Time of the season, apparently... we've been getting a lot of watch questions lately, and while I don't consider myself a watch "expert" per se, I do really enjoy watches and their role they play in putting together an ensemble. They're a part of the kit. And we carry a small assortment of our own. So it's been fun to answer a few of these.
Should you match your watch to your clothes – or your clothes to your watch? This came from our first in a series of monthly columns with Hodinkee. We've been a big fan of their storytelling for awhile, so it's exciting to get to chime in once a month. Their head of content, Nick Marino, asked this particular question on our first call, and we were off to the races.
I go deeeeeep on this topic in the column... but the long and short of it is that for me, my watch is the last thing I put on before I walk out the door every morning. It's definitely a part of the look though. In fact, we design our shirt cuffs with the buttons kicked back just a hair so that a wristwatch can fit more easily underneath. It's a small thing – figuratively and literally; it's like a quarter-inch, and it's not gonna feel weird on the other wrist or anything – but it goes to show you that the watch is not an afterthought.
Ultimately, I think of a watch as the final lever to pull, style-wise. You can pull it to give a touch of formality to what you're wearing, to chill your look out a little bit, or just to play into the color story. Here's how I approach it:
Rule No. 1 is that the rules are looser than you think. Don't be afraid to go for a high-low mix - I think a Timex looks super cool with a navy suit, just as I think a Rolex Explorer can be great at the beach.
Rule No. 2: If you're a regular reader here, you've heard me say 100 times that you should only have one lead singer in an outfit - and that applies to watches too. If your outfit is a little toned down, now's the time when you pull out the watch that is a bit on the eye-catching side.
Rule No. 3: Your watch doesn't need to match everything, but I like it when it hooks back to something. Just a small tie-in. Maybe it's the color in your jacket matching your watch band, or matching your second hand to the repp stripe in your tie. The magic is in the details.
The second question came from Crown & Caliber. They're long-time friends of ours, based out of Atlanta, and their Digital Marketing whiz, Rachel Butler asked us about doing a little "Mashburn Capsule Collection" of watches on their site and addressing some style questions they frequently get.
One of those questions was What watch should you wear with a tuxedo? It's fun to think about this being a consideration and formal events starting to pick back up post-COVID. To start, you're already in a tuxedo, which is basically a uniform to make you look good – so I try not to overcomplicate it. If you've got a thin, simple, elegant watch – by all means, wear it. And if you don't, it's perfectly fine to NOT wear a watch at all. Hopefully it's the type of party where you're doing more dancing, and less checking the time.
Anyway, excited for the excuse to talk a little more about the watch world. Talk to y'all next... time...
