The Sartorialist Returns, The Lange Odysseus, & The Watch That Came In From The Cold¶
Published on Mon, 2 Dec 2019 11:00:33 +0000
Writing new chapters, tellings others' stories, and digging up the past.
Synopsis¶
This episode of Hodinkee Radio features three distinct segments showcasing different aspects of horology and storytelling. The first segment presents a conversation between Ben Clymer and Wilhelm Schmid, CEO of A. Lange & Söhne, discussing the launch of the Odysseus—the brand's first serially produced stainless steel watch. Schmid explains the reasoning behind creating a steel sports watch after 25 years of predominantly producing dress watches in precious metals, addressing concerns that it contradicts Lange's heritage while emphasizing that clients had long requested a watch suitable for casual wear and active lifestyles. He discusses the controversial reception, the challenges of ramping up production, and his philosophy that truly innovative watches should generate strong opinions rather than universal acceptance.
The second segment features host Stephen Polverant's conversation with photographer Scott Schuman (The Sartorialist) about his new book, "The Sartorialist: India." Schuman discusses his departure from his typical global street style photography to focus on capturing the diversity within a single country, presenting a modern, vibrant India that contrasts with typical photographic clichés. He explains his approach to portraiture, the challenges of shooting as a conspicuous Western photographer in India, and how the project allowed him to explore landscape and documentary photography beyond his usual work. Schuman also touches on his friendship with photographer Steve McCurry and his upcoming menswear book, which will feature more of his own writing.
The episode concludes with Cole Pennington performing his story "The Watch That Came In From the Cold"—a remarkable piece of Cold War history about a Rolex watch that belonged to Norman Schwartz, a civilian pilot contracted by the CIA who was killed during a covert mission in China in 1952. The story traces how Schwartz's nephew, Eric Kurzinger, spent decades uncovering the truth about his uncle's classified mission and eventual recovery of the watch and partial remains in 2004, culminating in Schwartz finally receiving posthumous recognition with a star on the CIA Memorial Wall.
Links¶
Transcript¶
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| Unknown | You know, maybe I overthink photographs too much, but uh uh finding the cover uh photograph for a book is it's very, very tricky. And so this picture on the cover, it's uh uh a gentleman probably in his early 60 ands has a very obvious visual charisma. You know, it's I think a good portrait of him, but there's a lot of little things. I like the fact that he's sitting forward a little bit. He's kind of looking at you, but the fact that he's got sunglasses on, it doesn't make it uncomfortable to look back at him. You know, for me it only works if you see the person first, but then the clothes kind of help tell you something about who this person might be |
| Unknown | . Hey everybody, I'm your host Stephen Polverant and this is Hodinky Radio. It's hard to believe 2019 is almost over, but we've got a ton of great stories to bring you before the year is out. And one of those is a conversation between our founder Ben Klymer and Mr. Wilhelm Schmid, the CEO of A Long and Sona. A little over a month ago, Longa released the Odysseus, their first serially produced stainless steel watch. It's generated a ton of conversation, it's one of the most talked-about watches of the year, and this is your chance to get the inside story of how this watch came to be and how it's doing so far. Up next we've got my conversation with Scott Schumann, the Sartorialist. Scott was a guest on a previous episode, but I wanted to bring him back to talk about his new book, The Sartorialist India. It's his photography, unlike you've ever seen it before, but in a way that should probably feel familiar too. Scott's an amazing guy, and this is a super fun conversation. To close out this week's episode, we've got our own Cole Pennington performing the story that he wrote for the cover of Hodinki Magazine Volume 5. The story's called The Watch That Came In From the Cold, and I don't want to spoil too much. You're just gonna have to listen to it. He did an incredible job reporting this story and does an even better job performing it. It's a story about a watch that was lost for decades and has an amazing story to tell. Alright, without further ado, let's get into it. This week's episode is presented by Taghoir. Stay tuned later in the show to learn about the iconic Monaco celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. For more, visit Taghoir.com |
| Unknown | . We have a very special guest in the office today. We have a man that is wearing a watch that is among the most discussed watches of at least the last three weeks to a month. Uh it is the A Langa and Son uh Odysseus. Uh and the man wearing that watch is uh no less than the CEO, Mr. Wilhelm Schmid. How are you, Wilhelm? I'm very well then. So how uh how have things been going since uh the launch of this watch? We we we |
| Unknown | did expect um that people were getting engaged. Um but you know it's the first time that we launch a watch with the digital ecosystem that we have today. Right. Um and it's interesting to see that at least it's the watch not launched without emotions. You could say that. You could say that. Um and um that's the first observation. So from the word go, people uh had an opinion. Um some liked it, some didn't, um, for all different reasons. But um you know, as much as we like to be loved by everybody, I believe if you launch a new watch, it's better that it's controversial in the beginning because that also means you you have something which has a sharp profile. |
| Unknown | So how would you respond to those who would say and I've seen it on our own site and and elsewhere that you know th this watch is kind of counter to what Langa has been and what what you guys stand for. You guys in met in in you know I've said it publicly, I'll say it again. You guys are producing arguably the finest serially made watches on the planet, uh typically dress watches on actually all, predominantly on leather straps, and now you're doing something in steel. And again, you know, short of though those very special longa ones and um one or two weird pieces here and there. You've never done that before. What w why did you do this watch in steel when you could just as easily have done it in gold, for examp |
| Unknown | le? What I've heard quite often from our clients is I wear your watches all year long, but then when I'm the most relaxed person and you know I enter the most precious time of the year with my family, I'm on holiday, I struggle to to to where you because I think it's not so much the gold, it's more the leather strap. Um and and and of course if you go to beach, if you go to the swimming pool, if you go skiing, if you you know, you just live a casual life, a leather strap um doesn't come to your mind. So that's what we've heard literally for the last twenty five years and and let me also clearly say even Mr. Blumlein had ideas launching a watch Is that true? Right. And Mr. Blumler was a good person. He would never leave something premature. Um so if it's not strong m he would not he would not launch it. So that's why it took so long. Um and if people don't like it I accept that but it you know at least it is definitely something which has not been there before in that combination, in that design, and it's a family at will, it's the first of of many watches to come. It's |
| Unknown | not like that's a standalone watch. Right. And so how what percentage of your of your collective decision to do this is there's the very obvious, you know, kinda reason which would be like, Hey, the hottest watches in the world right now are steel sports watches from whoever, even from Pat Tech, Rolex, Omega, you name it. Uh so there's there's that percentage of the decision making. And then there's the more emotional side, which is what you just mentioned, which is hey, you know, you wanna create a watch that is with people in their most precious moments. So how did that decision break down? And I realize that they're not mutually exclusive. It can be b |
| Unknown | Again we are a business. Yeah, we produce something which is very beautiful, but at the end we have to pay our bills. So there's always a business decision that is involved. But uh first of all, what we see today, um you would have not seen years ago. And and we started working on that watch a long time before the market became as hot as it probably is at the moment within that specific segment. That's the first observation. The second observation, the date was clear long long long time ago. It was the twenty fourth of October um twenty nineteen because we wanted to hit twenty-five years after we launched the first four watches, the sixth family. So, you know, they were that these are and these are very emotional things. He could have launched at SIHH, but we thought, you know, it's a lot better to have a date that is historically significant significant for us, and that's why we choose that specific day. So I believe steel watches has always been the biggest market on the planet for a manufacturer that produces a few thousand watches Yeah. Do you honestly think we change anything in the world regardless what watch we come up with? Right. So you know, and and and as this is a a proper allang on Zone Wchat. Um you know with an in-house developed movement, uh movement that is sp specifically done for this watch with a face that we want to keep on, um rest assured the same |
| Unknown | Mm-hmm. So how do you and you know to to differentiate what what Lange does versus mm I mean the other great fa the other great manufacturers, AP, Patek, Vashron, etc. And those are obviously friends and and peers of ours. Langa tends to make a new movement for every watch. Whereas other folks might recycle the same self winding movement uh I I think I wouldn't sit here if |
| Unknown | I would make financial stupid things, quite frankly. So obviously yes, we know what we do. And I don't mean that by no means arrogant. But um we start from a design. I think the hardest was to find a face that will be different. That's not a looker like Gerald Genta. That you know is in line with the design language that we stand for. But again, it has to be different to any other offer that we had so far. And believe you me, that was the hardest part of the whole journey to find an idea strong enough to become a family, recognizable like a language one or a Zeitwerk or a datograph. Um and and and not a watch that you can find on the market from other brands um or that have been there before. And that's uh if you have that, um that automatically means you probably don't have a movement that you can put next to it because otherwise it would have been there before. Uh so then you start from scratch. Um so unfortunately the way we develop new watches uh usually ends up by uh the the new construction of a movement because you know we like the design but and we have nothing that you can just pluck in |
