The Marc Newson Hourglass for Hodinkee

Watch the video and read this. I’ll update this post with my comments later today.

Update: OK, so my take on this is going to upset many of you. I first saw this last night via this tweet from Marco Arment, and I read through the replies and every single one of them was mocking either the entire premise of an exquisite hourglass or at the very least the price.

I think this looks beautiful, and I don’t think there’s anything crazy about it costing $12,000. I’m not buying one. But all sorts of pieces of art cost tens of thousands of dollars, and I say this is most definitely art. Newson’s previous hourglass design, for Ikepod, ranged from $13,000–40,000.

I do find it odd that every unit is numbered “1/100” rather than giving each piece a unique number — “1/100”, “2/100”, … “100/100”. And Hodinkee isn’t doing themselves any favors with some of the precious bits of copywriting (e.g. “approximately 1,249,996 little spheres” is not an approximation). But if you don’t see anything ludicrous about a mechanical watch costing in excess of $10,000 (or $100,000, or more) why is there something ludicrous about a $12,000 hourglass?

The world is full of cheaply-made mass-produced crap. Why not celebrate the creation of something genuinely beautiful?

★ Wednesday, 24 May 2017