Teddy Baldassarre
10 Watches That Don't Tell Time? Look a Bit Closer
By definition, watches, no matter whatever else they might do in addition, are made to tell time. As a rule, the vast majority of watches do this in analog fashion with the use of two rotating hands, one for the hour, the other for the minute, often with an additional hand to track the running seconds. But every so often, you’ll run across the proverbial exception that proves the rule - a timepiece whose design is so radical, so outside the mainstream in design, that at first glance (sometimes even at the second or third) it appears that you can’t read the time on it at all. Even most of these avant-garde pieces, however, have been designed with the purpose of timekeeping in mind, even if this basic function is overshadowed or reduced to an aesthetic afterthought by the more spectacular elements the watch offers. Here is a selection of 10 very interesting watches (actually, nine watches and one example of high-end wrist-worn art), most of which actually do tell you the time - as long as you know how to read them. F.P. Journe FFC F.P. Journe founder Francois-Paul Journe teamed up with legendary Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola to conceptualize and produce the original FFC watch, a unique piece in a tantalum case that fetched $4.93 million at the 2021 Only Watch auction, becoming the highest-selling F.P. Journe watch in the indie brand’s nearly 25 years of existence. Journe added a platinum-cased model to its regular collection in 2023 with the same visual...