| Unknown | and play. Sure. And how has has Longa's business changed over the past, say, five years or so? Has digital really changed how people are buying? Uh are people looking for return on investment now more than they ever were before? How how have things changed in the past few years Ben it's pretty |
| Unknown | clear if today well first of all we are I believe you buy our watches because you know about watches. It's not a spontaneous impulse by of somebody that's walking by. Uh might happen, but I think that's rather the exception than the rule. So usually uh our customers they they do know a fair amount about watches. Uh Um and where in the past, you know, we had that discussion this morning. Do you know when the first specialized magazine, watch magazine, came out in Germany? I don't. 1989. So in those days the only way to inform yourself was either you know asking for for for catalogues and brochures or these specialized magazines. Today I would like to believe that ninety eight percent of the purchasing decision is done totally independent from any physical touch point with the brand that's done in the digital world. Right. Um it's quick, it's easy, it's transparent, you can compare. And if you have trustworthy sources, how to gather information, it's the quickest and the best way to do it. Um I think that's the biggest change that we see in the industry. Um that people, you know, that's that' |
| Unknown | s the way they get their information. Mm-hmm. And has has that really impacted your bottom line or your business? Aaron Powell the biggest |
| Unknown | Misconception is that if you see a watch um on the internet it that that it is available. Right. You know, that's that's that's w a lot of our watches are simply not available or if they are available it,' its's it's a it's a coincidence but it's not planned. And that's that's the the bridge to the physical world that we still have to manage. You see it all, but then people wanna try it on and and let's say a watch like the Datograph Lumen uh or the Odysseus, um an Aventurine Thin. Unfortunately they are not available. You know, it's it's it's it's you're lucky if one just hits a boutique or an ID and you can have a look at it, but probably won't see it. So that's still the one thing that we have to to catch. I I don't see that it the taste has changed, quite frankly. We celebrated this year twenty five years of Lange One. Um and Langa One is still popular. And the Lange One is still popular. How many watches are there in the market? I think if you have a strong design and don't get me wrong, I'm pretty sure in the beginning there were a lot of people that said Jesus, what a teutonic watch. Huh? It's huge, thirty eight and a half millimeter and ninety-four was not a small watch. Yeah. Um decentralized all over the place. And then you know who on earth needs a big date and why is it blank? Um I'm pretty sure we don't have the digital ecosystem then, but I'm pretty sure you know the discussions were as controversial with that watch back then than it is right now with the Odysseus. Also, what is Germany doing making a watch, period, right? I mean for for example, yes, yes. Communist. So um I I I I you know, it was a different ecosystem, that's why we probably um have not realized the discussions. Yeah and the discussions have not been shared with so many people so quickly right um probably the same with the sidewalk two thousand and nine the ecosystem was totally different and I know for sure that amongst collectors and watch lovers, that watch has been discussed hugely controversial. Yeah. Such a cool watch. It is today a very cool watch, but believe you me, as we launched it, there were a lot of people that would know they're losing it. You know. Digital watch. Uh why on earth from Lang und Zöne? Yeah. Um but it's again, you know, I just tells us a story. If if if if you be brave, if you be different, if you be the first with something, um and distinctive, you have to accept that not everybody likes you, but but you ofto you also can hope that over time, you |
| Unknown | know, you you you will get a reward for this. Yeah, absolutely. It it's funny, I'm thinking, you know, now we haven't seen each other in in in a while, but about a year ago you sat on a panel with our mutual friend Francois from from AP. And at the time kind of we didn't really know what what was coming from either one of your brands. You both had really controversial launches. And in many ways, you know, to put it kind of really at a superficial level, you're kind of dipping a toe into his world and he's dipping a toe into your world by making watches on straps and and more elegant and solutions. And you know the the eleven fifty nine was such a controversial launch. I don't I don't think you know Odysseus was was quite as uh as as vocal we'll say uh or m you know, unanimous we'll say, uh in in in the in the opinion. But I mean, how do you look at a brand like A P, for example, which is a brand you know well, coming into your world? Do you welcome something like that? Obviously there are other players in in your space. Do you welcome an AP joining, you know, the the ranks of of what you guys do? Look uh I |
| Unknown | P has been in our world forever. Um you know A AP uh even to Dida is a strong focus on the Royal Oak, but but they have been there isn't a complication that they didn't do. Right. For me that's still a brand which I think can do everything you can think of. And they can play amongst the best. I just believe Ben very simple. Um you have to accept competition, you don't need to fear them if you do your homework. Right. Um and as long as your brand is strong and you stick to your you know what you stand for, your value system. Um again not everybody may like you, but quite frankly, not everybody likes our other watches as well. It's not like that's you know, uh everybody says here people ray and uh that's the best of the if you have a sharp product profile, if you try to be different, you have to accept that you like Right. Today we have our place in that. Yeah. We fight for it. Um and and as I said, you know, I think what we do, we do the best we can. Yeah. Um in line with our |
| Unknown | and I hope enough people are going to like it. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about Odysseus in the market. So it's been out now for three weeks, roughly. Uh how has the response been from your existing client base, from new clients, etc. Yeah. Um I can you know for for me there is |
| Unknown | one I don't want to sound too commercial, but the best compliment is here is my hard earned money. Can I have the watch? Right. You know, ultimately, that's the biggest compliment. Um you can spoil yourself in going to the digital world and count all the positives and all the negatives, but you know, at the end what counts is how many people want the watch. Um and we're doing pretty well. Yeah. So that I can say. The second thing which we realized which is very refreshing to see and I have to say it's not been orchestrated. It just happened to happen. Um it's a watch that again is very difficult to take proto proper photos of. And I always say the natural habitat of a wristwatch is not the internet, not a catalogue, not a magazine. It's actually on your wrist. So what I'd like to suggest to everybody is before you form your opinion totally, just try to put that watch around your wrist because what we've realized so far is that a lot of people came with the opinion I want confirmation that I don't like the watch and it changed quite nicely once they had it around their wrist. Yeah. Um so that is what I can say. Um you know we never expose numbers and all that. But it it's it's |
| Unknown | going pretty well. Yeah. And so I I'm just curious and obviously and you know, we can not talk about this if you don't want to, but in terms of strategy in terms of who gets this watch. So obviously the watch came out a few weeks ago. It's it's not currently available. You're not delivering them yet, correct? We do live |
| Unknown | w yes, the first watchers actually are on the boat or in the boutique, so the first people probably will get it within the next week |
| Unknown | . Okay. And so how do you look at the customer profile for a watch like this? It it is on the lower end in terms of price for you guys, on the high end for controversy. And then also you can't not consider the fact that like the Nautilus, for example, which would be a chief competitor, is impossible to get and we see a secondary market. Do you hope for a secondary market for this watch? Or do you really work against it? Well first of all, um I can' |
| Unknown | t justify earlier on um that we launch a watch because my clients ask for something like that for a long time and then I don't sell the first watches to my existing clients. Right. So there is a very strong process in place. So we make sure that um you know these first watches uh will go to people that really ask for it for a long time. Then I don't know what the secondary market is doing. Yeah. And it's not my business. What I know for sure is it's a watch that has been perceived extremely well by our clients. And I'm not too worried about the selling. I'm more worried at the moment about uh ramping up production because um it's a new movement, it's four hertz, there are many new things in it, and again it's new for my people as well and and and and that is what I'm more worried about at the moment. Got it. Um and uh whether eventually that watch like some other of our watches uh, you know, will do extremely well on the secondary market, we will see. You can't plan that any |
| Unknown | how. Yeah. But you don't look at and you know I, I know that there's some kind of cynical folks in the industry and outside the industry, consumers that would say, Oh, you know, Rolex uh premeditates the whole thing. They want the watches to go for a second, you know, for higher prices, protectos the same thing, etc I've never heard of that like actually being true or not. D I mean that's not something that ever really crosses your mind and you guys don't look at that at all |
| Unknown | . We well at the moment there's no watch on the secondary marks. We can't look at it. Uh we have an eye on the auction market because it's important for us to understand the mechanisms of that. But um generally speaking, no, we don't manipulate the market. You know uh the it's it's it's an expensive watch, I give that. But if you look into the details and if you compare it with other watches uh within our price range, it's pretty easy to identify why the watch is at the price where it is. Um and yes, it's not gold this time, it's steel. Um but the movement which usually is the biggest source of cost for us. Um it's spectacular. You know, it's with everything you would uh want from us. It's a double assembly, it's hand polished, hand decorated. Um tiny little things like no floral elements but waves, um not a balanced cock but a bridge, um four hertz instead of three hertz or even less. So all these little things, you know, are changes, but they're in line with what you would expect from us. Yeah. |
| Unknown | So overall you're really happy with In the last few minutes we have you, let's talk a little bit about your personal taste. You've been with Longa now how many years? Nine. Nine years, yeah. What do you think the best watch you've launched in the last nine years has been? If you could walk away with one of them tomorrow if you're to retire, what Um you |
