A serious watch is an odd purchase. It performs a function your phone already handles, it costs more than it reasonably should, and it will outlive you if you treat it kindly. That last quality is the whole point. Buying well is less about brands and investment potential than about choosing an object you will want on your wrist for decades. What follows are ten rules, gathered from watchmakers, collectors and more than one expensive mistake of my own.
The first rule is to try before you buy, always, and to wear the watch for at least ten minutes in the shop. Photographs lie about size, and a watch that looks elegant online may overwhelm a slender wrist. Second, go smaller than you think. For most people, a case between thirty-six and thirty-nine millimetres is ideal, and fashions for oversized watches age badly. Third, check the lug-to-lug length as well as the diameter, since it decides whether a watch sits neatly or overhangs your wrist.
Movement, dial and restraint
Fourth, choose a mechanical movement if you can. A quartz watch is more accurate and cheaper to own, but a mechanical watch, whether automatic or hand-wound, has a quiet life of its own, and servicing it every few years becomes a small ritual. Fifth, favour a simple dial. Time only, or time and date, will look right in a meeting, at a wedding and on a beach. Complications are wonderful, but they are best saved for your second watch.
Sixth, consider steel before gold. Steel is tougher, less conspicuous and more versatile, and it will not make you anxious in a crowded bar. Seventh, pay attention to the strap or bracelet, which you will feel far more often than you will look at the dial. A well-made bracelet with small, tapered links is a luxury in its own right, and a good leather strap can transform an otherwise ordinary watch.
People ask me which watch will go up in value. I tell them to buy the one they will forget to take off. — Ottilie Vauquier, independent watchmaker
Eighth, buy from someone who will still be there in ten years, whether a specialist dealer, a trusted independent or the maker itself. Service history and honest advice are worth more than a small discount. Ninth, ignore talk of investment. A handful of models have risen spectacularly in value, but most watches do not, and buying for resale turns a pleasure into a spreadsheet. The watches that bring the most joy are rarely the ones that appreciate.
The tenth rule is the simplest: buy the one you keep coming back to. If you leave the shop and a particular watch is still on your mind three days later, that is your answer. The right watch is not the most expensive or the most admired. It is the one that looks right on an ordinary Tuesday, the one you forget to take off, the one you will one day hand on to someone else with a short, slightly embarrassed speech about what it meant.
