On the idea of Women's Watches

Another article about watches. I'm too poor to buy them, but I can at least still talk to you about them. Why an article specifically about women's watches? Well, although it has gotten better, especially in recent years, the watch enthusiast crowd is a sausage fest and most watch releases are not geared towards a womanly clientèle. This article is my modest contribution to improve that first point, and study the second. I think watches are really cool and I want other people who might be interested, no matter their gender, to appreciate them as well. Included as a bonus at the end of this article is a little section about what watch I would see the people of café wearing, purely based on vibes. A thing to consider for this article is that I am mostly talking about “enthusiast” watches. Watches that are more geared towards people who care about watches, their materials and their movements – anyone that lies on the watch nerd spectrum.

image people making this image was painful

a very, very, very brief history of women's watches

As one can expect, in the west women were excluded from the watch club early on, as the early watches were only pocket watches. Those were expensive and reserved for the elite, and elite women's garments were pocketless. Therefore women aristocrats, starting in the early 1800s, commissioned smaller watches that could be affixed to broches, necklaces and bracelets. We got the very first wristwatch, which is exclusively what we mean now when talking about watches, thanks to Queen Caroline Bonaparte Murat of Naples. It was a french made watch, built by Breguet in 1812.

image first watch the original was lost, this is the contemporary version, still by Breguet (the brand not the dude this time)

The following ones were were also commissioned by women. Still, wrist watches were extremely costly and completely out of the grasp of the average woman, only being worn by the tippity top of the aristocracy. Not gonna lie, there's not a ton of info about the everyday woman's watches in history, during my research articles either talked about men or watches, but not women. It seems like then most of the women watches were confined strictly to the jewellery domain, and therefore unattainable for the majority. During WWI wristwatches started gaining popularity, and after the Great War we start seeing more varied designs — but there is no info specifically about women. Watches did get much simpler and “function over form” during WW2, but the production was not aimed towards women. And it is still not aimed towards women.

Sexism and gatekeeping did play a part in this, even as recently as the beginning of the century. Reading an article, I came across this IWC ad from November 2000, which I'm sure some chud somewhere thinks is awesome:

test

It reads “is nothing sacred? You'd think that a mechanical chronograph with a drag hand (maximum indicator) to measure intermediate elapsed time or a second timing cycle would be enough to put her off . No such luck. That's why we specifically made the Portuguese Chrono-(illegible) with a wider wrist — just in case she gets any ideas. Ref. 3712. £4895. Also available in 18 carat pink gold. IWC. Since 1868. And for as long as there are men.“

Although that line about pink gold is unintentionally very funny and ironic, if major watch brands were brazen enough to use this sexist garbage in their advertising in the 2000s, one can only imagine what the industry was like before in terms of sexism and gatekeeping.

I have my own theories about why it was like that: First, on the sexism part; women were not seen as needing a precise, tool-oriented timepiece — why would women need to tell time? They are just subservient creatures to their husbands, definitely not valuable and autonomous elements of society. Second, on the gatekeeping part; as pocket watches (distinctly male-oriented), disappeared to the profit of wristwatches in the early 1900s (then distinctly woman-oriented), the marketing tried to shy as far away from the jewellery label to capture men, make them feel secure about wearing watches and reaffirm their fragile masculinity. On the other hand, to help this, they triple-downed on the jewellery aspect of watches for women. You then had your men watches, which were rugged, technical and tool-oriented, and then your women's watches which were artful, precious and jewellery.

This also lead to the current general disinterest of women in watches; making watches artificially more of a man's thing and not catering to women would drive them away from watches. This whole talk about men and women's watch begs the question: what makes a watch a woman's watch?

what makes a watch a woman's watch?

The only differences that matter as far as watches are concerned, between men and women, are anatomical. On average a woman's wrist measures between 5.5” and 6.2” and a man's between 6.5” and 7.2”. That will influence the fit of a watch. But then, fit matters only as far as comfort and personal taste. So basically, anatomical differences are not relevant when it comes to determining if a watch is a “woman's” watch or not. And the rest of the differences are only due to social constructs.

watch wrist sizes this definitely fits

Therefore, my postmodernist ass' take is that the concept of a woman's watch makes no sense. Just wear what you want and enjoy. Problem solved, there is no issue with watch brands not catering to women because there is no such thing as a woman's watch! Obviously there is still an issue here, if there is nothing that women want to wear and enjoy wearing, then the problem is not solved. This is why brands need to also cater to women's wants and needs, just like they do men. There are plenty of “jewellery” watches, but the offering for accessible regular watches is lacking for women. The 'regular' watch caters to men, and excludes women.

why cater to women?