| Unknown | know that I have a very soft spot for chronographs. You do. And for me the data graph up and down, in in in you know, platinum uh uh uh black dial. That's longer. It you know, if I had to boil down my whole collection to just one watch, it probably would be this. Um and I have an emotional touch to it because that was, you know, we launched it 2012 so I was there 13 months it was the first time that was really an in-depth involved into a launch of it so there are many firsts for me with this watch and and and you know, I f I think you know it's either the Langer one or the Datograph up and down or the datograph um the original version. I think it epitomizes a lot what we stand for. Mm-hmm. Um |
| Unknown | and it's a cool design on top of that. It is. It is. What was the watch that you get or what is the watch that you get the most request for from friends? People in your in your personal life? Um Datograph. Up down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah |
| Unknown | . In platinum typically. Yeah. Yeah. Um a lot in in and I I have to say that sidewalk date is following uh a lot, you know, that gray dial with the transparent date disc, uh white gold, um, a little thinner than the original. Yeah, that actually is also it's on the heels of the uh datograph. And then of course any time we come with something special like the lumens, I realize how many friends I have. |
| Unknown | More than you need, I'm sure. And if there was one thing that you would do over of the last nine years at Lange, what would it be? What was one mistake you made, if there are any |
| Unknown | ? I I think you know, on a good day I probably do less mistakes than good things. And on a bad day is the opposite then. Um I have a damn good team and and check and balance as works good in the company. Um so at least I can say we didn't do any fundamental mistake um because you know even if I try hard and it is a mistake or people think it is a mistake I'll be you know sort of there's a catch net. Um I think you you you you you lost some people that you didn't want to lose. Um there were things that you could have done better um and you rectify it but But you know, a mistake in the past for me is only a value if I can learn from it and and and and don't do it again in future. If it's a ones-off mistake, who cares? Um If if it becomes a systematic mistake you you have to learn and you have to to evolve and you have to develop on it. But to be honest, we're good nine years It seems like it from the outside end. I also like and love that I see the world. Um I still believe that customers, clients that like us, they're very nice people. Yeah. I didn't have a boring dinner in my life. That's correct. Um and it is due to these clients, you know, they are usually humble people, uh, knowledgeable, all coming from different backgrounds, but there is a shared set of value which makes it a lot easier um on dinners because they mingle quickly, um, there's always a flow of conversation. Um that's uh that's why I like my my my job I think, you know, great watchers, um uh really strong people, good people |
| Unknown | . |
| Unknown | I wish you know it's not a question of uh um uh wanting. It's a question of you know, how do you find the watchmaker, how do you find the engraver, the finisher, um you know there's a whole the toolmaker, does uh you have to actually look at it. Um well w what I say and that is the good and the bad, like so many times in life. Uh we have about five hundred people working in the manufacturer and I really mean those that work there. You know, they're either in product development or in production, they're tool making, but you know that's what at the end is producing five and a half thousand watches. So and if I want to produce six thousand, I just need to find more watchmaker, I need to find more engraver, I need to find more finisher, or I have to change my business model, which we don't want to change. So we will grow as we grew in the past, but it'll be a slow gro |
| Unknown | w You've driven in the past year? My ACA's Bristol |
| Unknown | . With a new engine, I have to say. It's just hilarious to drive. Is it? Yes. It's fun. It's quick. It's solid. It goes around cornering. You know, I haven't known for so long. It's um it's the car that I really know well. I know exactly how she behaves and uh what she does and what she doesn't like. It's a lovely car and the other thing was um a very funny car. It's uh a a Jaguar, which I shared with you, which uh looked like you know it's falling apart quickly, but underneath it was first class. So that was hilarious to drive as well. Yeah. Quite a few cars this year that I drove and I liked. That's a sign of a good life there. Yes. Now it's a passion. You know, it's like watches. I like wearing watches and I like |
| Unknown | driving cars. Yeah, I'm I'm right there with you. Final question: Dream car. If you had all the money in the world, and you could pick any car, vintage car of course, what would it be? |
| Unknown | That's uh probably either a Jaguashi type I think at the time they were really dominating. Um they are beautiful to look at. And and and if you maintain them well, they're actually unlike their reputation, actually pretty reliable. I just like their it just appeals to me. You know, sometimes you like them and sometimes you know I'm I'm almost any sport cars, English sport cars of the fifty and 60, I think they were great cars. Sure. Um but some stick out, and you know I have a a fable for oddballs. You know, not the natural choice. So you will not hear a Ferrari GTO from me. I like my phrase and a lot, I have to say. Interesting. They are odd, |
| Unknown | rare, and they were very successful at the time. Cool. Well Wilhelm Schmidt, everybody, thank you so much for joining us today, and uh we'll be back very soon |
| Unknown | . Up next, we've got my conversation with Scott Schumann about his new book, The Sartorialist India. As you know, this is a friendly uh thing. This is not an adversarial uh interview. Maybe um I'm a little sensitive about the Yankees right now. Okay. So maybe we avoid the Yankees. Okay. As a Mets fan, I'm very used to being sensitive about my baseball team. So uh outside the the Yankees and uh math, I'm pretty open. Yeah, I'm I'm not gonna be any good at that either. So yeah, we're we're on the same page here. Good. Good to have you back, Scott. Thank you. It's good to be back. It was a long |
| Unknown | journey to get here. Right across the apartment from here. Yes. Yes. Long journey. And I can see this woman that lives on the second floor and she has a beautiful terrace. I hate her even more now. Oh really? Yeah. It's a what a beautiful terrace are. I've never seen it from that |
| Unknown | angle. Yeah, we uh we often stare longingly uh at at your building. It's uh it's a nice thing that out the window though. Yeah. That lady. Anyway. Well cool. Well we're here because you brought by a copy of your new book, which as you know, as we're recording this is just hitting shelves now uh here in the US but it's the sartorialist India it's kind of a different uh different thing for |
| Unknown | you yeah yeah yeah yeah it's um you know it was a very um chosen direction I'd done three books before with Penguin and luckily they had all done very well. But you can't keep kind of going in that same role, that same direction. And so I was really thinking I enjoy doing books. Um and so I thought what instead of doing like the first three books that I shot all over the world and showed a lot of diversity of different parts of the world, I thought maybe with the fourth one I would pick one place and focus on the diversity within that place. Yeah. And um, you know, like I'd said before, I think um, you know, I'd gone to India the first time in 2008 and I'd gone there a couple of times, and and I realized pretty quickly that the India that I was experiencing and that I was seeing was not the India I was usually seeing in books. Um, because uh, you know, a lot of photographers like to kind of focus on the on the otherness of it and you know, the the poverty or the yoga or the temples or whatever the kind of cliches are. And it's not what I was seeing when I was visiting India. There was certainly some of that. Yeah. But there was also a a modern India and a vibrant India and a um a young India that you weren't really seeing. And so I thought my challenge would be kind of trying to mix those two things |
| Unknown | . Yeah. So so you started going in 2008. I I wonder kind of like how early on did you start to think of this as like a project or as a thing that could become something bigger and not just like, oh, I'm going on assignment or going on a trip to a cool place and maybe I'll go back. Yeah |
| Unknown | . Well, I mean in two thousand eight, you know, the the the blog and the Sartorialist was just taking off. And at that time, you know, I was getting offers to go everywhere. Um, so I hadn't really thought about one particular place because I was really discovering the world, and you really see that in the books. You know, it was, you know, photographing as I was traveling and kind of discovering the world. And it wasn't until, like I said, after I'd done about three books or after I'd gotten to the place where I'd traveled a lot and could sit back now and say, you know, I want to focus on this place or this place offers photographically something different than, you know, another place. And even, you know, as much as I love Italy, I'm kind of saving that maybe as my retirement book. You know, I mean that's a place I love going. It's beautiful. But you know, a a place like Italy has also been so photographed. You uh you have to find the right angle. And you know, I picked India because I thought I had a good angle and it could have been anywhere if you find if you feel that you can find an angle that nobody else has done. You know, I don't know my photographs are any better or any worse than anybody else, but at least this book has a particularly um different angle. And, you know, if you're a photographer, I think that's uh the most important thing is at least uh try to find something new to say or say it in a new |
| Unknown | way. Yeah, yeah. I I mean one of the things I I noticed immediately when I first saw the book, is the image on the cover, even if there was no text or anything, like it looks like one of your images. Like this from the cover, this could be a book about India, or it could just be an Indian gentleman on the cover of a book of your other work, but that this this image, which maybe you can describe to us uh kind of like screams you, like it feels very you. Yeah. Yeah. W |
