You've Been Looking Through It This Whole Time
The crystal is the only part of a watch whose highest ambition is to go unnoticed. Acrylic, mineral, sapphire — and why the hardest one has the worst failure mode.
Materials
Everything that is not the dial. The case metal that sets the light, the band that is the only part touching you all day, and the crystal you have been looking through this whole time.
You Buy a Watch for the Dial. You Live With the Case and the Strap.
Platinum, white gold, rose gold, steel, titanium, bronze — and why the band you put it on changes the watch more than anything else you can do to it.