Before we dive into how brands have chosen to cater to women, it would serve to establish why it's important to cater to women, and not just men. It's simply not cool to exclude women is the first major reason, and the main reason that watch manufacturers should consider. However, the main reason watch manufacturers would actually consider is the second major one: if you exclude half of the population from your consumer base, you are leaving money on the table. Nobody will be surprised to learn that the watch market has been suffering for the last few years. Firstly because people have less money to spend on useless luxury goods, which watches are, but also because US tariffs are increasing the price of watches in one the the biggest luxury goods consumer market in the world, decreasing the demand even further. Swiss watches are ubiquitous when talking about luxury watches, and at the moment of writing, the US tariffs for Switzerland are 39%. This is also a double whammy because watch brands want to keep semi-consistent pricing around the globe, and will therefore also increase prices all around, not just in the US, making it harder for you and me — who don't live in the US — to buy watches (fuck the USA and their stupid-ass government).

shortcomings with the current catering to women

One of the main ways women are excluded from the watch world is with dimensions in my opinion. Looking at the ad I showed in the previous section, IWC used sizing to gatekeep their watches from women “That's why we specifically made the Portuguese Chrono-(illegible) with a wider wrist — just in case she gets any ideas.“

refresher on diameter and lug to lug refresher on watch dimensions

Currently, the enthusiast watch market is mostly composed of watches meant for medium to large men's wrists. There has been a very recent push by enthusiast to have more 39-40mm diameter offerings (a couple mm makes a difference, I swear), but it is still on the larger side, and that's even without factoring the lug-to-lug dimensions, thickness, lug width... To put it plainly here is a lack of good offerings accommodating smaller wrist from regular brands; some women will like to wear watches that look small on their wrist, others watches that fit just right, and finally some watches that look oversized — there should be good watches available to all of them.

There are challenges with making good, smaller watches however. One of those is with the movements. If you remember, the movement is the engine of the watch. Miniaturising anything is a challenge, and it is no different for movements. But while it is an engineering challenge to make smaller movement, not only do we have the technology, but it was done before. Watches from decades ago were smaller than their contemporary counterparts and they were not all just quartz movements, which are easier to make small. It is possible to make small mechanical movements, as all watches before the Quartz Crisis (beginning in 1969, having a cool-ass name and being a topic for another article) were on the smaller side and still mechanical, simply because quartz movements were not available before then. But brands are just not putting the effort into making smaller movements.

image movement

I'm not just talking out of my ass, let's take a concrete example with the brand Breitling. Breitling recently refreshed their Super Ocean Heritage line-up, which is their historical diver's watch model. With this refresh came 4 different sizes, and more excitingly their newly unveiled B31 movement. This movement is particularly appealing because it is Breitling's new and first three hand “in-house” (not really but it's not the point of this article) movement. And it's great that it's what's powering those new watch models. Well that is, for all sizes except the smallest one, which incidentally would be the one preferred by bearers of smaller wrists, which uses a third party movement.

image breitling heritage

And then, Breitling is not doing too bad; for the smaller Super Ocean Heritage model, the colours are good, it still looks on par with the bigger models, and the movement is far from being bad. The way some other brands go about making smaller watches leaves way more to be desired. I'm talking about the infamous “pink it, shrink it, quartz it”. The lazy 'womanification' of a watch goes as follows: take a male model, make it smaller (do not take any element of design into consideration, just miniaturise it), put a random quartz movement in there because no decent cheap pre-made mechanical movement will fit the case, change the dial colour to be more girly, add diamonds, stones... and you're done. That is very lazy and also shitty and tacky.

I don't want to be all doom and gloom, it is looking up for the people in the itty bitty wrist committee. The 'pink it and shrink it' model is becoming more of a thing of the past for the established watch brands. One can hope that in a couple of decades, we'll just have good offerings for every wrist size (if the brands have not all gone under). In the meantime, let's look at some brands that people think are doing good when it comes to catering to women, and what they do.

so what do we do about it? (or What some brands that have good women's offering are doing)

image cartier tank sizes

The image above is from one of Cartier's most popular watch, the Cartier Tank — do you notice something? They have a bunch of sizes for that model, and they still look identical. They don't have the big sizes being males models looking clean, and the small size women's being bedazzled, and pink. Their designs are very similar, they look good on men and women alike, and they have size options ranging from mini to extra large — with small, medium and large in between (pictured above). And that's not just for the Tank, but for most of their collections. On the movement front, they do use quartz, but it's usually for the whole line up, and with watches that are that small and not always round, like the Cartier Tanks mini, quartz is just the best option. It's cartier's own quartz movements, so they're not just putting any random shitty movement that fits. And that's why they're the goats. (Also quartz does not mean bad by any means, but it's a topic for another article)

