Last time I went to lunch with Lapo Elkann I learned an Italian term that is highly descriptive, "Burrino". The person who churns butter in the farming community is called a burrino. The burrino (or butter maker) travels into the city once the butter is ready to sell. He acquires, in his mind at least, the trappings and sophistication of an urbane sophisticate. He is so enamored with city living that he lectures his rural peers on the finer aspects of urban life when he returns home. He speaks with self-appointed authority about the current hem length and the acceptable style of waistcoat that is currently favored by the haut bourgeois. If he's a butter-maker of exceptional talent. If Aphrodite has blessed his cows with an abundance of milk that would make even the most discriminating gourmand weep. If his cart was so overloaded with swollen, concupiscent cows that his donkey is always on the verge of cardiac collapse. If he had the money-making and loot-slinging skills of an army abacus wielding Rothschilds. After a successful day in the market, the man might go home, flip his shirt cuff,Rolex Sea-Dweller Replica and show his ruddy cheeked kin his ultimate trophy. It would be a testament to his impeccable taste, and a symbol of his rise to the ranks of high-end sophistication.

The Rolex Sea-Dweller Replica, after all, is the ultimate symbol for horological expertise, right? The Rolex Sea-Dweller Replica, whether it's a screw-pusher or a pump-pusher, in three or two colors, or steel or gold is the ne-plus-ultra, le choix-nonpareil, and the key to entry into a club which eschews everything banal, shining and obvious and instead practices a subtler form of reverse-snobbism. Your Valjoux 72 chronograph with its Art Deco font and subdials marked squares hash marks, a Or does it? Or does it?

Let's take a moment to reflect on our culture of relative social values. Human beings have always striven to improve themselves, especially in comparison to their peers. Since the advent of capitalism they have shown their superiority by two means: how much money they stuff in their beds and how large their wives' breasts are. With the rise of middle class, or the bourgeoisie in society, the newly arrived middle stratum added another challenge to self-worth. They had to prove that they were not only wealthy, but also had taste and culture. They had to find and co-opt symbols and trappings of the aristocracy.

The protagonist and comic foil of Molière's play Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, Monsieur Jourdain, did this better than anyone else. This play's title is an intentional oxymoron, as a gentleman at the court of Louis XIV was only able to attain his title by virtue of noble birth. M. Jourdain was determined to beat down the hymen patrolled by the haut monde. He would live like a baller with class, and a shot caller.Rolex Day Date Replica It is important to note how he manages his sartorial assets, which include velvet breeches, vests with rhinestones, and a doublet that has an inverted buttonhole. "No marquis" would want it any other way.

Say M. Jourdain is still alive. If he were as intelligent and as insightful as he is determined to rub elbows with the Thurn and Taxis and Santo Domingos of the world. If he studied the interweb watch websites voraciously, he would realize that what was cool a decade ago, has become the very apogee of douche-baggery in the post-financial-crisis era. He would know that instead of a massive priapically wing Pagani in gulf chic chrome finish, he ought to own a vintage Aston Martin V8 Vantage X Pack. Instead of the blinged-to-infinity skeletonized quadruple-oscillator-equipped panjandrum of horological finery, today, he needs a watch that shows how cool, how savvy, he is. He is savvy enough to know that today's snobbery is just as obvious, but it is in direct opposition to old-fashioned snobbery. The age of "discretion" and "subtlety" that we live in allows us to flaunt our wealth in the same way, just in a more subtle manner.