The London Lounge

Do you worry about your watchband not being the same color leather as your shoes and belt? I am thinking primarily of business dress, but the question may have application to saturday wear as well.

Many well dressed people say it doesn't matter. And I have seen some finely antiqued brown croc straps that have nearly won me over to this way of thinking but I personally do not like wearing mis-matched leather items.

Rather tham changing watch bands daily (the annoying solution) or owning enough watches to have one on each different color band (the 'I wish I could' solution), I have watch bands made in non-shoe colors.

My standard is an antique navy blue croc. I am thinking of getting one in a burnt orange or perhaps crimson.

I generally wear a gold-cased watch on a brown lizard (or crocodile) strap, regardless of the color of my shoes. As I explained at length in another thread, this is because I grew up with an old injunction against wearing black on a man's hands.

I was recently asking myself the same question and this led me to some more general thoughts about how much the colours and materials of different leather items should math.

At this opportunity I very much like to share my thoughts with the LL members:

As a general rule I would say, that an elaborate personal dressing style very much lives from minor imperfections. Two perfectly matching leather items are as impersonal as is the typical twin set of pocket square and tie.

Black shoes will, without question, only work with black belts. The look can be improved very much by choosing different materials. Think of how good a navy blue suit worn with matt-finished black box calf plain oxfords and a more gleamingly finished black crocodile belt looks.

Brown shoes should be worn with brown belts, with the belt always in a darker shade than the shoes.

To my opinion brown (especially peccary) leather gloves perfectly match with either brown or black shoes, whereas black leather gloves may require black shoes.

And now, back from the deviation to the principal theme: The colour of the watch strap can be chosen fully independent of whatever you wear.

For everyday use, I wear a chromium plated sports watch with a black crocodile strap, no matter whether my shoes are brown or black. On formal occasions I wear an antique gold cased watch with a gold strap (family heirloom). If I also had a gold cased watch with a brown leather strap, this would give me even more freedom of combining things.

J,

That is a great looking band. Where did you get it?

Thank you. I worked with Fox's in Seattle who ordered it from Camille Fournet in Paris. BTW, that watch has the blued hands and came with the navy blue strap--but no deployant.

Camille Fournet

Thanks, I am definitely doing to look into Camille Fournet. I was planning on getting my next band from ABP - Paris but you may well have changed my mind.

That is odd about the watch not coming with a deployant clasp - I thought that was standard on the Portugese if not all IWCs.

Nice watch, by the way, I've had my eye on the 5001 for some time.