Dress watches are often seen as the “fancy” watch you can only wear when you are all dressed up. For a large number of men that means weddings and funerals. I’m at the age where everyone I know is married and well, I hope I won’t be going to any funerals any time soon.
This leaves my dress watch not getting much action and ultimately leads me to ask if you can wear a dress watch with casual clothes?
Luckily the answer is yes. It may not work 100% of the time, but for the majority of situations it is totally acceptable to wear a dress watch, outside of a more formal, dressier situation.
Most Situations Are Fine For A Dress Watch
Dress watches are usually small, elegant and simple in design. They are not loud and over stated so they can work really well in a number of situations by quietly blending in. Of course they are perfect when you are dressed up, but they will work across a number of casual settings.
If you are dressed casually the watch should look just fine. This is especially true if you are dressed in a smart causal way, say a casual shirt, a dress watch is going to work really well with this.
Another good pairing is your trousers, if they have a belt, you can colour match the belt and your watch strap. With trousers like chinos you can look pretty smart and the dress watch will not look out of place, but even with a nice pair of jeans you could wear a dress watch.
When it comes to deciding if it will work, you should look at the outfit as a whole and think about what you are going to be doing. Look at how casual you are and try the watch on to see if it works with your look.
If you look smart and tidy a dress watch should look like it belongs there. If you are doing any sort of causal activity like going on a date, going to the office, or just going around town for a coffee, your watch should blend right in and look great.
If you drifting out of casual and are entering a sporty look or you are maybe going to be doing a more physical activity, you might want to wear a different watch. Dress watches and activity do not really look right together.
Where Wearing A Dress Watch Doesn’t Work
As I’ve just alluded to, you don’t want to wear a dress watch if you are doing anything physical.
Physical Activity
If you have any sort of physical job, you shouldn’t wear a dress watch and if you are going to the gym you really just shouldn’t wear it. This is partly because it looks strange.
Dress watches are dainty and trying to do a heavy lift at the gym while wearing one just looks off, but more importantly it is to make sure you don’t break the watch. They are delicate and do not respond well to roughness. If you are doing anything physical use a different watch.
Beach
If you are going to the beach I would leave your dress watch at home. Even if you plan to sit and relax I still wouldn’t bring it.
The risk of it getting wet or covered in sand is too high. Most dress watches have very low water resistance and while sweat may not really cause it too much trouble, the leather strap will certainly cause you trouble.
Having a leather strap on while sitting on a nice warm beach is going to feel awful. It’s going to get sticky and hot and uncomfortable. If you are going to the beach, leave the dress watch at home.
Sportswear
If you are looking casual that is fine, but when you start getting into the sporting territory, the dress watch starts to look silly. It just really doesn’t work. These types of clothes suggest you are about to do some sort of exercise; where it would not be appropriate to wear a dress watch.
This is especially true if you are wearing any sort of shorts. Shorts and dress watches never seem to look right. Even if you are wearing more casual shorts it doesn’t work. Shorts say to me that it’s too hot and therefore wearing a leather strap is not going to a good idea in these conditions.
Tracksuits
This can be a bit of a gray area. Some people like to casually wear tracksuits and dress watches together and it sort of works.
You do very quickly start to look like some sort of mobster boss, which looks cool when you watching a movie about gangster. I’m not too sure how it works in real life; it’s almost like its fancy dress costume.
If you think you can pull it off, go for it, but for the majority of us we are going to look silly.
Dress The Watch Down
The good thing about watches is that it is much easier to dress them down, than try and dress them up.
This means it’s very easy to take a dress watch and change the strap to something like a Nato and make it look a lot less formal and make it much easier to wear in more situations.
This will work really well and when you think of the opposite situation you can see what I mean about trying to dress a watch up. Imagine trying to take a G-shock and put it on a leather strap for a formal event, it’s going to look dreadful.
(You can read more about – How To Pick A Strap For Your Watch)
Dress Yourself Up
If you are looking at your dress watches and thinking you never really get to wear them, maybe it’s time you changes your style. Stop wearing the sweat pants and t-shirts and try to dress a little smarter. Give yourself the chance to actually wear them. The watches are not going to change, but you can.
Small changes in your wardrobe can make a huge change to how you look and can really start to open up your options to what watches you can wear. Even a few nice pairs of trousers and a few casual shirts are really going to change things drastically and when you start adding your dress watches to the look, you are going to look awesome.
(You can read more about – Are Casio Watches Suitable For Formal Occasions?)
Vintage Watches
If you have a vintage dress watch, you probably want to take extra care of it and maybe keeping it for more special and formal events is more appropriate.
You don’t want to start wearing these types of watches every day. They are usually even more delicate and precious, so treat them with more care.
Just Do It
We all need to remember that 99% of people don’t care. Most people don’t understand watch etiquette and don’t understand what a dress watch is.
If you want to wear you dress watch casually, do it.
If you think it looks good, do it.
No one else cares, so if you are enjoying it, then that is all that matters. Most times it will probably look great and if you are in any doubt, especially about damaging the watch, then just wear a different one that can handle whatever it is you will be doing.
(You can read more about – Watch Wearing Mistakes You Should Avoid)
Ian is the main writer at Horology Dream and is a lover all things watch related.
He has been a watch collector for over a decade and brings his knowledge and experience to this site to help you on your own watch collecting journey.
You can connect with him on Social media and talk anything watches or read more about him on his Author Page.
