There’s a huge lot waiting in the dress domain yet most of us dive straight into the eye-candy stuff that carry little value in their movements. Beneath all that expensive dials and glasses runs a quartz movement oftentimes; rest are run-of-the mill automatics with nothing great to offer. Even the most inexpensive watch must capture the wearer’s imagination and fascinate him/her before attracting his/her money. You are not bound to agree and you are free to follow your mind; just spare me from following yours.

A dress watch is all about looking smart and even the computer nerd, at times, needs looking so. The digital sports watches are good for the shoot-up games and the McDonald joints where donning a sport jacket is the norm than a tux or a suit. A slim, elegant timepiece rounds off formal attire like nothing else.

Now, what a dress watch depicts? Sure you can acquire the mindset, but primarily check if any of these are your cuppa:

  1. You are detail-oriented.
  2. You got classic taste.
  3. You have quite a sense of timelessness, still care about the present times.
  4. You find pulling out the cell phone in middle of a dinner to tell time obnoxious.

If it’s a yes for any, you need a dress watch. It will save you from:

  1. Looking an upstart: A wrong watch/suit pairing reek bad taste. That Bill Clinton wore a Timex Ironman shouldn’t be an excuse.
  2. Take your watch collection a notch higher: A dress watch shouldn’t be a regular wear, so don’t start a collection with it. There are better stuff; both simple and complicated. It’s meant to come out from the watchdrobe maybe once a month (or less) on special occasions fitting its artistry and timeless allure.

So, do we call the 45mm discuses with Chinese quartz movements and classic impressions dress watches? Maybe, on wrists of young men at the high school proms, who are confused about the finer sides of life; but then again, it is not the age to be fully aware of anything. So that DKNY is okay.

But above 25 and you must know it:

  1. Every stodgy, historical piece is not dress watch.
  2. A dress watch must not be straight out of the ’60s although great if it’s so.
  3. By timeless features, it’s a slim, precious metal case, a modest diameter and a simple dial meant, on a natural leather strap and run by a mechanical movement, preferably hand-winded.
  4. Make sure it fits the entire ensemble without drawing all the attention to itself. A good way to do that is staying 40mm, the perfect size to hide under the tailored shirt cuffs until revealed at will.

Get this much straight; more later.

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