S02E22: Make it Black: How the World Got Optimized Into One Color

S02E22: Make it Black: How the World Got Optimized Into One Color Description: Henry Ford said you could have a Model T in any color you liked, so long as it was black. The reason you were taught, that black paint dried faster, is mostly a myth. The real reason is the one that runs this whole episode: one color means the line never has to stop. This bonus episode starts with a man in a good suit standing very still at the 1923 New York Auto Show, watching seven blue cars stop a crowd in its tracks. That man is Alfred Sloan, and his bet against Ford was that ordinary people would pay real money for something that does nothing for the engine, nothing for the price, and everything for the feeling that the thing you own is a little bit yours. He won. The lacquer that let him do it, DuPont's Duco, started life as a coating sold to pencil makers. Then it lands on your wrist. The shared workhorse movements from ETA, Sellita, Miyota and Seiko are the Japan Black of watchmaking, and they are a gift: they are the reason a real mechanical watch costs about what a nice dinner costs. But the same logic that made those movements cheap also decides which dial colors you are offered, and why grand feu enamel, guilloché and hand anglage cost what they cost. Every one of those is the line grinding to a halt so somebody can swap the paint. That is not a flaw in craft. That is the definition of it. Plus a roll call of the makers who stop the line on purpose: Kari Voutilainen and the Comblémine dial workshop, Ochs und Junior letting you pick your own colors, Garrick, Stefan Kudoke, Sarpaneva, and Roger W. Smith making ten watches a year by hand on an island. Efficiency built the modern world and we are grateful for it. But your watch is one of the very few things in a grown adult's life that gets to be the watercolor instead of the crayon. Do not let the same thing happen to your wrist. Keywords: Model T, Henry Ford, Japan Black, Alfred Sloan, General Motors, DuPont Duco, Viscolac, True Blue Oakland, assembly line, standardization, mass production, ETA movements, Sellita, Miyota, Seiko, Seiko 5, Rolex Submariner, no-date Submariner, grand feu enamel, guilloché, anglage, black polish, hand finishing, dial making, Kari Voutilainen, Comblémine, Ochs und Junior, Ludwig Oechslin, Garrick, Stefan Kudoke, Sarpaneva, Roger W. Smith, independent watchmaking, watch podcast