Black and white thinking: a watch is a passion purchase now

The desire to buy a watch can crop up when you least expect it. You’re thumbing through a magazine fantasising about cars that you’d have to sell several body parts to afford, your eye rests on a watch advert, then suddenly you start thinking about the role it could play in your life.

Back in WWI, the role watches played was purely functional. When an officer strapped a pocketwatch to his wrist, it was to time attacks in a probably futile attempt to keep more of his men alive.

More than a century on, the watch has a very different role. Electronic timers have proliferated to the point where it can actually be quite hard to not know what time it is. So you have a watch not because you need its functions, but because it has captured your heart in some way. But of course, this doesn’t mean that a watch is style over substance.

A watch is emphatically not like a washing machine or a tumble dryer. You don’t buy it for the list of things it can do. It is a passion purchase, which is why the desire can hit you out of nowhere and might not even make sense. The mega-watch fair in Geneva revealed that people currently have a big thing for black and white watches. You might prefer a dash more colour, but that’s the thing about taste – there’s no pleasing everyone.

Pro tip: size matters

In the 1990s, large dials were very popular. This big is better trend has waned, but a lot of watches are still very big. If you are on the slender wristed side, always check case sizes – especially if you’re buying online. A 38/39mm case is the sweet spot. Any bigger than that, you need to make sure you don’t look like you’re wearing your dad’s watch.