| Unknown | ell thank you very much. Um yeah, you know it's uh that's what it I that's what I wanted it to feel like. Um besides the fact that I was going to India, I wanted it still be very much the way I shoot, the same uh the same procedure, the same day-to-day. Um And so this picture on the cover, it's uh a gentleman probably in his early 60s and has a very obvious visual charisma. He's kind of sitting forward, he's got beautiful dark sunglasses, kind of salt and pepper hair, a very simple shirt. And like you said, there's something uh kind of ambiguous. It could be India, it could be other places, but what I like about the photograph is it doesn't necessarily doesn't um necessarily say cliche India. You know, there's uh there's something about it's a photograph of that guy who happens to be Indian. Um and when you look, I made sure that, you know, I think we have a photograph here that says something about India, but also on the back cover is a photograph I took at a hotel of a of a girl waiting for a taxi and it's more kind of silhouetted black and white and you get a sense of her very long legs and beautiful long high heels and um there's something very kind of cosmopolitan. So we really kind of played the front and the back to show two different sides. But you know, with this particular image, you know, it's I think a good portrait of him, but there's a lot of little things. I like the fact that he's sitting forward a little bit, the fact that he's got sunglasses on. He's kind of looking at you, but uh it doesn't make it uncomfortable to look back at him because he, you know, his eyes aren't kind of you would think uh because he has such an intense gaze that it could almost be a little uh off-putting to look back at the the photograph on the cover, where with the sunglasses it almost gives you a chance to look at them without feeling self-conscious. And you know, maybe I overthink photographs too much, but uh uh finding the cover uh photograph for a book is it's very, very tricky. And you want something that's inviting and um not challenging, but uh yeah, something that's kind of inviting, but that doesn't um isn't too challenging, I guess. Yeah. I mean overthinking photographs is kind of kind of your job, right? Yeah. Well and I I I think you take the photograph and you know, a lot of people want to say, well, you know, about the fashion or about this. Uh I've said it before that, you know, I think um I shoot, you know, with uh with a fashion eye, but more like how um a costume designer looks at uh uh designs for a movie and how the clothes can kind of tell you something about that person. So like when you look at a photograph like on the cover here, his clothes are important and his his sunglasses are important, his posture is important. It's a part of it, but it's um it's more the photograph, I think at the end of the day, hopefully people appreciate the fashion part of it, but but they look at the photographs as uh beautiful portraits. You know, for me it only works if you see the person first. Um but then the clothes kind of help tell you something about who this person might be. And that's the best of what fashion should be able to do. You know, it's shouldn't over uh shouldn't override the person. It shouldn't be the first thing you notice about the person. It should just kind of help accentuate the person, kind of help the person express themselves a little bit, but you should still |
| Unknown | always see the person first. This week's episode is presented by Tag Hoyer. The Monaco has always been a watch about the future. When it was first introduced in 1969, it was a watch about firsts. It was among the very first generation of automatic chronographs and the very first one to be square. It looked unlike any wristwatch that had come before, and it had the technical innovations to back up its forward-thinking design. And that spirit of innovation didn't stop after the Monaco's debut. In the 1990s and into the 2000s, the Monaco served as a platform for some of Tag Hoyer's most innovative developments. These include the belt-driven Monaco V4, the hybrid analog digital Monaco 69, and other non-traditional takes on high watchmaking. Now, this year, in addition to releasing five limited edition Monacos to celebrate the five decades since the watch's launch, TagHoyer has also created a new generation of Monaco, built around the caliber Hoyer O2. The watch still looks like a Monaco, but it now features a fully in-house movement for the first time. The new caliber features a 4 Hz escapement, a column wheel for the chronograph mechanism, and an open-worked rotor so you can admire the movement at work. The Monaco was indisputably an icon of 20th century design and watchmaking. And now, in its latest iteration, it's poised to be an icon of the 21st century too. For more about the Tag Warrior Monaco and the watch's 50th anniversary, visit TagHoyer.com. Alright, let's get back to the show. One of the things I that as a photographer I I was thinking about looking through this is, you know, a a lot of where you shoot and what you shoot, you can kind of disappear into the crowd, right? Like people know who you are, but you can kind of like assimilate yourself and and kind of maneuver. Whereas I would imagine here, like it's much harder for you as a a Western guy to be wandering around the streets of a small Indian town taking people's pictures. Like that, that's it's much harder for you to be inconspicuous than it would be like in Milan during Fashion Week, right |
| Unknown | ? Yeah, yeah. I mean, absolutely. You know, um at one time um I was shooting in Kolkata and uh I wasn't where I was supposed to be for the hotel to pick me up. Uh, and I was probably 10 minutes, 10-minute walk away from where I was supposed to be. And I I realized I was late and I started to walk back. And um, and there was the guy from the hotel. It just as I turned around and I said, How did you find me? I'm nowhere close to where I'm supposed to be. And he said, Everyone knows where the white guy is. They just started pointing him in the direction. So yeah, you can't you can't be inconspicuous, but you you have to play that to your advantage. You know, um I didn't want I like for people to um see that I'm photographing them. I like to have that kind of one on one interaction. Um and I don't I don't take photographs kind of serendipitously. I I like to have a portrait like the picture on the cover. A lot of the pictures are very close. I use a very open lens, very um like a 50, um, so I can be a lot closer to the subject. When you're that close, you can't be inconspicuous, but I like that. I like, you know, talking to the person or trying. And a lot of times it's um nonverbal communication. You have to somehow you, know, be able to communicate with them and have um have them understand that you're serious about taking this photograph. You're not just kind of doing it quickly, you're not just a tourist kind of taking snaps of everything that looks so different than where they're from, that I'm actually trying to take a f a nice photograph of this person. And I think it's a lot of nonverbal communication. It's I I take more time when I'm shooting. Um, I go more slowly, um, I get more close to them. Uh I don't mind moving them if they feel if they seem to feel comfortable. And I never had any problems in in India. Um I think people um are kind of happy that that they're being seen, whether it's by, you know, some Western photographer or by anyone, because it's just such a big population. There are so many people that I think they feel a little honored when somebody comes and stops and says, I want to, you know, motions that I want to take a photograph of you, that person. Again, to go back to the guy on the cover, uh, it was just on a small street in Jaipur and um and he was sitting just exactly the way you see them in the picture and I stopped and when you see someone sitting and they look just immediately that elegant, yeah, they know he knows how cool he looks. Yeah, exactly. So I stopped and just kind of raised the camera and looked at him and he looked at me and just kind of nodded, you know, I've got a camera, I want to take a picture of me. So no words were were uh exchanged. He knew he how cool he was. So I mean it didn't either side of him, and as soon as I stopped and really looked at this gentleman, they knew and they just got up and just kind of stepped away. So it's very That's nice. Yeah, so it's very funny. You know, it doesn't matter where somebody is, people know when they have a certain aura. People know, and I guess if you can see that, you can spot it, and then you you create an air of this is a serious thing, I'm a serious photographer, and and something gentle and curious about the person. Um I ended up having no problems. Uh I think other places are more difficult, a place like Africa that has a more Muslim uh community that don't necessarily want to have their photographs taken. It's harder to shoot close one-on-one. You can shoot back and you can shoot a little bit more quietly. Um so you have to kind of that's one of the things that's fascinating about doing photography around the world is you get to learn um so much about the individual cultures. You might learn through this through the lens, so to speak, of photography. Um the way some people learn about a culture through cooking or through music, I learn it through literally getting into those places and talking to the guide. I'd almost always have a guide with me. You know, there were certain places I didn't need it as much, but you know, I feel a little um selfish or a little jealous that I get to spend on and off three or four years going to this place because I'm not only creating a book, but to get my uh to spend a life where I get to go to these places and learn about this culture and have that um as a part of my life. It's great. It's very addicting. Ye |
| Unknown | ah. Yeah, certainly. I mean one one of the things that And hearing you talk about it now makes complete sense is you know, there there's a huge diversity of cultures in this book. You know, it's it's not a sort of it does a good job of communicating the fact that India is not this sort of like monolithic place that's just like, you know, the big city you see on the tour brochure. Um, how how did you sort of figure out where to go, how to get there, what places were going to be fruitful, were there's certain places that you kept wanting to go back to and you had to kind of like force yourself out of it? How how did you kind of experience the the multitudes of India through through this |
