SDC Weekly 76; Women & Watches; Lessons for the Watch-Obsessed Mind; The Vertical Divide
Art Market Goes Bananas, Rolex Swaps F1 For Sailing, Pragnell’s Swatch Group Fire Sale, Rolex Dubai CPO, Subdial Watches' New Sugar Daddy, New Hans Wilsdorf Data, Shakespeare & the Upper Class +++
🚨 SDC Weekly again! Estimated reading time: ~31 mins
I’m currently away on an executive education boot camp which has kept me occupied from dawn to dusk, and will only get worse as the week goes on - so SDC’s early yet again. While this edition may be shorter than usual, I’m hoping it packs just as much punch - covering everything from bananas selling for millions to women’s role in watches, and even a deep dive into collector psychology. Oh, and some sweet deals to be had due to an apparent tiff in the industry - so if you buy a watch because of this, you will have paid off your subscription multiple times :)
Let’s get started!
PS. If you’re new here, welcome! Catch up on the older editions of SDC Weekly here.
🎈 Small stuff
Art Market Goes Bananas
So, this actually happened. A banana duct-taped to a wall sold for $6.24 million at Sotheby’s. Not a painting of a banana - an actual banana. From a shop. For around 35 cents.
The buyer is crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun, who plans to eat his multi-million dollar purchase “to honour its place in art history.” At least he’s getting one of his five-a-day, I suppose.
The piece, titled Comedian by Maurizio Cattelan, sparked a 10-minute bidding war between seven eager collectors. Sotheby’s auctioneer Oliver Barker could barely keep a straight face, cracking jokes about bidders “slipping on banana skins” as the price shot past its $1.5 million high estimate.
Get this - the artwork comes with no actual banana or tape. The buyer simply gets instructions to tape a fresh banana 160cm from the floor. When it rots, you bin it and start again. This makes those ‘unwearable’ NFT sneakers seem practical by comparison!
The sale was also guaranteed by Sotheby’s, meaning they’d committed to buy it themselves if no one else would. How the hell does that work? Imagine being the executive who had to explain that one to the board: “Yes, we’ve guaranteed a piece of fruit for a million and a half dollars. No, not doll hairs, yes, for real…” Jesus.
Naturally, the guy paid in TRX, the cryptocurrency from his TRON blockchain platform. There’s something poetically fitting about using made-up money to buy the right to tape fruit to a wall. The crypto world and contemporary art market truly deserve each other.
For those keeping score, this isn’t even the first time someone’s eaten this artwork! Performance artist David Datuna munched the original at Art Basel Miami in 2019, complaining it had “too much duct tape.” A Korean student followed suit in 2023, turning the Leeum Museum’s display into an impromptu snack bar.
At $6.24 million, assuming a 35-cent banana and two bucks’ worth of duct tape, that’s roughly a 265000000% markup on materials. Even Richard Mille looks like a complete peasant when you put him next to these banana margins! 🤣
Rolex Swaps F1 for High-Speed Sailing
After surrendering their Formula 1 sponsorship to LVMH, Rolex has found a new way to splash their cash as
explained. They are becoming the title sponsor of Larry Ellison’s SailGP racing series. The 10-year deal will see a dozen teams racing wind-powered catamarans at speeds approaching 100km/h, all while presumably checking their Yacht-Masters.SailGP CEO Russell Coutts calls it “the biggest partnership in sailing by a fair margin”, though he’s keeping quiet about the actual numbers. Given LVMH is reportedly paying up to $100 million annually for F1… This is probably 10-20% of that, at most?
The series has come a long way since Oracle founder Larry Ellison bankrolled its launch in 2019. Teams are now privately owned and valued at up to $45 million each. Some are even approaching profitability, which is apparently quite rare in the world of sailing.
Joël Aeschlimann, Rolex’s sponsorship chief, claims the move has nothing to do with losing F1. He goes on about how SailGP appeals to “a younger and more female audience.” Because nothing says “youth appeal” quite like a Swiss luxury watch brand sponsoring competitive sailing, right? Maybe he means, only rich youth.
The renamed Rolex SailGP Championship kicked off last weekend in Dubai. One imagines the crown’s marketing department is praying for plenty of wrist shots featuring Yacht-Masters timing dramatic tacks and jibes1. At least they won’t have to worry about any pesky competitor logos appearing on winners’ wrists - Rolex has apparently been the sailing world’s timekeeper of choice since partnering with the New York Yacht Club back in the 1950s.
But then again, they probably thought their F1 position was unassailable too...