WRIST TAKERS

Watches of different sizes and styles are a must, but are special designs for men and women really necessary? We look at more than eight contemporary examples of brands trying something different

- ASHOK SOMAN

In the non-binary world that we are lurching headlong towards, it seems the wristwatch is once again out of step with the times. This is a strange position for timepieces to (repeatedly) find themselves, being that they are meant to move in lockstep with the passage of time. From a purely functional perspective, watches are meant to reliably track the motion of our lovely little blue orb as it turns on its axis and spins around the class G star that we vaingloriously call the sun. Whatever our cultural or societal proclivities, the watch has been on the job for centuries now – today a new class of tools called wearables is also making its mark here.

Media titles as influential as Wired and The Atlantic think these devices might even make wearing time on one’s wrist relevant again, after the era of the smartphone put time back into people’s pockets. Unfortunately, even new technology cannot keep things from going pear-shaped.

At issue here is whether there is really such a thing as gendered watches – watches meant for one sex or the other. This first problem is “sex” versus “gender” of course, but thankfully this is not exactly relevant here because this is not that kind of story. What is a recurring issue for watch magazines like this one (others have previously weighed in too, as will be pointed out) is the matter of timepieces made and marketed specifically to one sex or the other. Leaving aside aesthetics, the main question is about the size of the watch in relation to the size of the wearer’s wrist. Since sexual dimorphism is not that extreme in humans, the size issue (to address attendant differences in men and women) is not that relevant. In other words, watch brands might as well offer products in small, medium, and large sizes rather than target males or females.