| Unknown | book? Well, you know, I gave myself three or four years. I I really didn't set a timetable. You know, it was something that I was um financing myself. I shot about fifty percent of it before I even showed it to anyone. I because first I wanted to prove to myself that I could get the mix that I thought I needed to make it a unique book. But then it was really one part being very systematic and sitting back and looking at a map and saying, you know, I didn't want it to be encyclopedic in the sense that we could say we hit every region, but at least where the climate was different, you know, different enough down south, you know, it's more tropical, more humid, more colorful. Up north, it's more arid, it's more mountainous, it's more cold. A place like Rajasthan is more dry, you know, they dress in more white. Um so it was really about kind of looking at a map, doing research, learning about the place, which is part of the fun. Um, and then just uh taking a chance. You know, you you're trying to do it from far away. The hardest part of the whole experience was finding guides that would take me to places that weren't the typical tourist places or places they didn't really understand why I would want to go. So I'd say I wanna go to industrial, I wanna go to a brick um uh a brickmaking factory, I wanna go to a farm, I wanna go to this. And they would keep wanting to take me, you know, to this local tourist attraction or that thing. Yeah. Or they would hear, I think, that um I was a fashion photographer, so I think they w they thought, well, you know, he kinda wants to go to a market, but he's not gonna really get in there and run around. And the very first day we'd I tried to in the first couple of hours of interacting with the guide show them like, no, I'm serious about this there's nothing um there's nothing pretentious or nothing too like oh you know this is too messy or too whatever um so I think it was really um allowing yourself to try and make a plan, but then being free-flowing enough that, you know, if you got there and I realized pretty quickly this isn't working, I'm not feeling it, to um adjust and to move on. So there were a lot of calls saying, okay, let's move this hotel back. I mean, luckily a lot of the hotels, especially once you're out of the big city, are not that expensive. So if I had to drop one or two nights in this place, add one or two nights there. Um that wasn't too tricky. The the harder part was getting the guy again, getting the guides to say to to to be as fluid as I wanted to be. Yeah. You know, cause they and, you know, all they had to do was kind of rearrange how they where we were going to go and all. We took care of all the canceling hotels, adding hotels, all of that. But um but you know, that's the fun of it. Yeah. That's the fun. We were in um I uh the very last trip, I was in Lay Ladac, which is very mountainous, and um we were going to spend two nights in a in a hotel over the ridge of a mountain. But as we started to go up the mountain and over the ridge, it had uh really snowed a lot and iced over the roads. And as we're starting to climb, I'm looking and the car kind of feels like it's you know losing a little bit of traction. The driver, you know, he seems completely unconcerned. The guy and the the guide, the main guide is sitting in the back asleep, but I'm looking at him and looking over this cliff and feeling the car every once in a while kind of losing traction. And and if it's doing that going up the hill, I would think it'd be even worse going down the hill. So finally I stopped and I said, don't aren't you a little bit nervous at all about doing this? I got out of the car. I could barely stand up. I said, that's it. Turn around. We're going back. Um and so you know, I just canceled those two days in that area because you know, I don't know. I d I was not feeling it and I did not feel I wanted to take that chance for for a photograph. Luckily where we ended up going that day, I ended up getting a couple of great images, but it was very um, you know, kind of fly by the seat of your pants, so to speak, or being very spontaneous and and reacting, you know, not having a gut reaction and just going for it and and and taking the chance. I mean that's the fun part. You know, sometimes you get something, sometimes you don't, but it's I as long as I feel I'm putting myself in a potential um situation to get the photographs, if it works, it wor |
| Unknown | ks. If it doesn't, it doesn't. What can you do? No, that's great. I mean I I think your approach and your work has always had this element of of documentary photography to it. Um, you know, you're you're not standing at the end of a runway on a tripod with a, you know, 300 millimeter lens just shooting a show. You're you're outside, you're milling about, you're in the streets, things are spontaneous. Uh, you're you know walking around New York City, kind of like hunting, so so to speak, for for people. Um and and that that feeling comes across in this book really uh clearly. Um, and you know, that that sort of style of like, you know, things aren't always a hundred percent sharp. You might have slightly shallow depth of field, there's a bit of motion in most of these images. I I wonder how much of that came from that sort of fly by the seat of your pants approach and how much of it came from the people is is that something you're doing consciously or is it something that just sort of like happens because of the way you you approach this |
| Unknown | ? Well it's um yeah, I mean I think it's the way I approach it. It's uh you know, if you really want to be a what I uh what I would think of as a a real street photographer, the thing you realize you uh unlike maybe a fashion photographer who is known for using a certain kind of light or shooting at a certain time of day that has the luxury of just shooting during a certain kind of hour and getting a certain kind of light. You know, if you're a street photographer, you you accept the um the challenges. You know, you might meet the perfect person, but nowhere close are you in the right light. And you can't put them in shadow. You can't, so you have to make the best. And that's really for me the most addictive part. It's taking the chance of of I see something that looks great. How do I make it work? I only got I probably only have this guy's attention or girl's attention for five minutes, you know, or less. So how do I make it work quickly? That's probably the most addictive parts. I couldn't imagine going to a studio and trying to build that idea because I I don't know. I'd be you know I I don't think that way. I like having to react and I like having the challenge of you know you like in this book there's so many different people how do you approach a guy an older gentleman as opposed to a young girl or a mom and a daughter um who may or may not speak your language, who may or may not be kind of curious or or suspicious while you're there. But um it's that kind of fly by the seat of your pants, uh taking a chance, getting the shot, and then looking at it and saying, does it create the motion? You know, maybe it's a little too shallow here, but is that what I wanted to show? It at the end of the day, there's usually one or two elements in each photograph where you want to say that's the the the focus or the emotion I want to create in that photograph. Does it work? Everything else is is secondary. Um, and if it does, then great, you know, and um and I think uh you want people to you know, I don't think they necessarily academically learn anything from this book, but hopefully it makes them curious and it makes them feel what it's like to be there. You know, there's a photograph in the book that I literally shot from the back of a uh a rickshaw that was going pretty quickly. Okay. And uh and the shot I came out surprisingly crisp considering how quickly we were moving. Um but you know I want that. Hopefully people feel that they're getting past the veneer, that it's but it's also not a past the veneer of a showing kind of a decayed rundown India that it's just past the the cliche and that they're seeing something different about it. Like even the sports. I mean, some of my favorite photographs are the wrestler photographs. You know, there's something not only masculine and virile about it, but also beautiful and poetic and you know, the way they stand, the way they're hopefully I captured moments where it almost looks like ballet, but a very kind of aggressive ballet. Or uh there was um jockeys uh that was shooting in the um training room in Chennai, I think it was, Chennai or Delhi. And um, you know, there was something beautifully uh poetic about these athletes, about these jockeys who were waiting to go on to the to to for their horse, writing for their ride. And um you know what they kind of do to fill their time. There's a picture of a guy kind of looking in the mirror, you could tell kind of psyching himself up to get onto this. I don't know how much a horse weighs, you know, multi-hundred pound horse and fly around a track, and you can see him mentally trying to get in that place. Um so yeah, I mean, I I hopefully it takes people uh to a side of India they haven't seen or and it makes them curious. You know, I was very lucky with the sartorialist though when I started shooting that, I think it made a lot of people not necessarily um I think they liked fashion more, but they also wanted to try and do something like that. You know, oh, I want to go out and grab a camera and go out and shoot on the street and in my local neighborhood or whatever. Hopefully it has a similar effect, whether it's India or South America or Africa. It makes people say, oh, I want to go out and explore the world. And you know, as we become more divided, the only way I think we can come together is actually, you know, getting off your chair, getting off the couch and going out and exploring the world and finding the similarities in people and finding a way to accept the the differences in people. |
| Unknown | Yeah, I completely agree. Could not agree more. Um yeah, well two two things I wanted to touch on. Um one is this is one of the first times I've seen your work that's not portraits of people. There are photographs in this book that are are more sort of like scene setting, I would say. Um and and they were great. And it's it's a sort of like side of your work. I I I personally hadn't really experienced. And I wonder if that kind of allowed you to to flex some different muscles and to kind of like creatively renew yourself a little bit, to, to sort of give yourself challenges you hadn't experienced before or don't experience on a daily basis. |
| Unknown | Yeah. Absolutely. You know, it's I mean, that's the fun of work, right? That's fun of creative job is yeah. You know, if you just keep doing the same thing, you get bored, you get burned out. So this was me challenging myself, flexing new muscles, um, keeping my eyes open in a different way. In a funny way, you know, Instagram really did that because was the first thing to really do that for me because when I was shooting almost primarily for the blog, it was very person-based, very and even though you could you could put an image on the on a blog, you know, within hours of shooting it, Instagram is instant. Um and so with Instagram, you know, I got used to having my phone and being able to shoot, you know, at a restaurant or whatever, a sign that I was seeing in Rome. So this book was a similar way, but but more serious, you know, with the real camera. So, you know, when I'd travel around um to the different parts in India. In the car in front of me, I'd always have a camera with an 80 or a 50 lens and another camera with like a 2570. So, you know, even though you're sitting in a car and you're just looking out the window, maybe driving to the next location, or you're just driving around a certain neighborhood or or region, you're just constantly looking, trying to see the potential of a shot. See, you know, looking at an area, looking you know, when I was driving back in Chennai, we were going back for lunch, and I see a kid sitting in a boat in the sand, and like in his t-shirt says, I couldn't see at the time because he was so far away, but I saw the potential poetry of this photograph. And so right away you have to decide, okay, I want to be able to capture the sand, the water behind him, this kind of odd romantic vision of a guy of a kid sitting in a boat in a sea of sand. Which is totally different than doing a portrait, you know, or a close-up portrait of someone. So or like in Munar with it as a big, it's more kind of in the middle south that's known for tea. So you've got this undulating kind of landscape with these tea trees. They're a little bit shorter and they it looks like a teletubby land with these kind of bunny hills, and in the morning it's misty and and when you see it you think okay I've got to figure out how do I capture this, how do I capture the the mistiness of it and the kind of otherworldliness of this and um so it's great. You know, again, it's um it's what keeps you going. If you really love the art and the challenge, it's not easy, you know, because I you're really shooting, you're really trying to figure out how do I do this, looking at the back, you don't want to leave until you feel you got the shot. Um But it's the thing that's that keeps me going. It's one of the reasons I was so excited about the book, not only because it took me somewhere else uh that could show portraits in a different way of different kinds of people, but also doing the landscape, doing the sports, doing going to music festivals, doing a lot of these different kinds of things |
