Dress Watches are a core part of most watch brands’ ranges and a popular everyday choice for many people. But what exactly is one and how should you go about choosing one?

What is a Dress Watch?

A Dress Watch is a simple watch with smart elegant features, often displaying the time and little else. They are often found on a leather strap, with a smart buckle matching the case. They are mostly round in shape, although there are rectangular and oval models. They can also contain other complications, or functions, the most common being a date or day-date display, as found in the possible the most famous Dress Watch of all, the Rolex President. Other complications found can include Chronographs, or Stopwatches, and Moonphases, showing the phase of the moon.

These watches are often the core of a watch brand’s range. They can come in many different price points and can be made of the simplest steel with a leather strap, or made from precious metals and come on a diamond-encrusted bracelet. There really is something for everyone in the world of dress watches, and they are a great place to start any watch collection.

What to look for in a Dress Watch

The best thing about Dress Watches is their range. They can be so easy to wear and go with anything, or they can be very fine and fancy and only worn on the most special occasions. What matters most is that it suits you and you’ll be happy to wear it.

We recommend you start your search by thinking about when you will wear it. Is this for the office? Every day including the weekends? Are you choosing a style that has to go with everything?

Once you’ve chosen the occasion, choose your price point. With these two constraints, you can now look for a watch you like. Next, decide whether you want a certain brand or simply want something that looks right. You should also think about what functions you want. Adding functions makes the watch more complicated, but some of them can be incredibly elegant on a dress watch, for example, this moonphase.

When looking at dress watches, especially online, take note of their size. For some people, it is very important that their watch is subtle, hard to notice, and slips easily under their sleeve. Watches like this need to be fairly small, and crucially, low in height on the wrist, so it is worth checking out the watch height if this is your preference.

Some people want the opposite and want to make sure that their Dress Watch makes a statement. If this is what you like, do consider options with jewels, or a bimetal model as the gold often stands out very smartly when it is combined with steel. Dress Watches featuring top complications such as perpetual calendars may also be an option, as these are often seen as the pinnacle of watchmaking and can be found at the top end of some brands’ ranges.

Try the Watch On

There is nothing quite like trying on a watch. Whatever watch you are looking for you’ll gain the most confidence from trying something on in a store. If you are buying a new watch online, make sure you can return the watch easily, so that if you don’t find it comfortable you can return it. When you receive it try it on with a few outfits but make sure you keep the labels on so it can be returned. To learn more about buying a watch online check out our guide here.

We also recommend visiting a store to try watches on. It is usually a great experience. You can read our guide to having fun while browsing for watches in our guide here.

Explore the world of Vintage

Current trends and fashion dominate the watch media and the need for brands to sell their latest models drives most of the images of watches you will see, even on social media. There are 100 years worth of watches to look at, and the majority of those produced in 20th century were dress watches. Sports watches and tool watches were developed from the 1950s onwards, but were a minority of pieces produced up until the 1990s. Including vintage pieces in your exploration of the world of Dress Watches is worthwhile.

Many of the most famous watch brands in the world made exceptionally high-quality, time-only dress watches as the majority of their range for decades. Adding in the high quality but lesser-known models, and the Japanese producers, means it’s possible to get incredible timepieces for very low amounts of money if you buy carefully. We encourage you to explore vintage as well as modern dress watches as you never know what you might fall in love with.

Our regular meetup events, either in-person or online, are the perfect place to come and see more examples of interesting dress watches both vintage and modern. If you want to explore the watch world and learn more about the different kinds of watches out there, then please see our events page here.

Conclusion

We at The Watch Collectors’ Club don’t have a favourite kind of watch. We are here to help you explore all corners of the watch world and understand more about what is out there for you to enjoy. We hope that this introduction to a simple but enormous category of watch will help you expand your interest.