Not all hot rabbis flex vintage wristwear, but Adam Brody certainly makes a case for doing so – as long as the watch has meaning attached to it
It’s been a while since a Netflix series captured our hearts quite like Nobody Wants This. When you break it down, two millennial crushes (Adam Brody and Kristen Bell) gracing our screens again, what’s not to love?

The internet’s new favourite rom com has it all: cliffhanger finale, relatable characters (um, who hasn’t pretended to like basketball for a guy before?), two stylish shiksas and – move over Fleabag’s hot priest – a hot rabbi, Noah, played by Brody.

What really kept us watching wasn’t just the levels of hot rabbi-ness, rather the curious case of his wrist flex. No matter how many times we paused to get a closer view of his vintage dress ticker, our expert eyes couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Reddit was saying an Omega De Ville or perhaps a Rolex Cellini?

Luckily, Michael Orona – Nobody Wants This’s prop master – has all the juicy details we’re craving. “On my initial meeting with Adam, we discussed character details and when the topic of watches came up, he wanted to have something that felt handed down, he felt that because family was so important to Noah it would be a nice detail to have the character wear something that felt like Noah’s grandfather’s watch. Something that grounded him to his lineage,” Orona says. To achieve this, Orona had Auri Friedrich, his assistant prop master, shop vintage watches in Los Angeles. “We presented Adam with a selection of 10. He selected this vintage Langel watch,” he adds.

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A bit of research tells us that there is very little information about the brand Langel. It appears to have originated in Biel, Switzerland in 1947 and was a specialist in waterproof ultra-flat watches under the company name Vialux-Langel Watch Co. SA, which went bankrupt in 2004. Kudos to the prop team and Brody for a) keeping us guessing, and b) such a tasteful choice.

Vintage watches like the hot rabbi’s come with challenges. “The trouble with picking a vintage watch is that it can be difficult to find a double. We like to have doubles for everything because you never know what can happen — an actor leaves set forgetting to take it off and forgets to bring it back for shooting the next day, a watch breaks, etc — but unfortunately we could never find an exact match,” says Orona. “I had to rely on Alina Cutrono [his standby assistant prop master] to ensure the watch was always safe and accounted for.”

While the watch doesn’t have its own story line and isn’t mentioned directly (aside from when they talk about his ex-girlfriend Rebecca’s hair: “It’s pretty thick, I’ve lost my watch in it”), Noah wears it consistently throughout the show: on his and Kristen Bell’s character Joanne’s first official date (and in bed later that evening), and with a suit jacket (or should we call it “a sportscoat”?).

It begs the question of how significant watches might be as a sign of status or heirloom piece within Jewish culture. “Family heirlooms are not a uniquely Jewish thing,” says Yoni Ben-Yehuda, head of watches at Material Good, who defines himself as ‘Jew-ish’. “But Jews were a nomadic people throughout thousands and thousands of years, and the ability to hand things over, to share things is very much steeped in the traditions of Judaism,” he continues, describing such “things” as much more knowledge-based than material. “The things that are important to us really stem mostly into family values, which is true for Muslims, Christians, Buddhists and atheists too” he says.

“There is a lot, especially in the more religious communities, about not showing off wealth and not showing off status. That’s very much in the vein of quiet luxury, which is to have something that’s impactful, but not showy,” explains Ben-Yehuda, which rings true when you consider Brody’s rather demure and understated Langel. “That’s probably true to the rabbi’s character.”

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Orona also confirmed Adam Brody’s father in the show wears a Montblanc 7016 chronograph, which is seen during the ‘pork incident’ family meal. “Obviously you see they’re very wealthy, but they’re not necessarily wearing things that are obvious. The father has gold necklaces and a Jewish star necklace, but I think that shows where you are as you get older,” says Ben-Yehuda.

So as far as watch collecting in Jewish culture is concerned, there’s not a one size fits all model. “Like all monotheistic religions, Judaism spans a very vast range. Some people keep kosher, some people don’t, some people go to synagogue, some people don’t – so Judaism ends up being really what it means to you,” he says.

Whether or not Noah is still flexing this piece in (a still tbc) season 2, we shall see. Spoiler alert, but we guess it depends if he turns down the head rabbi job.