Edition 002: The Craft Issue

In the high-tech world of watchmaking, design and engineering know how naturally tend to take centre stage in the effort to make precise, reliable and lasting mechanical timepieces. These are the bedrock of what we do at Aera. But there is a third, equally vital element we depend on, that is a vital part of the creation of all useful things. Craft is essentially the practical application of knowledge where applying the marriage of hand and eye is honed by experience and perfected by repeated gestures, like the stitching of leather, the shaping of wood or even the meticulous brushing and polishing of an Aera watch case. Ancient Greek philosophers like Plato got deep into the true meaning of art, using the word ‘techne' equally for both “art” and “craft”. Today, we would naturally make the distinction that craft is the creation of useful things while art is the creation of decorative things, even if we like to think that there is also great beauty in our highly functional watches. In a world increasingly besotted with corner-cutting AI, the human touch is the long game. Craft is what makes us fall in love and stay in love with the objects we covet. This month in the Aera journal, we explore and celebrate craft, this innately human side of creativity.

The Last Word

Craft is nothing, it seems, without the humanity that underpins it. Marcel Wanders is one half of groundbreaking Amsterdam based design house Moooi, and a multidisciplinary industrial designer, architect and interior designer in his own right. For him, craft takes many forms. His Rainbow Necklace, something he wears every day, was painstakingly created several years ago using kaleidoscopic beads collected from across the globe in an intensely personal project, in an edition of one, it is comprised of 35 individual beads, each reflecting a singular aspect of his own experience. There’s Murano glass and Bizazza mosaic from Italy and blue and white “one minute” clay Delft ceramics from his native Netherlands that he made with is daughter Joy. There is everything from the sacred - like the red and white fertility beads from Africa - to the mundane, in miniature golf balls and the humorous – including a gallstone and a Viagra pill. For Wanders, who has collaborated with global mega brands, imagineered new hotels and restaurants, the necklace is a personal talisman, and one without which he never travels anywhere.