| Unknown | . Yeah, I mean, there's when when I think about India and photography, there's there's one name that comes to mind, right? And that's Steve McCurry, uh, who I know is is somebody you're a fan of and somebody you're you've become friends with. Um, you know, when when you kind of made the decision like, okay, this is this is gonna be a project, we're making a book, we're doing this. Was Steve in the in the back of your mind at all? Was this did do you think his his approach influenced your approach? Kind of it's it's one of those subjects I would imagine is is hard to tackle because there's somebody there who's like a master and he's a living he's living, he's a living legend. Um was that was that intimidating? Was it challenging? Did it kind of inspire you? What how how did you think it's all of those |
| Unknown | things? Um you know, when I started um taking photography more seriously, uh Steve McCurry was one of the first books that I had, that small portraits book. Yeah. And uh and I remember thinking, oh what, a great job he has. He just gets to go walk around the world and take photographs. And somehow I made that my job. Um and of course, you know, I I thought about his work, but I've shot long enough that uh I'm comfortable that my work looks very different from his. Yeah. You know, uh you'll never confuse the two. I, you know, he is obviously great and I would love to to someday kind of be at that same level or close to it, but I don't feel um uh intimidated by showing them the work or you know we've walked around together and and and photographed and it's very natural because we know we see the world, he respects what I do, I respect what he does, and we see things very differently. So even though it is a little intimidating showing a book about India to someone that's been there so much and captured it so beautifully, um, I think he sees right away, oh, this is he I have a different eye. So um it's not that nerve-wracking because I'm I'm comfortable and proud of the kind of shots that I got. There's a little bit of overlap, but there's photographs that you know he would never see. Um, you know, I don't think I'm telling tales out of school, but you know, he he likes what I do and every once in a while for fun he'll send me uh a street style photograph that he's taken just with his phone is kind of a joke, you know, he' he'llll might take a picture with his phone in Rome of somebody he thinks looks really funny. Oh look, here's a street style shot in Rome. Which is pretty cool because I think I'm probably the only person that has those photographs. Um It's a cool thing when Steve McCurry's texting you phot Yeah. That's a that's a good spot to be in. That is pretty cool. That is pretty cool. But it's um but you know, he's been nothing but supportive. You know, he was just inducted into the the hall of fame of photography just last Friday. And um, you know, I taught myself photography. Um I kind of figured all this out on my own to to finally have someone like Steve that, you know, I can have dinner with and talk about the work and talk about new challenges, his challenges, my challenges. It's really been very rewarding because I've really have never had that kind of relationship with anyone. And it's still very kind of general. We don't talk that much specifics on specific photographs. It's more general things. Um but yeah, you know, it's really great when you strive to challenge yourself and get better. You know, when the blog started, I was okay photographer, but I kept pushing myself. I knew where I wanted to be. And constantly just looking at my work, being critical, saying, how can I make this better? How can I challenge this? How can I create better emotion? Now it the to the fact that or to the point that someone like Steve says, well that's really good. You know, he he was very supportive. It's um a big honor, but it doesn't make me feel at all um happy, you know, like I've still have a lot of challenges. Well, you know, like I've said I'm doing a menswear book next. Yeah. And um so instead of right now photographing, I'm trying to push um trying to learn how to write more eloquently. So it's a totally different kind of muscle and it's challenging in its own way and I think I would rather be um stuck in a very hot, sweaty uh situation in India than sitting behind a very nice air conditioned, comfortable uh computer with a nice drink uh an espresso or something on side, try and figure out ways of of writing. That is by far the most difficult. Okay but I love the challenge of doing that. |
| Unknown | Yeah. And it must be fun to come out of a project like this that is so like about being out in the world and experiencing other people's ideas to go now to a project that's that's really about communicating your ideas, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's a it' |
| Unknown | s um it'll come out next year. Okay. On this time next year. And um yeah, I mean again I knew this was the challenge I had set for myself three years ago or four years ago whenever I started that I wanted to have that situation of doing kind of a more cultural book like the India book and then following it up immediately with uh with a menswear book. So I'm kind of going back and forth between more cultural photography to menswear, maybe a women's wear book. I don't know, but like and I s and believe me, there are times when I think, why do I do this to myself? Why don't I just keep doing what I do, stay in my lane? Um, life would be a lot easier. I wouldn't be waking up at two o'clock in the morning. Two weeks ago I woke up at like two o'clock in the morning as I was really starting to write and and start to look at what I had to get done before the menswear book had to be turned in. And not quite a cold sweat, but almost a cold sweat saying, why do I get myself into the picture part's fine, the layout part's fine, but you're right, trying to communicate what you feel about something and love as equally as I love the photographs is what I feel about fashion and men's fashion and and to be able to put that into words as opposed to just a photograph, and especially something that's maybe a little more technical or something that's more nuanced, um, that's a big challenge. But it's a challenge I I love to do, and it's working well and I feel like I'm finally starting to hit my stride and but um I just had a meeting with my editor. Apparently I have a problem with uh dangling participles. Oh, okay yeah. Okay. Editors love that. They love they love to do it. No one's ever complained about my dangling participle before. I don't know what her problem is, but I thought it was I thought my participle was pretty nice. It's all right. I uh editors are tough, man. They're tough customers. And she's a very nice lady. That's the hard part. She is a very, very nice lady, but it's almost like that teacher that looks at you like it doesn't want to say with words, how do you not understand this? But with her eyes, she's saying Did you ever go to school? You can just see the disappointment on her face. It's not even disappointment. It is the it's past disappointment. It is um it is. Oh no. That's a trying. Oh man. That's almost worse |
| Unknown | . You're trying. You're keep trying. Keep trying. I'm here for you. Good to have somebody there |
| Unknown | to uh to help you with that now. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's actually it's going pretty well. I like the the angle we're coming up with again, and it's more personable, it's more different. Um, you know, I don't think there's uh ever been a a menswear book where there's a four-page layout of uh of of a young woman that I know, or I shouldn't even say young woman, of a woman that I know, who I think has fantastic style, who I'm writing about, how you know, I think it's time for men to start being more open into who they're looking for for inspiration, like this particular woman, Anna, every time I see her, I'm like, oh, her color combination is great, or the way she's mixing patterns and whatever. So there's like four pages in the book about her and how I draw inspiration from her. That's great. Uh, I just was just writing something. I've got like I've been reviewing a lot of my images and I have four or five pictures of guys wearing sequins. Oh and you know and I'm writing you know I wouldn't necessarily uh recommend sequins for most guys but here are four pictures that look great. And the trick was, I realized, is the guys were always wearing sequins, but in very sporty shapes. So one guy's wearing a black sequin parka. Another guy's wearing sequin shorts, but like big basketball shorts with like a very kind of basketball looking outfit. Another guy's wearing uh a sequin cardigan with a tank, basketball shorts and high tops. So I mean there's something about, you know, if you do sequins in a way that's um are totally upside down, you know, and you're playing the genre of um of sports and almost evening wear, it it yeah it takes it out of its context and now it's just a fabric, it's a material. And that's the kind of thing I want to challenge people with, you know, challenge guys to at least start to open their mind and see things differently. So many menswear books get so traditional and so um rule driven. I guess this one is there's a lot of technical too. So technical, like there's a lot about fit in this book. You know, I think if you know what fits you well and what looks good on your body, it makes it much easier to be able to decide what trends work for you and what trends don't. Yeah. Or but this by the same token, I think a lot of times with fashion, um, who cares? You know, have fun. It doesn't matter if it fits. I think I know when I was young, I loved when I could finally first start to afford combe de garçon or yogi or something like that. I didn't care how it looked on me. I was so happy to kind of buy those pieces that I'd always loved and I could finally afford it and I felt like I was part of that tribe, that was more important to me than how I looked necessarily. You were participating. Yeah. I felt in that group and I know how important and how um how important that is to people. So I would never put that down. If you love fashion, you want to play with it. You don't care, you know, if it necessarily makes you look great. A lot of times it's young kids who look good anyway. Yeah. Um, but I'm finding I just turned 52, I'm to a point now where I've done that. Now I just want to look nice. I want clothes to look good on me. Um, I don't have to be crazy. And and so that comes from fit. And now I'm kind of balancing, you know, if I want Prada or the new Prada collection, how does that really work for me? You know, and make me actually look reasonable and I don't look like a a goofy fifty two year old trying to to wear Prada. But you know, that's kind of the the idea. It's a very accepting book. It's a very inclusive book, um, very diverse. And again, I don't know if it's gonna be better or worse than anyone else's, but just different |
