You're So Vain

Here's another example of the deepening rift between Europe and the US from the WSJ.

NEW YORK -- Underneath the gleaming countertops at Tiffany & Co.'s flagship store, classic gold watches feature "IIII" as their fourth digit. John Loring, Tiffany's design director, says he wouldn't have it any other way.

"You cannot possibly balance the weight of the VIII on the left by putting an IV on the right," he says. "It unbalances the whole thing."

But now IV watches are sold at Tiffany, too, including models made by the tony Swiss watchmaker Patek Philippe, of Geneva. The company has started using IV because that allows more features to fit on a dial.

The success of several new IV watches sold by Gucci Group's Bedat & Co., another Swiss watchmaker, is similarly challenging a central tenet of watchmaking that IIII goes better with VIII than IV does.

The new styles associated with European luxury and sophistication have sparked an outcry among purists who maintain that IIII is the proper way to represent 4 o'clock. "We clock people maintain that the Romans marked their fours that way, so that's why we do it," says John Metcalfe, former curator of the National Association of Watch & Clock Collectors' museum in Columbia, Pa.

Historians agree. "IIII is probably the more normal ancient usage," says James J. O'Donnell, professor of classics and provost of Georgetown University in Washington. Though the ancient Romans sometimes used IV to save space, he says, the shorthand didn't catch on until after the Middle Ages when people began using Roman numerals as decorations and IV started appearing in textbooks. Some horologists -- experts on timepieces -- theorize that the Romans used IV as an abbreviation of the name Jove or Jupiter and therefore wouldn't have wanted the name of a god to appear as a number.

Those in the IV league say it's time for a change. "It's unique and different from the industry," says Christian Bédat, who founded Bedat with his mother, Simone Bédat, in 1996.

The clash over the fourth digit deepens a rift between European and American watchmakers. While the Europeans traditionally have emphasized handcrafting and limited collectors' items, Americans have focused on simpler watches that are easier to produce. Four I's was seen as the plainest way to represent 4.

"The American time industry was built on mass production," says Daryn Schnipper, director of Sotheby's Watches and Clocks department. "There were production contests over how many could you make in a day."

We clock people? BUWHAHAHAHA!

However This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no fooling around

Half a dozen Web sites have sprung up in defense of the IIII method. The National Association of Watch & Clock Collectors maintains a file on the subject.

Well. Files are kept, names taken.

No matter where you come down on the issue of IV or IIII, this is just wrong:

Bedat dials also stand out because they replace the Roman numeral eight with an Arabic eight, eliminating the need to balance a heavy VIII with a heavy IIII. "On my dial it balances. It's subtle, and lighter than the four bars," says Mr. Bédat of his IV. He says he has never heard a customer comment on the IV -- though many notice the 8.

Tiffany's intrepid Mr. Loring refuses to budge even in the face of damning evidence:

The IV also appears in some unexpected places -- on the clocktower known as Big Ben in London and on a fall 2001, $65 Eddie Bauer watch. Even the 151-year-old Tiffany clock adorning the company's Fifth Avenue store features an IV, despite the more traditional view of Tiffany's Mr. Loring.

"The basic way of counting is on your hands," he says, "and your hand clearly has four fingers to get to four."

It's nice to know that we in the West have our priorities in order; the proper number 4 on our $45,000 Patek Philippe watches.

(Ed- You checked your watch, didn't you?)

Posted by feste at September 25, 2004 11:10 AM | TrackBack