In the April 2006 issue of GQ, featuring Victoria’s Secret model Adriana Lima on the cover, The Style Guy (aka Glenn O’Brien) tackles, again, the question of which watch to wear with a more formal suit.
Question: At Christmas I received a stylish watch as a gift. Right after I tried it on, my sister informed me that it was a casual watch: not to be worn with suits, etc. What exactly differentiates a suit watch from a casual watch?
Answer: This is perhaps one of the most ignored distinctions out there: the dress watch versus the sports watch. A dress watch is supposed to be small and discreet, whereas a sports watch is supposed to be visible at 300 meters and glow in the dark. But today most people choose their watches not on discretion or appropriate utility but just the opposite. Why were a little gold thing easily hidden by one’s shirt cuff when you can wear a diamond-studded watch bigger than an Oreo cookie, calling everyone’s attention to you apparently limitless disposable income? So the question is, fundamentally, are you a gentleman or a playa or some attempted hybrid of the two? I think the sports-watch trend started with extended wear of the Rolex Submariner. Men aiming for a dashing image wore their diver’s watches to the office, sending out the message “I may lease industrial washing machines Monday through Friday, but on weekends I stalk the Great Barrier Reef.” In their dreams, of course–but isn’t that what most sartorial imagery is about?
Let the bloodshed discussion begin…
