Watches - Part 1

As I've said before, I'm a collector of a lot of things. I'm always on the hunt for new things to collect, albeit never consciously, it just falls in my lap. One of the things I started collecting years ago is watches. It all started, when my parent's gave me a Ole Mathiesen watch, when I graduated high school, which replaced some awful quartz watches, I had been wearing until then. Nowadays I almost never wear quartz watches, although it can be funny sometimes.

I wanted to show off my collection of watches, which are almost entirely vintage. Not because they are good - a matter of fact most of them are completely worthless - but because I think old watches have an inherent beauty, that a lot of new watches don't have. Most of my watches are either given to my, found on flea markets or bought in antique stores, so none of them represent any real value besides affection.

And if you are wondering, why there are some women's watches among them, I can only say, I've never never passed on a watch, just because it is a women's watch. I'm sure, they'll all make some friend or girlfriend happy.

A little about the concept. All photos are shot by Niels Hjorth in series of 5-6 watches on a different background. The background is found in another collection of mine - my big collection of vintage fabrics. No editing has been done to photos in order to show the grime, dirt and patina on vintage watches.

Winter Must Have: Försvarets Hudsalva

Neighbouring countries always seem to have some sort of friendly competition and sometimes even jokes about the stereotypes from the neighbouring country. This is of course also the case with Denmark and Sweden. I won't be going into details with any of the jokes. I will only say, that I'm generally very fond of all of our neighbours. And especially Sweden. 

The Swedish military has even fostered a lot of cool things. Like the camo pattern, M90 and if you ever come across any vintage gear from the Swedish military like their storage boxes and jackets, you'll realize, that they were doing something right.

However I would probably say, that the one thing I like the most, is their lip balm, called Försvarets Hudsalva. This product was ordered by the Swedish military some time in the 1950's and since it has been a massive hit. The original purpose was to avoid chafing wounds, and probably also to put on the skin to avoid frostbite. But today it is mostly considered a lip balm because because of its slight vanilla scent and flavour. But you can use it everywhere needed (apparently also for frying food), which makes it sort of the male equivalent of the "Eight Hour Cream" by Elizabeth Arden. And the packaging isn't too bad either - very masculine and it reminds me of the small container, that films for analog cameras would come in. By the way it's still made in Sweden, in case you care about that.

If I had a shop, I would definitely be selling this. I think it might be sort of a hidden gem, unless you live in Sweden, but I still hope, that this will get a larger, easier distribution.

These photographs were taken by my friend and photographer, Niels Hjorth. Hopefully Niels will help raise the standard of the pictures used on ATD over the coming months, as we are discussing a lot of different projects. Hopefully they will all materialize in the new year.