate timepieces. They were often called wristlets. Later, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, less expensive wristwatches gained popularity among women due to mass production.

On the other hand, men preferred pocket watches, considering wristwatches ladylike because they would get in the way of a man's work.

More technological innovation -- and then war -- changed all that.

During the late 19th century, soldiers and sailors had problems carrying and using pocket watches at sea and on the battlefield. Some began improvising leather straps that would hold pocket watches on their wrists. Such watches were important in the German Imperial Navy in the 1880s and in the British victory in the Anglo-Boer War in South Africa around the turn of the 20th century, where British soldiers used wristwatches to coordinate troops and plan precisely timed attacks on Boer forces [source: Rolex].

A pilot's lament led to a huge jump in the evolution of the wristwatch at the turn of the 20th century. Albert Santos Dumont was a Brazilian aviation pioneer who reportedly complained to his friend, watchmaker Louis Cartier, that it was difficult to use his pocket watch while flying, and begged for an alternative. In 1904, Cartier created a man's pocket watch with a leather strap and buckle to solve his friend's problem [source: Santos Dumont Aircraft Management].

A decade later, the pressures of modern warfare made more military leaders recognize the value of wristwatches, as soldiers in World War I wore wristwatches so they could keep track of time while using their hands. It was official: Wristwatches were now manly. Pocket watches became much less common by the mid-20th century.

Early handcrafted watches could be made for the left or right wrist. But as watches gained popularity, they were usually made for the left wrist because most people are right-handed, and they found it easier to wind the watch with their right hand. What's more, their right hand could keep working when they checked the time. By the time electronic watches came on the market, the style of wearing watches on the left wrist was set, although some lefties wear watches on their right wrists.

In the late 20th century, any well-dressed person usually wore a wristwatch. Read on to find out why.

The 20th century was the golden era of the wristwatch. Mass production made them affordable for average people, and the First World War made them acceptable for men as well as women.

By the latter part of the 20th century, a watch was considered an essential part of the wardrobe for men and women. Many people had multiple watches: utilitarian models for sports and leisure; stylish models for business wear; and high-fashion, expensive styles for dress. For ladies, watches were available with interchangeable bands of colors and styles.

Good watches became status symbols. Watches were favorite graduation presents. Often, an expensive gold watch was the standard retirement gift. Men, especially, bought fine watches to bequeath as family heirlooms.

Electronic watches that never needed winding were developed, and quartz movements made such watches so inexpensive by the 1970s, that some makers of fine watches went out of business. Popular digital watches such as Timex and Casio can cost just a few dollars. Fashion watches such as Swatch are popular and sell for under $100. Bulova still makes affordable watches, and Seiko, Citizen and Fossil watches start at around $100. On the higher end of the scale, Tissot and Lucien Picard watches run in the hundreds.

By the latter 20th century, no fashionable man would feel fully dressed without a respectable watch on his wrist. But watchmakers courted a market among people who treasure fine watches, and in the second decade of the 21st century, highly crafted mechanical watches are still selling for hundreds and even thousands of dollars. Complicated watches with special mechanical features such as showing moon phases or tiny music boxes can sell for five or even six figures. And expensive ladies' watches decorated with jewels go back to the origin of the wristwatch as ornaments for wealthy women.

Among the leading fine watches today are names from wristwatch history such as Cartier and Patek Philippe. Rolex is probably the best-known higher-end watch. The Rolex Day-Date watch has been the choice of many American presidents. Some other luxury brands costing in the thousands -– in some cases, many thousands -- are Omega, Breitling, IWC , Panerai, Zenith, Jaeger LeCoultre and Vacheron Constantin.

But early in the 21st century, a growing technology began to threaten wristwatches. Are cell phones making watches obsolete? Keep reading for some answers.

As the second decade of the 21st century dawned, many observers started writing obituaries for the wristwatch [source: Robson]. After all, nearly every adult -- and many children -- in the world owned a cell phone , and even the most basic cell phones tell the time. Why bother with a wristwatch if all you have to do is glance at your phone? People who had come of age in the glory days of the wristwatch were often reluctant to change their dress style, but many younger people never bothered to start wearing a watch. Of course, watch sales dropped: According to consumer research firm Experian Simmons, only 42 million Americans bought watches for themselves in 2011 -- a significant decrease from the 55 million who did so in 2004 [source: Goetz].

But by early 2012, there were signs that watches might make a comeback. In an ironic twist, cell phones used as timepieces have some of the same drawbacks that made men abandon pocket watches for the wrist versions a century ago. And that's not all: There are several trends that suggest that wristwatches might not be going the way of other technological dinosaurs after all:

And finally, there are two seemingly contradictory trends helping watches survive.

On the one hand, as cell phones get ever smarter and offer such functions as calendars, calculators and stopwatches, some people are attracted to the simplicity of a nice-looking watch for the fashion or ornamental value. Remember, wristwatches started out more as jewelry than timepiece.

But on the other and, some watchmakers are going head-to-head with smart phones by making smart wristwatches. Some watches now offer global positioning. Others use Bluetooth technology to synchronize with smartphones and let a person to know with a glance at the wrist when a message or call arrives. One thing's for sure: Rumors of the wristwatch's demise have been greatly exaggerated.

For more information on the wristwatch and its history, take a look at the links on the next page.

I was interested in this topic because I've largely stopped wearing a watch. One reason is that my watch uses batteries faster than it should, but another is that I almost always have my smartphone available and use it as a timepiece. I took an informal survey by posting a question on Facebook. Out of about 30 responses, I found that people who tend to use their cell phones a lot are more likely to rely on them for the time. People who don't like cell phones or tend to misplace them still use watches. And then there are the people, mostly middle age, who say they simply "feel naked" without a wristwatch on.

The biggest revelation that came to me during my research was how short the history of wristwatches is. The generation that grew up in the mid-20th century is the main generation that grew up with wristwatches.. Their grandparents may not have had watches, and their parents probably did not until they were adults. And their children often never got into the habit of wearing wristwatches, relying instead on cell phones and other technology.

Even though I rarely wear my watch, I was heartened by evidence I found that watches might survive changing times.

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