Introducing 'Dialed In': Esquire's Essential Video Guide to Watches Worth the Investment
When, in early March 2020, right at the beginning of the pandemic, we launched Esquire’s weekly Dialed In column on Esquire.com, it was partly—if we’re honest—an effort to make best use of a sudden and unexpected glut in down time. But it was also because we love watches. And we knew we would probably never run out of stories about them. Two-and-a-half years on, and well over one hundred columns in, we still haven’t.
Today, Esquire expands its coverage of all things watches with the debut of a monthly Dialed In video program on Esquire.com and YouTube, one that will, like its written counterpart, try to get a bead on great, iconic watches new and (occasionally) old to suit a broad range of pockets, try to get behind their mystical, mythical appeal, and maybe, uncover something interesting in the process. In this first episode, streaming above, we slip beneath the surface with one of the most popular watch types out there, the steely, macho dive watch.
Why? It doesn’t really matter if you have $500 or a cool Mill burning a hole in your pocket, if you just want to own one great watch or an entire collection, no one actually needs a watch these days. You can get everything you need to know and way more from your smartphone. So, if you wear a watch, therefore, it must be about more than needing to know what time it is, right? You can spend a hundred bucks or a literal fortune on a single watch. And you know what, they pretty much all tell the time. So why are we so obsessed with them?
There are relatively few long-term purchases that you get to make that can compare with a good watch. Whatever your budget, wristwatches have assumed an ever-increasing importance in the pursuit of style. Unlike fashion that comes and goes, watches tend to stick around and travel with us on our life’s journey, if we’re lucky, for years. Watches are, then, for many of us, a clear and enduring expression of luxury, one that telegraphs all sorts of things about us, our success, our lifestyles, our tastes, and our love of a good story.
The need to understand how things work is a natural human impulse. It was always that way. Watches are fascinating machines, conceived and perfected to do one simple thing and do it well, in theory, forever. No doubt a brain surgeon could explain why they work so persuasively on our minds that often, we feel we can’t live without several of them. A qualified shrink could perhaps explain why watches trigger the same obscure part of our brains that would otherwise compel some of us to go out train-spotting or fixing up old cars in the yard. At least we’re not in the pub. Join us while we try to find out what makes us tick.
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