| Unknown | . Well, when the book's out, we're gonna have to have you back on. We'll do uh we'll do book tour round two |
| Unknown | . I'm not gonna leave. I'll just stay out here in the in the line. I'm just gonna hook up to one of your computers here and just keep right. You can sit right across from me, it'll be it'll be good. I don't think anyone out there in that audio in that office looks like they have a problem with dangling participles. Uh a couple of them do. I'm not gonna say who |
| Unknown | , I'm not gonna blow up anybody's spot here. But Oh good. But awesome. So the Sartorialist India, it's out now. Um by the time you're hearing this it'll be available from uh from Tashin and we'll link that up so people can uh can order copies and hopefully uh hopefully enjoy the book. Thank you very much. Awesome. Thanks for coming in a and to take us home this week, we've got our own Cole Pennington performing his story from Hodinky Magazine Volume 5, The Watch That Came In From the Cold |
| Unknown | . The Watch That Came In From the Cold. From half a world away, across almost seven decades, one man's Rolex tells its story at last. It was barely recognizable as a watch when it first came to me. The case shape gave it away, but the dialon hands were hidden behind a rust colored crystal. The case back was deeply gouged with what looked like marks made by claws strong enough to scratch stainless steel. You could tell it was a Rolex. Its still bright gold bezel and crown stamped Rolex Oyster gave that much away. But that was about it. The truth is, it could have been made by anyone, and it wouldn't have made any difference to its uncanny feel. With its heat-crazed crystal indented case, the watch looked as if it had risen from the depths of hell, and as if it had come back from the afterlife with a story to tell. The watch belongs to a man named Eric Kurzinger. It had been worn by his uncle, Norman Schwartz, who flew covert missions for the CIA during the Cold War? The watch bears the serial number 613482, dating it to approximately 1947. When Kürzinger received the watch from the Central Identification Laboratory at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii. He wanted to know at what time the hands had stopped, because the opaque crystal completely obscured the view. Deciphering when the hands had stopped might offer a small clue to the watch's mysterious history. While reading the New York Times, Kurzinger stumbled upon a name that those in the watch world will be familiar with: Eric Wind. Kurzinger contacted Wind, and Wyn connetacted Hodinky. When I first handled it, it gave me the chills, Wynne told us. Soon after, the watch arrived on my desk along with an official report from Joint Prisoner of War Missing in action, accounting Command, JPAC. Letters written by the CIA officers, a collection of medals, and a marble replica of a star that would appear on the memorial wall at the CIA headquarters. My initial reaction was that something felt off. Sifting through memoranda written by senior intelligence officials seemed like something I should not have been doing. It was all very Hollywood, the story unfolding in the same way that an artifact that turned up out of nowhere might have thrust Dan Brown's protagonist, Robert Langdon, into a deep web of dark secrets and shadowy organizations in the Da Vinci Code. The reality is that there are very real secrets every country keeps. But the stories surrounding the watch happened to have been declassified in 1998. Anyone can look it up, but few people ever had. The intelligence community is dark and spooky by design. It's hard to know who to trust when a watch turns up on your desk and sends you down a rabbit hole into shadowy corners of American history. Provenance is a big business, especially when it comes to Rolex. But when it comes to this specific watch, it quickly became evident that none of that even mattered. Norman Schwartz and the men he served with volunteered to take on nearly impossible missions, knowing that there would be no fame or glory should they be successful, the more time I spent reading primary sources and talking to Kersinger, the more I realized that the watch wasn't just an old Rolex. It was the key unlocking the door to a fascinating story. In the early 50s, the American consciousness was very much still shaped by the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. The fresh memories of war, coupled with the fear brought on by recently demonstrated nuclear capabilities of the Soviet Union, made containing the spread of communism seem very much a matter of life and death. America was publicly fighting a war in Korea against the communist-backed North by supporting the capitalist South. In 2019, it's easy to see which system proved more successful. But back then, no one could predict the future any better than we can now. The public uncertainty over the threat of monolithic international communism was very real, and it put immense pressure on the CIA to take every action it could to covertly frustrate the growth of nascent communism in China. Putting all the pieces of the puzzle together took some time, but gradually, out of the murk of the past, the watch told its tale. Jilin Province, China, November twenty ninth, nineteen fifty two. The time on pilot Norman Schwartz's Rolex read just before midnight. He had slowed to just above stall speed and was flying as low as possible over the pitch-black forests of northern China, north of the Korean border, at the Yalu River. On board his C-47 were CIA case officers John T. Downey and Richard G. Fecto. Their mission that night, pick up Li Chun Ying, a CIA agent. The CIA was then recruiting agents from anti-communist guerrilla forces and training them in the use of small arms, radio operations, and demolition, and then sending them into the field to sew as much mayhem as they could. In the early 50s, China didn't have radar-controlled anti-aircraft weapons. This gave covert operations pilots like Schwartz a big advantage, because, on a dark night, their planes were largely undetectable. Pilots like Schwartz were accustomed to performing reconnaissance over flights, in addition to dropping propaganda leaflets, using the darkness of night as cover. But this recovery operation was by no means a routine observation mission. The C47 was completely unmarked aside from the tail number, B eight thirteen. This was a civilian plane. The tail number would identify it to casual observers as an everyday airplane, but everyone on board knew exactly who they were working for. Downey and Fecto were on the CIA payroll, while Schwartz and co-pilot Robert Snoddy were handpicked out of a crop of civilian pilots recruited to fly for the CIA. The pilots indeed had day jobs, ferrying cargo around Asia for civil air transport, a civilian airline. But sometimes the cargo happened to be anti communist guerrilla units or nationalist agents. And you wouldn't find the landing sites on any commercial aviation map. The method for recovering the agent in question was not only difficult, but it was also dangerous. This was one of the first implementations of the so-called all-American pickup. It was a technique that Downey andec Fto had only recently trained for, and this was their first time trying it in the field. The agent on the ground would retrieve some dropped equipment, a harness, a pair of poles, and a length of line. He would then set up the poles, string the line between them, and attach the harness. The C47 would then come in low and slow, trailing a grappling hook. The hook would then snag the line, lifting the harnessed operative off the ground and into the air behind the airplane, where he'd be winched on board. It sounds like something out of an improbable moment in a James Bond movie. In fact, Bond used this technique at the end of the 1965 film Thunderball, but it was effective. Incredibly, it worked so well that the CIA didn't retire a finalized version of this technique, which used a balloon instead of poles on a line, until nineteen ninety-six. The mission plan called for three passes over the extraction site. On the first pass, the gear would be dropped. On the second, an observation would be made to ensure the extraction was a go. And on the third pass, the plane would hook the pickup line. If all went well, Schwartz and Snody's plane would get the job done and disappear into the night, with no one the wiser. The pilots successfully deployed the gear into the extraction zone on the first pass. They were scheduled to make pass number two 40 minutes after the gear hit the ground, giving the agent time to set it up, and then give the signal that he was ready to be extracted by lighting bonfires in a particular pattern. It was late November, and a blanket of snow had already covered the ground. The trees had shed their leaves, making it easy to spot the series of fires signaling a successful equipment setup. It was on. Schwartz and Snotty told the CAA officers in the back to get ready. On the third pass, they would pick up the operative. The full moon illuminated the blanketed forest below, as Schwartz lined up to make the third and final pass. It was just before midnight. The C forty seven was teetering on the edge of its stall speed of 58.2 knots, as Schwartz brought the plane down to just above the treetops, Downey and Fecteau were acting as spotters in the rear of the aircraft. Then the nighttime stillness was shattered. Machine gun fire erupted out of the darkness, just as the plane was closing in on the pickup point. Three fifty caliber machine guns sprayed a shower of rounds at the plane. Bullets tore through the fuselage, and one round punctured the oil tank on the port side of the plane. A number of rounds shredded the cockpit. The engines died. The mission had been somehow compromised. Ambushed, the powerless aircraft fell earthward. The C-47 hit the ground about fifty yards from the site of the ambush, already ablaze. Even if they somehow survived the crash landing, the pilots were trapped in the cockpit, fire blocking their only exit. The plane slid to a stop, minus one wing. Downey jumped out of the wreckage and ran to the nose of the plane. He banged on the door, shouting the pilots' names. Nothing. The only reply was the crack and sizzle of a cockpit being consumed by burning fuel. Schwartz and Snoddy didn't make it, but somehow, the officers in the back did. In a letter dated 2003, Fecteau said he was thrown the length of the plane, and it put a bump on my forehead you can hang your coat on. He recalled the ambush taking place at