Chalamet in Cartier. Keoghan in Omega. White in Tiffany. There’s no excuse anymore, fellas: You now have permission to wear teensy, tiny watches to your heart’s content.
Like it or not, the era of the diminutive timepiece is in. And we’re not simply talking about smaller watches, like the kind worn by men for most of the 20th century. We’re also talking about watches designed for and primarily marketed to women: cocktail watches, 34mm tool watches, all manner of things Cartier. Hollywood’s finest are rocking them on the regular these days—and you can, too.
Check out Jeremy Allen White’s recent getup, styled by Jamie Mizrahi, at the 30th Annual SAG Awards: His monochromatic suit was accented by a two-hand, 21mm cocktail watch from—interestingly—Tiffany & Co. (While Tiffany-signed pieces from Rolex, Patek, and the like are certainly all the rage, the brand’s own white-label watches are less popular among collectors. If you ask me, though, the East West watch is pretty freakin’ cool.) Housed in an ovular, 18-karat rose gold case set with .85 carats worth of brilliant-cut diamonds, it features a white guilloché dial with Roman numeral indices and a matching spade handset.
There’s no doubt that this piece, with its satin black strap and diamond buckle, is a beautiful cocktail watch. But just a handful of years ago, a man wearing such a timepiece with its—gasp!—quartz-powered movement would’ve been considered a faux pas by the horological cognoscenti. “Forty millimeters or larger!” these snobs would say. “Mechanical or bust!” they would insist. “No diamonds unless you’re a platinum-selling rapper!” they would proclaim.
Forget all that. The Big Watch era is finally coming to a close. Men are retiring the 45mm pilot’s watches and 43mm chronographs—which, let’s face it, were never comfortable on your wrist unless you were built like a Sherman tank—and looking for watches that actually fit and wear well. 36mm everyday watches and 39mm tool watches are finally the norm again. And now that the sweatpants-and-T-shirt stage of the pandemic is finally in the rearview mirror, men are beginning to dress elegantly once more. And when putting on one’s best, the need for a refined watch becomes readily apparent.
Hence these cocktail watches, which sync up nicely with all manner of fine tailoring. Jeremy Allen White’s been spotted in other iconic fare recently—like the Bulgari Bulgari revival and the Vacheron Constantin Fifty-Six—all of which feature more manageable diameters that don’t envelop his entire forearm. Given White’s sky-high trajectory of late, you can expect to see more gorgeous, unorthodox timepieces grace his wrist soon.
Read the full article here
.jpg)
