Michael Benavente does not mince his words. He’s the CEO of the Bulova watch brand. And he calls it all “propaganda”: the sustained marketing effort which ensures that, if you have a watch with a quartz movement (one, in other words, driven by microchip and battery) you aspire to own one with a mechanical movement (one with all those tiny cogs and wheels). And that if you already own a mechanical watch, you almost certain to look down on anything with a quartz movement.
This attitude is, he contends, the product of a deep-seated, reflexive – you might say institutional – fear of quartz.