The Hourglass: A Short Film that Celebrates Time, Slowly

Marc New­son is one of the world’s most respect­ed, exhib­it­ed and award-win­ning design­ers. Accord­ing to his web­site, he’s also the most high­ly-val­ued. New­son’s pieces have set so many records at auc­tion that his work now accounts for almost 25% of the total con­tem­po­rary design mar­ket. It there­fore comes as no sur­prise that the hour­glass­es he has designed for Ike­pod’s reboot cost any­where from 9,000 to 13,000 Euros.

It’s tempt­ing to dis­miss Ike­pod’s new Hour­glass video as a sleek ad for an over­priced prod­uct, espe­cial­ly since that’s exact­ly what it is. But the video is also an ele­gant, visu­al­ly strik­ing trib­ute to a van­ish­ing world, in which time (and time­pieces) seemed to move more slow­ly.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly