Where the smart money is

Sports styles may have become de rigueur in recent years, but the dress watch will never truly go out of fashion. By Ken Kessler

Everybody’s crazy about a “sharpdressed man”, to paraphrase the words of rockers ZZ Top. When they sang about stylish rakes nearly 40 years ago, suits were mandatory attire for anyone who wanted to be taken seriously in any professional capacity, or in certain social situations when dressing down just wouldn’t do. And along with a suit came the appropriate watch, for which Patek Philippe’s Calatrava serves as synecdoche.

Launched in 1932, and regarded as the true archetype of the genre, the original Calatrava eschewed complexity. Its designers understood that the wearer of a dress watch needed only to know the time in an instant: just hours and minutes, and perhaps seconds, and without numerals. On its 90th anniversary, Patek has delivered the ref. 6119, a clever hybrid of design details from the past, combining the original’s small-seconds form and dagger hands with a railway chapter ring and the faceted Clous de Paris hobnail bezel.

Time-only (or time-plus-date) remains the language of most dress watches. The category, however, has been challenged of late by the decline in the wearing of formal or business attire, caused in part by society permitting a more casual approach. The recent move towards working from home has further reduced the need for men to don jackets and ties, with even Marks & Spencer shrinking its dependency on the sales of men’s suits. So where does all of this leave the dress watch?

For Teo van den Broeke, style director of British GQ and GQ Style, the purchase of a Jaeger-lecoultre Reverso on a black alligator strap attests to his high regard for the dress watch. “The reason I rock it so regularly is that even though the pandemic has casualised my wardrobe with jersey-clad ferocity, it’s a shift that has, in turn, made getting dressed up for special occasions feel more important than ever before. These days there is nothing I love more than putting on a suit, smart shoes and a dress watch and heading out to a proper grown-up event, dressed in grown-up clothes.”

Unlike M&S, watch retailers have yet to abandon the dress sector. “Whilst classic dress watches are a relatively small proportion of what our clients buy today, they are still relevant for the man-about-town,” points out Mark Toulson, head of watch buying at Watches of Switzerland Group. “Irrespective of the decline in suit wearing, I believe that the classic dress watch has its place as a tasteful accessory for occasions such as weddings, cocktail parties and formal dinners. They demand formal attire so it’s right that a gentleman has the appropriate timepiece to respect the event.”

Despite the overwhelming growth of sports-dress models, exemplified by Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak and Patek Philippe’s Nautilus, the major brands continue to value the dress watch genre. Chopard’s gold-cased L.U.C XPS 1860 Officer (50 pieces only) starts with the recipe of time-only, small seconds and no numerals, and is given an added militaristic twist with a forest-green textured dial – not unlike a dress uniform versus military fatigues. Vacheron Constantin’s Patrimony, too, offers visual alternatives to the more sober white or champagne dial with creamy fumé or dark blue, matching straps and the option of diamond-set bezels, suiting both male and female clients.

Exemplifying the thinness of dress watches, better to disappear under a cuff, is Piaget’s Altiplano. The new Ultimate Automatic offsets the dial with exposed elements of the movement, reminiscent of supercars with see-through bonnets. Enjoying a renaissance, following its must-have status in the 1990s, is Blancpain’s time-only Villeret, especially the Ultra-slim.

Previously hard to find outside Japan, Seiko’s flagship Grand Seiko range has a dress watch series named after the Japanese seasons. Recently added, and adhering to the rules of dress watch minimalism, are the green-dialled Byōka (summer) and paleblue-dialled Kishun (spring).

For those who crave a dress watch with a surprise function, A. Lange & Söhne’s Richard Lange Minute Repeater in platinum looks as minimalist as any dress watch, yet it contains the sound-producing element that gives the watch its name. And, if something other than round is preferred, the prominent rectangular alternatives are Cartier Tanks, including the Chinoise from the Privé Collection, this year celebrating its centenary, and the revived Must de Cartier, along with Jaeger-lecoultre’s latest Reverso, the Tribute Monoface Small Seconds.

If desirous of something more esoteric, provided waiting lists aren’t an issue, many of the great independent watch houses offer classic, round, time-only dress models that all feature signature design elements. Among the most elegant and coveted are timepieces from H. Moser & Cie, Czapek, Kari Voutilainen, F.P. Journe, Laurent Ferrier and Parmigiani Fleurier.

So it would seem that dress watches are thankfully here to stay, whatever prevailing behaviour does to the suit.

“The good news is that dress watches, by their very nature, tend to be quite simple in design, which means they look just as good with smart outfits as they do with more casual ones,” notes van den Broeke. “I would even go so far as to say that dress watches can sometimes look better when worn dressed down as there’s something about the contrast between high and low.”

But the last word on the subject goes to those bluesy Texans, ZZ Top, asserting: “Silk suit, black tie – I don’t need a reason why.”

Ditto for dress watches.

‘These days there is nothing I love more than putting on a suit, smart shoes and a dress watch’