Do we still need to be gendering watches? Part 2 - a man's perspective Written by Sam Kessler

Having read Sam’s (the other Sam) previous post, I’m very definitely not about to

jump into the history of watches. I’m not a vintage expert, and while I know enough to

pen the occasional heritage article, that’s not my forte.

I have however been around long enough now that I’ve seen watches inflate and

deflate in size like the expanding and contraction of the universe – with about as

much importance put on those millimetre differences by brands and collectors alike.

And like it or not, size does matter – just not in the way most people assume. Size in

the watch world is inextricably linked to who wears it – and by ‘who’ I mean less what

they do for a living and more which bathroom they use.

On the surface, that makes some sense. Women’s wrists tend to be slimmer than

men’s, and so they should be wearing a smaller watch. If you’d never thought about

it before, that might seem like a solid line of reasoning. I’d argue that it’s not.

Let’s jump into the obvious problem right off the bat: ‘tend to’ does not mean always

and I for one have wrists that make larger timepieces guilty by association. By that I

mean me wearing an Hublot makes the Hublot look even more insanely macho than it actually is. So, diameter has less to do with gender, more to do with practicality.

The thing is, while anything under 36mm is considered a ladies’ watch, that’s not just

a blurry line, it’s fundamentally ahistoric. 60 years ago, watches were comparatively

tiny. Men’s watches were commonly in the 34mm or below range, 36mm considered

a bit much. Have we all ballooned since those stick-wristed halcyon days of yore? I

mean, some of us have, but as a species? No.

So why was a 32mm watch perfectly acceptable for a man last century but not now?

I’d argue that it still is. In the past few years, vintage proportions have come back

into vogue and while they’re not quite as petite as stuff from the 50s, it’s still proving

that not all men want big, hulking bruiser watches.

To flip things the other way, I have a family friend. Most of us do, but mine happens to be the editor of multiple watch mags past and present. She knows her watches more than anyone reading this, including me, and I don’t think I’ve ever once seen her wearing a typical women’s watch, to the point where she’s in my own father’s will for a pre-Vendome Panerai. It’s a big, big watch, one that I honestly wouldn’t want to wear. Does that make her a horological transvestite?

I’ve been talking about size so far, but that’s because it’s one of the lynchpin points of watch discussion. Let’s broaden the idea out, then. How about colour? Jump a decade back and you’d only have found pale pink and mint green on cheap Michael Kors quartz watches. Now, they’re the hottest colour around. Diamonds? I’m not a fan personally, but how are rappers icing out their Royal Oaks any different from high jewellery Pantheres?

It says a lot that two of my favourite watches this year at Watches & Wonders were women’s pieces. On the one hand, the Hermes Cut with its suspended time

complication and a rich burgundy dial, on the other, the linen-adjacent dial of the new

Patek Philippe Twenty-4.

These aren’t stunning women’s watches that a guy can get away with. I hate that phrase; it suggests that you’re using the wrong proverbial bathroom. The Cut and

Twenty-4 are genuinely fantastic timepieces, built incredibly to grail standards and beautifully designed. Why shouldn’t I be wearing them?

The central thesis I’m skirting around here is that gender in watches is artificial.

Taste is what matters. However, you think you can define a women’s watch vs a

men’s is arbitrary, all it comes down to is what you as a collector – of whatever

chromosomal make-up floats your boat – want to wear. Unfortunately, most

watchmakers have yet to cotton on to that idea.

While gender-fluidity as a concept is something that’s run through fashion for a while

now, watchmaking is still firmly split. Is that because Switzerland (and thus the wider

watch industry) is just too traditional? Is it because there’s just not the market? For

my money there’s another answer: profound laziness.

It’s hard to make a watch that appeals to everyone. It’s much easier to take a

winning formula, make it a bit smaller, throw on a dusting of a girl’s best friend and

be done with it. If it’s not a success, well, that’s just because women don’t appreciate

fine watchmaking, not because your approach compromises a classic design.

When you stop mentally linking size, settings and style to gender, then you can start

to understand what makes a well-designed timepiece. And design, as centuries of

V&A exhibits illustrate, is genderless.

In short, we like what we like. Why make it any more complicated than that?