Swatch watches were all the rage when I was in 7thgrade. It was the dawning of my sartorial awakening, when I first started to pay attention and refine my sense of fashion. I’d already had a few quirks and skirmishes with what I liked to wear versus what I was expected to wear versus what everyone else was wearing. I longed to fit in just as much as I wished to stand out, to be part of something as much as being popular for being different. The right Swatch would be a sign of status, and a sign of knowing what was in style. I just had to find the right one.
Studying the Swatch catalog, I pored over the more colorful selections – and on each page they showed one large one paired with one smaller one. I didn’t even know that the difference was that one was meant for men and one was meant for women – that’s how young and uncultured I was. The ways of the watch were as foreign as the gender connotations attached to each. Maybe that’s also how genius and untouched by cultural sexist norms and restrictions I was as well. Such gender distinctions were not part of my cultural vocabulary. If I liked something it had nothing to do with whether it was designed for a man or a woman. (And everything I liked tended to be traditionally feminine.) Children don’t see such things until society imposes its ugly and onerous design.
When it came to choosing which Swatch I wanted, part of me was drawn to the garish Harajuku models of mashed up colors and designs – the gaudy embodiment of the neon-saturated 1980’s – but I worried that such a selection would not wear well with the passing of time. For all my budding love of crazy colors and flamboyant statements, I was (and remain) a pretty simple guy when it comes to everyday accessories, particularly for something like a watch. A simple black option, with a white face and simple numbers in the smaller size was what I ended up choosing. I liked the smaller one because it fit my slender stick of a wrist better. It was also more elegant and unobtrusive, and would work with any and every outfit.
Like my first and only pair of saddle shoes, I was excited to wear it. That excitement was short-lived, as a classmate asked if it was a women’s watch. I couldn’t tell if she was making fun of me – she had only the slightest smile which I couldn’t determine to be sinister or sweet, and I didn’t know what to say. She left it alone when I said I just liked it better than the big one. But the shame spread over my reddened face regardless, and, more insidiously, crept into my heart where it took root and sent out an invasive vine of inhibition and shyness, like some pretty but destructive wisteria. It joined similar vines, intertwining and creating an impenetrable mess. I’ve never forgotten that moment. There aren’t many times in life when you can actually experience and realize the end of childhood innocence as it’s happening, but that was one of mine.
