T A B L E__T A L K Why is it inappropriate to discuss how much you make? Weigh in on salary taboos in the Business and Personal Finance area of Table Talk R E C E N T L Y Pot of gold or P.C. money pit? By Heather Chaplin Are socially responsibility mutual funds good karma or bad business? (07/03/98) Swamped By Todd Pitock If everyone is working so hard, why are they always at lunch? (06/26/98) Rich pickings, sour grapes By Linda Tischler A mother envies her daughter's lucrative entrance into the world of work (06/19/98) Get them while they're young By Kevin Kelleher Money managers are targeting children as the next growth market (06/12/98) Mad about Steve Madden By Heather Chaplin Wall Street loves this low-end shoemaker -- and so do fashion-conscious young women (06/05/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Money archives		____________AS THE ECONOMY KEEPS ON TICKING, ____________THE WATCH INDUSTRY ____________SELLS THE DAZE OF OUR LIVES. BY ROBERT BRYCE | I love watches. But even more than watches, I love watch advertisements. Sure, ads for cars, perfume and clothes all have a certain psychology to them. Like the new TV ad for a Mitsubishi sport utility vehicle that shows the macho guy in the gym cringing when it is announced over the PA system that he has to move his minivan. Clever. But that little tweaking of a man's manliness pales in comparison to the complex combination of snobbery, sex and adventure fantasies that are used in watch ads. My favorite appeared in the New York Times last month. The ad for a truly ugly Piaget Protocole, priced at $9,900, claimed that it was a "technically advanced tool in which time silently shifts forward without a lot of fanfare, but a whole lot of spirit." Another ad -- this one for a chunky Breitling Chronomat -- proclaimed that of all self-winding watches, theirs was the "the most universally popular, cutting through time at will to capture and measure the instant." John Harrison must be spinning in his grave. Harrison, a British tinker, helped perfect watchmaking 230 years ago when he produced a timepiece that was accurate and durable enough to claim the coveted Longitude Prize. Harrison spent his entire life mastering the mechanisms needed to allow a portable machine to accurately keep time on board a ship. But unlike the watches of Harrison's day, which were essential for accurate navigation while at sea, today's watches are not really about keeping time. After all, a cheap Casio tells the same time as the most expensive Rolex. Instead, watches have become first and foremost a fashion accessory. They have also become a kind of talisman through which we place an actual dollar value on our time. And the type, cost and shape of the watch becomes our alter ego, the face that we choose to present to the world. Or as Tourneau, the huge watch retailer in New York, puts it in its ads: "Where you meet your other face." How else to explain the boom in the watch business? Sales of high-end watches, like Rolexes and Piagets, rose 13 percent last year and revenues in the luxury watch market topped $1.1 billion. Overall, the retail watch market in the U.S. approaches $16 billion in annual sales. There are currently more than 250 Swiss watch brands actively marketing their products in the U.S. And there are hundreds of other brands, ranging from Levi's to Smith & Wesson. In the last 18 months, some 20 new watch brands have been introduced, and more are on the way. Go into any department store and you can see hundreds of watches, with specific designs for divers, pilots and adventurers. Never mind that the people who buy diving watches or pilot's watches never get near a scuba tank or a cockpit. The watches are sold on the idea that a buyer could, if he wanted to, be the next Jacques Cousteau. N E X T+P A G E | It's 3:30, and you're at 30,000 feet