A Perfectly Useless Afternoon Watch By Mr. Jones

Are you afraid I got heatstroke? Well, who hasn’t these days… The moment I bumped into A Perfectly Useless Afternoon Watch, I fell in love. Despite the fact it’s a quartz watch. The amazing lugs and a witty dial are a great reminder to overheat from all the hard work and to just have an easy time during this exhausting period. Let’s take a break.

When I met my wife, she already had two watches in what has since become a bulging collection. The first one was (and still is) a Cartier Tank. The other one was a funky quartz watch by Mr. Jones Watches that she fell in love with during her studies in London. I said WAS, because since we‘ve moved to our new place, we are not really sure of its whereabouts…

Mr. Jones Watches

A picture of the watch you are looking at landed in my WhatsApp a couple of days ago. It came from my Dutch watch friend Bram. When I saw it listed in the Mr. Jones Watches shop, I instantly knew what’s going on. The British manufacturer left a true impact thanks to his unconventional and creative designs, often released in limited editions.

A Perfectly Useless Afternoon Watch

This watch is a result of the London based manufacturer and his collaboration with a Belgian Illustrator and Author Kristof Devos. To explain the watch, Kristof quotes the Chinese writer, translator, linguist, and philosopher Lin Yutang. “If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.“ Some would argue; many would agree.

I already feel like I am at the pool…

If you know how it feels to be chained to your desk on a hot summer’s day, just the tiniest glimpse at this dial has to make you feel better. A chilled person in a polka-dot bathing suit is relaxing on a rubber ring. The left foot resting peacefully on the “donut“; the right foot sunk into the water. I already feel like I am at the pool…

How it works

I think the obvious doesn’t need to be explained, but the stretched leg shows the hour. The tiny lonely plastic duck floats around to show you the minutes. I like it when the when minute hand — sorry, the duck — floats behind the back of the chilling person. The duck looks so abandoned, that the whole situation looks even more bizarre.

Reading time is actually a perfectly straightforward experience. Kudos to the visual effect that is the same as when you look from a great height through the water on the tiles sitting at the bottom of the pool. In this way, Kristof naturally designed hour indexes. They are there and they are not there at the same time.

The case

The watch has an acceptable 37mm in diameter and quite a creative case. The crown is half-sunken into the case, which is welcome. You won’t need to touch it often due to the independence and longevity of the quartz movement. I can’t say what that element on the left side of the case is. It’s shaped like a button that mimics the crown on the other side. But it doesn’t have any other function than to decorate the case further and to puzzle us.

Visit from the moon

What I found particularly amusing are the lugs. If you look at them you can see so many things in them. They are long and thin, with suction-cup-styled ends that remind me of an alien spaceship construction that just landed on planet Earth. Press images show A Perfectly Useless Afternoon Watch on a silver stainless steel bracelet, but you have at least ten other options. Turquoise or orange silicon bands don’t look too bad at all, either!.

The watch was made by the Mr. Jones Watches team in London. Each layer of the design is printed individually and hand-assembled by the small MWJ team. The website says that the color palette of A Perfectly Useless Afternoon Watch has been slightly changed to distinguish it from the limited version.

Last thoughts

It makes me happy to support smaller watch brands here and there. A Perfectly Useless Afternoon Watch reminds me of the other one I supported earlier this year. The Comb Over by Triwa, a watch that made it from an April Fools Idea into serial production. If you feel like you have £175 to spend on a watch that’s definitely not on your wish list, this Mr. Jones Watch offers a brief (and affordable) respite from the humdrum…

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