We all know what we mean when we talk about luxury. But, at the same time, we all have different opinions about what luxury really is, and this difference in opinion is even more evident in the present day. On the one hand, we have those who embrace the old-school concept of luxury and believe that more expensive means more luxurious and hence, better. On the other hand, we have the bold people who understand luxury as a lifestyle and consider items that fit into this category to be luxurious regardless of their price tags. Such is the case of every global citizen who wears the future on their left wrist in the shape of a Seventh watch. Read on and find out which side of the discussion suits your way of thinking.
Let´s start from the beginning and shed some light on a concept that has been around for a really long time: What is luxury? The dictionary definition is, “A state of great comfort or elegance, especially when involving great expense.” Also, some of the synonyms of the word include opulence, sumptuousness, richness, costliness, grandeur, grandness,and magnificence.
When it comes to deciding on the luxury factor in watches, we can divide them into two specific groups that are very different:
Other than these two age-old categories, the juxtaposition of user and collector leads to a third category comprising of the watches that provide a certain status to the owner thereby elevating the price tag. One of the best examples to explain this phenomenon is, for example, the concept of fashion trends. When an item becomes fashionable, then the price tag no longer reflects production costs or materials, but rather it becomes dependent on the market demand. Once the demand rises due to the product turning into a fashion trend, the next step by the company is to raise the price.
This is a newly-added category that has arrived on the market to challenge all that has gone before. Handcrafted wooden watches by emerging but flawless brands such as Seventh have come to defy our definition and concepts of luxury. But what is the determining difference between wooden watches and all other kinds? They are products that cannot be judged within the same parameters as other watches. The category which they belong to has not properly been identified as a collector´s piece (which doesn´t mean it won’t in time) and it is not priced as a status item like most luxury watches are nowadays. Wooden watches are one of the very few categories in the world where the price tag actually resembles the manufacturing cost of the item.
There is a lot more to the wooden-watch revolution than meets the eye and this has to do with the materials and the concepts behind each timepiece. Let´s take, as an example, the wooden watches that Seventh manufactures and see how these factors play out in determining their worth both monetarily and as a luxury item:
Starting out with the classic notion of what luxury used to be and arriving at what luxury is now in the 21st Century took us on a long journey. Some people are ready to walk that path and others are not. But what is undeniable is that the appearance of premium quality wooden watches in the world shifted the paradigm of what a luxurious item looks like.
Usually, for an item that is such a novelty and part of the fashion bandwagon, the price tag should sit well above the four and five-digit range. Moreover, the more people who buy them, the higher the price goes – this is the general rule. However, this is not the case with wooden watches, especially those made by Seventh, asyou can get them for well below the four-digit mark. Some of the models available on the market really stand out and can help you make a luxurious, beautiful, and eco-friendly statement about yourself.
Since the wood used for their construction comes from eco-forests, the extraction costs are very low compared to those of extracting metal from the earth. Also, the craftsmanship of the watches greatly reduces expenses because there are no high-temperature melting and molding processes involved in making the timepieces. All these steps reduce the cost of the end product and make it a more realistic proposition for the 21st Century marketplace.
Because they are reliable, affordable and eco-friendly, it becomes rather an easy conclusion to draw that the watches of the future may well all be made out of wood because of the ethical sourcing of the construction material. The general mindset of the various manufacturing industries of today is warming towards the development of eco-friendly products which, in turn, plays a major role in bringing wooden watches into the limelight of modern and luxurious fashion items.
For a single item to defy so many categories contributing to the concept globally known as ‘Luxury’ is astounding. The wooden watches revolution is just the tip of the iceberg with a principle that defies those established categories that are often taken for granted on a daily basis. The future has arrived; are you a part of the change, or are you a part of the past? The answer to that question might very well be on your wrist.