Dial It Down

Haven’t small watches always set one set of watch-wearers apart from the other? Now, I hear small watches are back in a big way. At the recent edition of Watches and Wonders, we saw Rolex bring out the Oyster Perpetual 34 mm. Chopard’s L.U.C 1860—in a handguilloché Areuse Blue gold dial—made everyone who saw it swoon. Around the same time, Japanese watchmaker Naoya Hida & Co. introduced their NHTYPE8A 31 mm, of which only about 20 pieces will be produced annually. With a 1950s elegance and intricate Japanese watch architecture aesthetics, it is a collector’s item worth showcasing on well-defined wrists.

When I see a brother sporting—without the very obvious performance of sporting a watch—a small watch, he gets a mental Michael Caine-to-Christian Bale nod from me. A small watch on your wrist is the highest tier of watch-wearing as artless sophistication. It’s the wrist equivalent of wearing the obsessively perfectly tailored suit. A gentle, manly reaffirmation of absolute abandonment of any insecurity about what you invest in these ticking beauties. If you like a more concrete example, I like to believe that what made Don Draper, well, Don Draper, was the JLC Reverso. And I don’t mean the swivel case or the Art Deco air.

My abiding predilection for dainty but detail-rich watches also got me coveting the Oris Star Edition—35 mm that we saw at the fair this year. The watch comes in an elegant tonneau profile, the 11.1 mm thick case with a 41.5 mm lug-to-lug measurement helps it wrap the wrist in a nice and old-timey way. Keep it peeking from under the cuff for a date night or with work polos (if your employer allows work polos, that is).

How to pick the right small watch for your wrist? You have to measure your wrist. For anything under 6.5 inches, anything up to 34 mm will sit beautifully. Take care to not let it overhang the wrist bone on either side. Also, the point of wearing a small watch isn’t just case or dial size. If it’s thicker than 10 mm, it looks like a retro spaceship console button on your wrist.

To cap it off, prefer leather bracelets over metal bracelets always. Why do metal ones even exist? Avoid the temptation of busy dials. Simple indices and Roman numerals, that’s it.

To read more stories from Esquire India's May-June 2026 issue, pick up a copy of the magazine from your nearest newspaper stand or bookstore. Or click here to subscribe to the magazine.