I spent years thinking watches were something you either inherited or forgot to wear, the kind of thing sitting in a drawer with a dead battery and a slightly tragic air about it. Then I bought one properly, on purpose, with my own money, and understood the fuss. A good watch is the only accessory that works while you’re not thinking about it at all, which on a twelve hour shift is exactly what I want from anything I put on.
The difference between a good watch and a disappointing one comes down to a few things you can actually check before you buy. Weight first: pick it up and feel whether it sits heavy and cheap or light and hollow, you want something in between that feels like it has a bit of substance without dragging on your wrist by lunchtime. The strap matters more than people think. Leather needs to be properly stitched, not glued, or it splits at the lug within a year. Metal straps should adjust without a trip to a jeweller, with a clasp that clicks shut and stays shut, because nothing undoes the point of a watch faster than checking it’s still there every ten minutes. Glass over the face, not plastic, if you can manage it, because plastic scratches the first week you own it and then you’re squinting at the time through a haze for the rest of its life. If you’re only buying one, go simple: a plain face, a strap in a colour that goes with everything you own, nothing busy on the dial that dates in two years.
Pairing one is less complicated than people make it. A slim watch sits well under a buttoned cuff and looks considered rather than sporty. A chunkier one wants a bare wrist or sleeves pushed up, it gets lost and fights with jumpers and anything with a cuff that bunches. Stack it with thin bangles if you like a bit of noise on your arm, but keep the watch itself the quiet one in that conversation, let it be the fixed point everything else moves around.
Where it falls down is with very loose or heavily textured sleeves, it catches, twists, and you end up checking the time on your phone anyway, which rather defeats the object. Buy for your wrist, not for the display case.
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