the exact moment they were supposed to hook up and extract the agent. The Americans had walked a right into trap. Their agent on the ground had been captured and ordered to radio in for the extraction. The ambush had been carefully planned. The guns that took down the C forty seven were camouflaged under white tarps, making them invisible against the snow. The troops on the ground had known exactly when the flight was due, and knew exactly when to attack. Downey and Fecteau were captured and brought to a local jail before being sent to Beijing. They would then spend years as prisoners, subjected to almost daily interrogation. In fact, for two years it was entirely unknown to the US government what had happened that fateful night, until Downey and Fecto were put on trial. The Chinese government invited media to attend. Downey was sentenced to life imprisonment And facto to twenty years. Since Downey had gone to Yale, it was assumed that he was the leader. The trial was the first time anyone had heard of what happened, and it also let the U.S. government know that the officers were still alive. Six American presidents came and went from office before Henry Kissinger negotiated the release of the two captive CIA officers, just ahead of Nixon's historic nineteen seventy two visit to China. But at the trial nothing was said of the fate of the two pilots. The local villagers had been ordered by the Chinese army to bury what was left of them, a few hundred yards from the crash site that same night under the snow in the frozen earth. And let the great Chinese people and the great American people be worthy of the hopes and ideals of the world for peace and justice and progress for all. CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia. On the north side of the lobby at CIA headquarters is a wall made of white Alabama marble. A memorial to those who have fallen in the line of duty. There are one hundred and thirty three stars carved onto the wall. Above them is the inscription. In honor of those members of the Central Intelligence Agency who gave their lives in the service of their country. While many of the identities of the fallen are still classified, it is known that one of those stars memorializes Norman Schwartz. Another belongs to his co-pilot, Robert Snoddy. When stars for the two pilots were added to the wall in 1998, a small collection of personal effects was on display. It included Schwartz's medals from World War II and a two-tone Rolex Oyster date chest dating to the late nineteen forties. That same watch was on his wrist that fateful night in nineteen fifty two. According to Eric Kurzinger's recollection of conversations with his mother, who was Schwartz's sister, Norman Schwartz never intended to fly covert missions for the CIA. He'd been a fighter pilot, flying direct air support sorties out of mainland China in a powerful Corsair for the Marine Corps' Air Arm during World War II. The kind of daring flying he was accustomed to was very different from the monotonous routine of his cargo transport job, flying C-47s around Asia. The transition from fast, nimble, single-engine fighter planes to lumbering, multi-engine cargo aircraft was tough for some pilots, but for Schwartz, it was his ticket to staying in the Far East. He was a thrill seeker. He enjoyed life in post-war China. The power of the American dollar afforded him a comparatively lavish lifestyle, and the challenge of flying in a new environment kept life interesting. He signed on with an outfit called Civil Air Transport, which began as an American-sponsored relief effort in 1946, but which after the defeat of the Nationalists' horses in 1949 was taken over by the CIA. On top of relief efforts, CAT operated routine flights in the region as well as cargo transport. The airline was set up by Americans Claire Chinault and Whiting Willower. Chinault is best known for commanding the Flying Tigers, a volunteer squadron of American pilots who flew fighters wearing the Chinese colors, but carried out American-led bombing missions against Japan. When, in 1952, Schwartz's parents received the news that he had perished flying a cargo route from Seoul to Tokyo, they couldn't believe it. It was difficult to imagine that a combat pilot who survived World War II would meet his fate over the Sea of Japan on a routine flight, ferrying supplies during peacetime. His remains were never recovered. According to officials from Civil Air Transport, the plane he was flying was involved in some sort of accident. It was assumed the wreckage, along with the pilots, was sitting on the bottom of the Sea of Japan. A perfunctory rescue and recovery mission was carried out, which, of course, came up empty-handed. Schwartz and Snotty were gone, and their secret mission and passengers had vanished respectively into history and a Chinese prison. At first, the CIA didn't know what had become of the crew, but they knew immediately that the C-47 never made it home. As soon as it became clear that the mission had been compromised, the agency ordered oil barrels to be dropped into the Pacific to create oil slicks that would trick the rescue and recovery search crews into thinking the plane had plunged into the sea. The official story was that Schwartz was a former Marine Aviator turned civilian pilot. Unofficially, he was contracted by the CIA to carry out covert missions on behalf of the agency on top of his normal flying duties. At no point was he ever a CIA officer. Pilots were typically contracted instead. There's a pecking order within the CIA, and officers were at the top. Contractors traditionally did not enjoy the same privileges as CIA employees. The government held the position that the pilots were unequivocally civilian employees. This meant neither they nor their families qualified for any sort of recognition from the U.S. government or the CAA. Greensboro, North Carolina, nineteen ninety eight. In nineteen ninety eight, Norman Schwartz's sister, Betty Kersinger, asked her son, Eric, to make sure that her brother was buried in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. She had been writing the government for decades trying to find out the truth about what happened to her brother. She contacted the White House, the CIA, and various embassies, but didn't get anywhere. She passed away in 2004. Eric Kersinger was flipping through television channels one night when he saw a Chinese official delivering a speech on C-SPAN. On impulse, he took down his name and wrote him a letter. If the US government wasn't budging, then why not try from the Chinese side? Not long after the phone rang, it was the Chinese diplomat, Li Xiaozing, inviting Kurzinger to Washington, DC to chat. Lee looked into the incident and managed to locate the villagers who had actually buried Schwartz and Snoddy. They said they had initially buried both pilots next to the ambush site, but then they reburied the remains nearby. Kersinger had spoken with Downey a number of times, but that was only half the story. Slowly all the pieces were coming together. Schwartz and Snody's supervisor at Kat, Robert Russello, had been given direct orders not to speak with relatives of the fallen. He did so anyway, feeling he had a moral obligation to let Schwartz's parents know what had happened. At this point, everything that the Kurzingers knew about the incident had been cobbled together from bits of hearsay. A clearer picture was forming, but the U.S. had not performed an official investigation, aside from a classified debriefing in the 1970s with Fecto and Downey after their release. There were no plans in place to bring the piles' remains home. Since they were not CIA employees, merely civilian contractors, the CIA did not officially recognize their roles. Eric Kurzinger didn't settle for that explanation. He wanted to bring Schwartz home and bury him during his mother's lifetime. His uncle had perished in secret, but he'd served his country, and even though he assumed the same risks as the CA officers who had been his passengers and paid the ultimate price, he was not immediately recognized. But all that changed under the order of Director of Central Intelligence, George Tennet. Stars for Schwartz and Snotty were added to the CAA Memorial Wall. The CIA states that inclusion on the memorial wall is awarded posthumously to employees who lose their lives while serving their country in the field of intelligence. It was a rare exception that contractors were given the same treatment as official employees of the CIA, but both men had certainly made the sacrifices necessary. Kurzinger's persistence paid off. In 2002, an official investigation was launched. A joint team of members from the US and China went to Jilin province to interview the villager who had initially buried Schwartz and Snoddy, in hopes of recovering remains. Nothing was recovered on this visit But a follow up investigation was launched in two thousand four, and it came to light that the remains of Schwartz and Snoddy may have been reburied in another location because the area was being landscaped for farming. The crash site was excavated. There wasn't much. There were bits of what remained of the airplane. The searchers found possible human remains, along with some personal effects. A boot and a Parker mechanical pencil. A serial number stamped on a hose clamp served as a terminus postquim of January 1950. This was the plane. Among the personal effects was a Rolex Oyster date Just Watch. The lot was sent to Hawaii on July 9, 2004. For 52 years, 1952 to 2004, the Rolex had been underground, as forgotten as the man who'd worn it on the last night of his life. Now it had begun its journey home. The Joint Prisoner of War Missing in Action Accounting Command Central Identification Laboratory at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, produced some dry fax. The watch measured 43.6mm by 38.5mm by 15.3mm and weighed 49.3 grams. Both Spring bars were still a fix when the watch was found, suggesting that the leather strap that must have been attached to it had disintegrated. The crown was stamped with Rolex Oyster and the usual Swiss cross. The crystal was no longer clear, instead, it had turned a deep reddish-brown. Corrosion products was the report's clinical observation. The movement had ceased from rest, and the hands were almost completely obscured, but under a very bright light, their ghastly outline is still visible, frozen somewhere around midnight. The watch most likely stopped shortly after the ambush. Eric Kersinger wanted to bring Schwartz home and bury him during his mother's lifetime. While this was ultimately not possible, Schwartz was awarded the Distinguished Intelligence Cross posthumously. The sacrifice he made was etched in stone, but his body was never recovered. All that's left is his old watch, which Kurzinger finally received in 2019 after it sat on a shelf in the Hawaii Central Identification Lab for 15 years. Officials decided the watch should be passed on to Eric Kurzinger after a decades-long process. Through his old watch, Schwartz finally made it home |
| Unknown | . This week's episode was recorded at Hodinky HQ in New York City and was produced and edited by Grayson Korhonen. Please remember to subscribe and rate this show. It really does make a difference for us. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next week. |