I worked in watches for about four months through a slow period where the menswear floor wasn’t offering overtime and the quickest way to see someone decide against purchasing something they liked was listening to one of your coworkers say “that’s more of a men’s piece, though.” Every single time. Drove me insane. Didn’t matter how perfectly it sat on her wrist when she tried it on, how clearly it just looked right on her, anyone hear the word “men’s” said under our roof could reliably stop a sale dead. Watch her change her mind about something she’d already made up her mind about.
A lady comes in looking for a steel field watch, says she wants forty millimeters, tries one on loves it but the guy helping her says the line so she almost puts it back before catching herself and asking “wait, why does that matter?” Shut him down with that question faster than anyone else ever has.
The “men’s” and “women’s” divide is a marketing construct
When you actually look up what differentiates men’s watches from women’s watches according to manufacturers: case diameter, usually. Strap width, sometimes. Dial color and treatments, occasionally.
That’s literally the long and short of it. Men’s watches and women’s watches don’t differ on any spec that applies to one gender and not the other. There’s no biological aspect to it. No piece of the manufacturing process where wrist chromosomes are tested. This isn’t biology class. A brand places a forty two millimeter case with a black dial in it’s men’s collection and a twenty eight millimeter case with a rose gold dial in it’s women’s collection and that’s it. Marketing department decides, someone in product development writes it down. Not a convention set by any authority you actually respect.
I’ve stared at enough watch case backs to know that men’s and women’s watches by the same brand inside the same collection more often than not means nothing but the numbers stamped into plastic on the back. Brands I’ve worked with will sell you a 40mm unisex chronograph, a 42mm version of the exact same watch face labeled “men’s” and a women’s version that’s 34mm with just a slightly skinnier strap. Same movement sometimes. Same fucking dial layout across all three. Change nothing but ten millimeters and which column it got placed under on the website. Selling watches is not science. Putting them in arbitrary folders no closer to consistency than every other brand’s is someone at headquarters deciding Tuesday afternoon that your either a one or a two.
So if someone asks me “can a woman wear a men’s watch?” The real question is “can she wear a larger watch?” And the answer is obviously yes, they can, they just didn’t realize they could because some stitched on label made them think otherwise. That irks me more than anything else about it. More than the watches, more than comments like this still getting posted. Watches don’t care about that stupid label on the box, wrists sure as hell don’t. Only human I know that cares about it is me, and I work in retail so I ignore it.
What actually matters when it comes to size has nothing at all to do with gender
The only thing that matters when it comes to watch size is proportion and proportion is objective, it’s not subjective. Numbers, not opinions. Once you start measuring for yourself instead of letting a clothing tag do it behind your back a 46mm dive watch on a five and a half inch wrist is going to look large on anybody. Doesn’t care if you’re male or female, too big for that skin isn’t coursing through because “that watch is meant for men.” It looks like a fucking hubcap because it is a hubcap compared to where your wrist ends. A 40mm field watch on that same wrist can look purposeful though. Look like it ended right at the bone rather than sliding past it simply because forty millimeters and five and a half inches happen to agree with each other. forty six and five and a half greatly disagree.
I’ve had men whose wrists were small enough to comfortably wear watches girls in high school were told to avoid walk in my store because “men’s watches are serious and I need that face to be bigger.” Plops the same watch they tried on eight sizes too small for me on their wrist and watch it swallow it whole. Sizes don’t care about who you are, they care about whether you bothered to see if something fit before you bought it. Same lady who happens to be female with a six and three quarter inch wrist can wear that same 42mm timepiece and have it look intentional instead of like it stole the minute hand from her necklaces watch because math isn’t patriarchal, watches aren’t sexist. The number on that tag happens to line up with reality when it comes to her wrist size.
The only thing that looks “wrong” is when a watch is too large for a wrist. Period. Doesn’t matter who’s wearing it. Male, female, comes with lifeproof certification, something as large as your head wears a watch that doesn’t fit. It looks like it doesn’t fit. Something that looks like it was bought based on whatever was at arm’s reach when the caffeine pill you took for lunch kicked in looks like it was bought based on whatever was at arm’s reach when the caffeine pill you took for lunch kicked in. No one.
The strap makes all the difference with this stuff. Trust me. I’ve spent enough time in watches to know it’s 100% the most important part of “does this look like it was made for me.” That women’s watch with a men’s watch face but retains the teeny tiny original strap is going to scream “borrowed” across the room. Reach for something with actual substance to it. Put that same watch on a leather strap that’s just a hair thicker than what came on it or a simple steel bracelet sized to their wrist instead of whoever the watch was originally marketed towards and suddenly the same watch looks like a fashion statement.
Something somebody chose instead of something they settled on.
Denise put the forty millimeter field watch on she liked over a tank top and had the guy at the counter size it down two links before she left, watch sat perfection on her wrist. No gap between the strap and her skin, didn’t swallow her wrist up completely. Just sat right where a watch should sit.
I’ll keep this simple. There are no men’s watches and women’s watches when it comes to actual human beings. Watch that fits, watch that doesn’t. Size guides on brand websites exist to help file returns, not tell you what you can and can’t wear based on your anatomy. If a 42mm chronograph feels good on your wrist, looks good on your wrist when you check the time, that’s the only test that matters. Screw anything else.
Terry works a menswear shop floor in Newcastle and is a big and tall specialist himself. He writes about sizing that holds up, measures things before he believes the label, and has strong opinions about the phrase relaxed fit.
