Unlike the original version with subdials marked “New York,” “L.A.,” “Tokyo,” and “Paris,” Drake’s watches are unmarked and feature curvy Alain Silberstein-like handsets, making it slightly harder to tell the time. Back in 2004, of course, it might reasonably be assumed that the wearer of a Five Time Zone watch might actually be using it to reference the time around the world. In the age of the smartphone, legibility is probably beyond the point— Drake probably isn’t glancing down angrily at his wrist in a club at 3 a.m. trying to discern the hour in Paris.
Arabo’s Five Time Zone was the perfect product of its time: colorful, loud, and, with its useful complication, global. The model predated the more formal relationship between hip-hop and fine watchmaking—or music and fine watchmaking, more broadly. The Five Time Zone spoke to Arabo’s star clients’ jet-setting lifestyle, and fit in well with the brash and bold way in which both men and women were dressing in the early 2000s. While many early adopters of Jacob & Co.’s signature piece may have upgraded their tastes to complicated Patek or ultra-high-tech Richard Mille—Jay-Z and Pharell come to mind—Jacob & Co. is still very much part of the hip-hop conversation. Indeed, having upped his game from quartz to über-complicated mechanical pieces, Arabo’s watches still have a place on the wrists of the rich and famous. No wonder Drake couldn’t help but rock two Five Time Zones simultaneously.
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