Have we been socially conditioned by to like boring… I mean, conservative watches?

We buy what our parents and piers purchase. Out there fringe styles usually fall to the wayside

Nah! My first watches my have been a little more conservative looks wise because I was a classically trained musician and I needed watches that weren't so flashy. Nowadays, I am drawn to different and colorful dials

The longer I hang with all you fellow geeks the more immune I am to your likes and dislikes.

Form follows function.

What if we don't like "amazing, creative" watches. Maybe they're just ugly

If someone has multiple watches, I think there is a real argument against the more “boring” GADA watches & in favor of some stuff that is more fun. On the other hand, if someone has one or two watches I think GADA designs make sense.

Our taste is shaped when we are young children and continues to grow & evolve over our lifetimes. Many factors contribute to our taste. Media and our peers have a huge influence. I also think that familiarity influences us…that’s why certain styles will “grow on you” over time.

People say that Rolex make solid watches that hold up well!

I think you want me to make a list of ugly and stupid, er I mean daring and avant-garde watches.

• The old Royal Croak

• The PP Notalus

• all those watches with the crooked dials

• Hamilton Ventura

• Constantin Joker

• Wait, I do hate all these watches

• Well the Accutron Spaceview is nice

• Entire Lange lineup, and let's be honest, almost all those other scheweinehunds from Germany, the land of fug watches

• that watch on your (my) wrist right now

• The JLC Reverso is corny but grandfathered in for about a century

• Studio Underdoggy

• ad nauseum

Wait, almost all the watches discussed here are awful novelty acts. A conservative watch would be like a Hamilton Khaki or Timex Marlin, I guess? And the eternally banal Rolex, of course.

There's a time for fashion and a time for utility. While there are people that buy watches based on a need to fit in, sometimes a boring watch is just more fitting and not based on some social conditioning. However, I'd also be lying if I said I never bought a watch based on current trends.

*sigh *

To be more cerebral, boring is practical. Safe is safe, and risky is risky. I can wear my Timex Easy Reader anywhere with anything. It's magical that way. I have Mr Jones and that Nixoid tube watch. They are much more challenging. And the novelty wears off quickly. The boring watch can barely become more boring, and so it ages like granite. People here get watches of hot pink or bright yellow, and I suspect it's all great fun for a week and then the things collect dust.

Oh, I think we condition ourselves. Initially out of economy and timidity. If you have one watch, that is a nontrivial expense, should it be a Bel Canto or something? Hell no! Sellers wants to shape us to buy endless frivolous flavors of the week, not some plain-Jane staid classic that can be daily worn effortlessly right into the grave.

I started off solidly conservative. Then I experimented with goofy stuff, discovered the shortcomings, and came back home to the old faithfuls that just make sense and aren't about being a popinjay making a "statement."

Well, yes and no. No more or less than any other, consumer product.

You say boring, but most people would say versatile. The fact is that the 'out there' watches are fun and make you smile, but are severely limited in their actual application. A 'boring' watch just means one that can be worn in a large variety of situations, from weddings to funerals, from office meetings to nights out, and doesn't call attention to itself.... and there is room in my watch box for both types.

Good question and I see what you mean. I voted maybe. I don’t think it is intentional, but certainly has happened to an extent.

Sort of. I am a lover of weird and funky. I can appreciate the crazy and out-there designs such as my Lucerne Digital Jump Hour.

However, I find myself wearing rather boring watches most of all, simply because they can go with any outfit for almost any occasion.

Take my Camy Club-Star for example, which goes equally well with a suit as it does a golf shirt and shorts, which is as casual as I dress before I stop dressing altogether.

While I love funky watches and appreciate manufacturers for going against the grain, the watches I wear and appreciate most are conservative dress watches.

Yes I always do what I'm told

There is no boring watch :)

The goal is a balance between fun and calm.

Although I have been socially conditioned to like "boring watches", I'm also quite rebellious and anti-authority, so I wear things like this anyway:

If you can't be interesting, at least you can look interesting!

The thing about style of literally any kind is that anything deemed traditional, conservative, timeless, boring was at one time daring, modern, controversial, revolutionary. It's just that it stuck around a while and people got used to it. Other styles did not last for whatever reason.

My retired 90 year old accountant friend recently purchased a pre owned gold PP Calatrava to wear on his 70 day luxury cruise vacations. That might have been the perfect timepiece when he was a senior bean counter still working the daily grind, getting and spending but these days he is just spending. He admitted the watch was too button down, that he overpaid for the Patek to better fit in with the wealthy cruise passengers that he intends to pass the watch along to his grandson, ideally not for a few more years. He ignored my advice when he first purchased the Calatrava. I was against the buy reminded him that when he was still driving his personalized license plate boasted: JOIE DE VIVRE!

The Zeus showed up first on my camera roll 🤣

...and often condition others. Awareness of the impact one may have on others is a valuable trait. 👍

Right? For many years I worked on a Crisis Response Team and when a newer guy complained about a "boring" shift the rest of us just wanted to smack him.

Fresh, hot and extra salt. YES!!!

General rule, do not wear anything that would detract the attention from oneself. You wear those things, not the other way around.

Not meant to be a hot take but... I believe that the decades in which wrist watches really mattered (as a utilitarian device) defined the looks, with the 40's, 50's and 60's marking the pinnacle. That's why people are drawn to the 'classics' in every field (arts, dress, mechanical artefacts etc.): they mark the points at which the form found its most compelling expression at the crossroads of necessity, imagination and relevance. That's why I don't think that the phrase 'society conditioned us to like XY' actually holds that much truth here.

We're stuck in a historical interlude of "Anything goes" since the 90's, so of course we tend to crave the old forms.

Good points! But cars, phones, and TVs have come a long way in terms and what’s desirable aesthetically speaking.

Exactly. That's why we're at the moment of the classic smartphone design at the moment (maybe even slightly beyond that). Not so sure about cars though 😉