Hands On: A Perfectly Useless Afternoon

About two months ago, we wrote here in the magazine about a new watch by the British microbrand watchmaker Mr Jones. The new watch, A Perfectly Useless Afternoon, comes with a particularly creative dial. You know what, maybe “creative” is not the right word. The dial is light and youthful on one hand, but on the other hand, it is full of mystery. Why is it mysterious? We’ll explain in a moment. To our delight, Mr Jones offered us the watch for review, and we immediately agreed. Within a few days, we received the watch for a review. From the moment we took the watch out of the packaging and showed it to people, the most common question we heard was, “What time is it and how do you read the time on this watch?!” So even though we already introduced the new watch in our article, we believe you’ll be pleased to hear our first hand impressions of Mr Jones’ new timepiece. Hands On: A Perfectly Useless Afternoon – Let’s dive into this watch together.

If you remember our article, we told you that Mr Jones introduced two watches: A Perfectly Useless Afternoon – one watch with a quartz movement and another watch with an automatic movement. We received the quartz watch for review, which comes in a stainless steel 316L case, with a diameter of 37mm. The watch comes with a Milanese Mesh bracelet, made of stainless steel, measuring 18mm in width.

If you recall our previous piece, we shared with you that Mr Jones released two watches: A Perfectly Useless Afternoon – one featuring a quartz movement, and the other an automatic movement. We were fortunate enough to receive the quartz watch for review, which comes in a 37mm stainless steel 316L case. It is accompanied by an 18mm wide Milanese Mesh bracelet, also crafted from stainless steel.

The watch’s case is polished and comes with a silver finish, emphasizing the unique dial of the watch. As a reminder, the watch’s dial depicts a scene that we believe we would all be happy to spend a significant amount of time in. The dial features a swimming pool with a person lounging on a giant seashell float, holding a book in their hand. Another element on the dial is a yellow rubber duck, floating in the pool waters.

The watch’s case is meticulously crafted with a sleek silver finish, beautifully highlighting the watch’s distinctive dial. To refresh your memory, the dial portrays a scene that we believe would bring joy to spend an extended period of time in. The dial showcases a swimming pool, where a person relaxes on a massive seashell float, engrossed in a book. Adding to the charm, there is also a yellow rubber duck, happily floating in the pool.

Once again, let’s revisit our article about the watch from two months ago. If you recall, we explained in the article that the person’s leg, protruding from the seashell float, indicates the hour, while the rubber duck indicates the minutes. That’s right, there are no additional hands on the watch, no seconds hand, no minutes hand, and no hours hand.

We must admit that the first time you see the watch, the dial is, of course, the first thing that captures your attention, and you immediately get excited about the idea. Then comes the stage where you say to yourself – well, it’s starting to get challenging, and it takes us an extra second or two compared to a regular watch to read the time. But after using the watch for a few days, we can tell you that you get accustomed to the unique display, and reading the time is performed just as quickly as it would take with a regular watch.

Another advantage-disadvantage of the special dial of the watch is that you start getting used to a lot of questions about the watch. I mean, really, a lot of questions. We can’t even remember a single time when we wore the watch and no one asked us, “What is this watch?” Some even asked us to take it off our wrist and see it up close. If you like attention, be prepared to receive a lot of it.

As mentioned, the watch comes with a quartz mechanism, which means it doesn’t have too many mechanical components that are cumbersome or heavy, making it lightweight and very comfortable to wear. Surprisingly, despite its 37mm diameter, a size we thought was too small (most of our team members have relatively thick wrists), when you put on the watch, it doesn’t feel small at all. It even made some of our team members, who until now wore the smallest watch with a 40mm diameter on a daily basis, think again about a watch with a smaller diameter than 40mm.

The watch strap is surprisingly light, which contributes to the sensation, or rather, the lack of sensation of the watch when you wear it. You know that feeling when you come home after a long day, and the first thing you do after taking off your shoes is to remove the mechanical watch from your wrist to give your hand a little rest? Well, with Mr Jones’ watch, it doesn’t happen, and we found ourselves showering with it several times or even wearing it in bed simply because it’s very easy to forget that it’s on your wrist.

We’ve been wearing the Mr Jones watch for more than two weeks. We can tell you that throughout these weeks, we constantly received questions about this watch. The watch has a light appearance, it’s lightweight, and to our delight, it’s also light on the wallet (£195 only). Granted, it may not be a watch you’d wear to an important business meeting or a fancy cocktail party, but it’s definitely a watch you’ll enjoy wearing in your everyday life, by the pool, at the beach, and anywhere you feel like you can unwind a bit and simply enjoy a purposeless afternoon…

For more information and buying the watch at Mr Jones Watches website.