Once you verify one of many watches made by Kevin Bertolero, you will discover tiny magnetic geese as a substitute of the time.
Halisia Hubbard/NPR
disguise caption
toggle caption
Halisia Hubbard/NPR
Once you verify one of many watches made by Kevin Bertolero, you will discover tiny magnetic geese as a substitute of the time.
Halisia Hubbard/NPR
Kevin Bertolero has a disdain for time.
“What number of instances do you take a look at a clock, or take a look at time, and are completely satisfied?” Bertolero mentioned. “When was the final time you have been like, ‘Oh, sick, it is 10:30. Superior.'”
That is one of many causes the 30-year-old has been making watches that do not inform time. They’re meant to be worn like a standard watch, besides you will not see a clock face when checking your wrist. As an alternative, you will discover a tiny 3D-printed pool with magnetic duckies and bubbles.
After leaving a worrying job at a plant-based yogurt startup, Bertolero needed to have interaction along with his “baby self.”
He was utilizing all kinds of methods to work by childhood trauma on the time.
“I believe all of us are low-key traumatized — you may’t not be dwelling in fashionable society, to a point,” Bertolero mentioned. He mentioned when folks’s traumas flare up, they use procuring, socializing or neighborhood involvement to mitigate discomfort. Bertolero discovered another choice: cute issues.
The concept for watches that do not inform time got here to him in a “state of semi-sleep”; a watch that is smooth like an Apple Watch, however enjoyable and interactive like Legos.
Little rubber duckies popped into his thoughts as one thing indisputably cute. He knew he needed to make them tiny, as a result of “the tinier one thing is, the cuter it’s. The extra folks find it irresistible.”
Bertolero says the sensory facet of with the ability to contact and transfer the geese are just like toys like fidget spinners or slime.
Bortelero mentioned he is all the time been interested in artwork, however has no formal coaching. He discovered methods to specific himself creatively at his native makerspace, the place he discovered learn how to 3D print.
He used a buddy’s resin 3D printer to print just a little pool for the geese to sit down in. He posted the method to TikTok and, to his shock, the video went viral.
A collaborative design course of by way of TikTok excited Bertolero, and he ended up incorporating a few of his follower’s concepts.
Bertolero mentioned he has offered over 300 watches that do not inform time, and is on observe to promote 1,200 by the tip of the yr. They’re out there on Etsy and his web site, watchesthatdonttelltime.com.
So far as Bertolero is aware of, there is not a style of watches like his — although there are some merchandise in the marketplace, together with terrarium watches and a watch and not using a time-telling face.
“I created these watches as a result of they made my internal baby completely satisfied,” Bertolero mentioned. He thinks his watches evoke the identical response in lots of people.
Crystal Burwell, a licensed skilled counselor who works with adults and youths, mentioned reengaging with the internal baby takes folks again to a spot the place they will deal with themselves with care, and that working by a problem therapeutically would not look the identical for everybody.
She encourages her sufferers to embrace their “bizarre, custom-made happiness” with sensory toys like squishy stuffed animals. It might probably assist folks reconnect with that a part of themselves they’ve disengaged with.
Toy designer Whitney Pollett mentioned that there is a demand for easy, comforting toys. Objects that one interacts with tactilely and act as an emotional reminder.
Bertolero mentioned: “I believe mainly, individuals are at their wits finish.”
“And you understand, it is good to have this little wrist reminder that there are cute and completely satisfied issues round you on the earth,” he mentioned.