Casio

Let's move down to more reasonable prices and look at Casio. Casio's claim to fame are their digital watches. And while they only come in one size, they usually boast very restrained dimensions that look good on both small and medium wrists. Bigger wrists are also eating good with Casio's giant chunky g-shocks. Their designs are good, and what I would qualify as indémodable, their watches are very affordable, useful and will last you a lifetime. And that's why they're the goats.

Rolex

Another brand that I have read a lot of women appreciate is Rolex. We are moving way up in price. Despite what one may think about Rolex currently, they are generally doing good by women. They have popular models in a variety of small sizes — not just a couple of medium to big sizes and a single small size for women. They have 41-36-34-31-28mm diameter sizes usually, which gives many option for people who have smaller wrists. The designs are also almost identical, no matter the size of a particular model, just look at the image above. Their popular lines are also customizable: you like bedazzled? Select the diamond incrusted bezel and the diamond indices dial. Hate it? You can also choose a plain dial and bezel. They have good movements in their smaller watches, that they make in-house just like their bigger movements. They have good models for women, but unfortunately some of their most popular models like the submariner, the GMT Master and the Daytona are only available in one size, and that size only fits medium to large wrists.

From this small selection of brands that are doing good by women, there's a couple things that are apparent. First, there are size options for smaller wrist. Second, they just have good design, it's stuff that is appealing for everyone, not just people who love stereotypically “girly” stuff. Lastly, the technical aspect of the watch is not disregarded; the movements of the small models are good, it's not just some random thing thrown in at the last minute. In general those watch brands care about their womanly clientèle and put effort in their “women models” or into making their more unisex general models accessible for people with small wrists. But does all this effort pay off? Well, Rolex is the #1 best selling luxury watch brand, Cartier just overtook Omega as the #2 and Casio, after reading their Q4 2025 report (note japan's fiscal year starts in April, so Q4 is Jan-Mar) is doing solid.

conclusion:

In this article, we've established that the categorisation of a watch as a “woman's watch” is purely due to social constructs and therefore woman's watches aren't a thing. However, we've also seen that there is not a lot of watches that women would want to wear, primarily due to them being gatekept from attractive models with sizing, and being served inferior models — whether from a technical or design standpoint — in the only sizes that fits them. To confirm this, we've looked at some brands that women seem to appreciate. We find that those brands provide attractive designs in a wide range of sizes. Now if you've read this article, you might be under the impression that I just want traditionally more male models (boring steel watches) to fit women, and that I think that would fix the issue; I don't. I want to make clear that I think there should be all kinds of designs in all kinds of different sizes. If a man wants to wear some cool bedazzled watch that is almost more the realm of hardcore jewellery than watch, like the Bvlgari Serpenti Secret Watch, I think there should be options for him. Similarly, if a woman wants to wear some more sterile pseudo-military watch, like the Micromilspec Milgraph, she shouldn't be sized out. In my ideal watch world, there would be many options for anybody wanting anything.

image serpenti and milgraph BVLGARI Serpenti Secret Watch and Micromilspec Milgraph

We still have a long way to go, but I think big brands are slowly moving towards more inclusive sizing. The microbrands are really driving the chance in some respect, but they are more niche. There's some other work that to be done as well and, in my opinion that needs to be done, it's the only way for watch brands not to die. Particularly, if you allow me to digress [1000 words rant redacted, we'll keep it for another article]. Let's just leave it at that. See you in a next one.

Disclaimer: I'm just a regular dude with no special insight whatsoever into the watch world, don't take anything here too seriously. Those are just the divagations of a watch nerd.

Thank you for reading my logorrhea Eddie – Award winning author

bonus section: watch for people

Alrighty, the part that most of you are waiting for, the bonus watch assignment. I hope none of you have scrolled all the way down to this section without reading the full article 🙂. I trolled you a bit with the first picture of the article, and if you hadn't noticed, it's all horrendous watches. Also, don't hold it against me if you aren't on the list — it's either that I don't see you wearing a watch, or I haven't been inspired by any watch and thought “that screams [insert name]“. My own wife is not on this list. It really isn't that deep. Ok, let's get started:

image

image

image

image gif

image

image

image

The End