Sleeves and Watch Size
I thought of something today and would like y’all’s opinions. I feel like the perfect watch-size question, for me anyway, depends on something I don’t see mentioned much: whether you are wearing clothes with long sleeves!
7-inch wrist here, and I find that when I’m wearing a long-sleeved shirt/sweater with a cuff, smaller watches (e.g. 34-36mm) look really smart, whereas when I’m wearing short sleeves and you can see more of my forearm, the same watch starts to look small. On the other hand, when I am wearing short sleeves or no sleeves, a bigger watch (38-42mm) almost looks better, more proportionate. And so, maybe someone might have different “perfect” size watches depending on the situation. I think that how big a person’s arm is (not just the wrist) might also come into play; like a guy with a big arm and a small wrist can still pull off a larger watch.
I know watch-size preference is personal and all that, but what do you think of my theory/factor? Does wearing shirts with cuffs make smaller watches look nicer or more proportional? As an experiment, I’d be interested to see pictures of folks with pictures of their watches with a long-sleeved cuff vs. no cuff for a comparison.
I think you're on to something with the relative appearance. It certainly impacts wearability!
Short sleeves? Like underwear?
Yes, the failure to wear complete clothing is clearly behind the larger watch fad.
I love my watches to be congruent with what I'm wearing. Thus to my eyes a smaller, more dressy watch will look better with dress shirts. Sporty watches will look better with short sleeve shirts.
That being said, it was fun wearing my Cartier with t-shirt and jeans this summer. I also loved wearing my 45mm Citizen with a chore jacket.
I have a hard time matching this to a particular watch size:
Most days I wear shirts with cuffs and I wear smaller watches. I wear larger watches on the weekend for the whole "suns out, guns out" vibe.
I’m not going to go out and buy a dress shirt to test this theory.
Yes, my life has become very casual.