Watch straps can be an affordable way to expand a smaller watch collection. A good quality strap can be found for under $20, and will give a timepiece a completely different look. For example, I have a brown leather strap on the vintage Oyster Perpetual I use as a daily driver, but a quick switch to a black strap makes it look like a completely different timepiece.
However, there are some rules regarding your watch’s wrist strap. Breaking said rules can make using the watch tricky and could leave you looking a little silly in some circumstances. Don’t worry, though—it’s all pretty simple. Here’s a handy guide that should get you through the basics.
The short side of the strap points north
If you’re attaching a standard watch band, you may initially wonder which side of the timepiece gets the short strap and which end gets the long piece. Well, the answer’s pretty simple: The short end attaches to the top of the watch, or the side with the “12 o’clock” on it. The long piece attaches to the bottom, or at “6 o’clock.”
The sides are of different lengths for a few reasons. It allows the longer part of the strap to overlap a bit, allowing for easy adjustability and providing a more secure fit. It keeps the clasp, which should be at the end of the short part, centered on the wrist, too. As for why the short bit goes on top, anyone who has accidentally put the strap on upside down will know that undoing said strap is a lot more difficult when things are the wrong way around.
Color matters
Watch straps come in a variety of colors, though if you’re heading to something formal, you may want to stick to brown for business-casual affairs and black for something extremely formal. The strap you choose should match both your belt and your shoes, and you’re more likely to be wearing black shoes at something like a funeral or wedding. Technically, your wallet should also match the other accessories, but as it lives in a pocket, it’s less likely to stand out.
As for the more casual options, like blue leather, canvas, a NATO strap, or the bright orange rubber affairs you get on athletic watches–they pair well equally with a standard brown belt or a casual canvas one. Sneakers also pair well, and you can match the color to your casual strap here but the rules are far more relaxed.
The rules can relax with metal
The same color-matching principles can apply to metal, too, though the rules are a little looser. You can make your watch’s bracelet match a wedding ring, belt buckle, or other metallic adornments you may be wearing. However, stainless steel or something timeless like a two-tone silver and gold bracelet pretty much goes with anything.
If you’re really going for it, the metal of the watch case should match your metal adornments. If you are doing this, you’ll be matching your watch’s metal with buckles on your belt and shoes, along with any jewelry you’re wearing. The one exception here is a wedding band, as traditionally, people only have one of those and won’t swap it out for the sake of color coding.
It also needs to fit the watch
If you get a small, gold, vintage Omega De Ville and slap a highlighter pen yellow rubber strap on it, it won’t look right. The watch itself needs to match its strap, and that can get pretty complex.
A round gold or silver timepiece gives you many options and looks good on most leathers. Something less conventional, like a Tag Heuer Monaco, can work with a louder, more elaborate strap. The unconventionality allows for more unconventionality.
Then you have unique vintage pieces. If you have an original Air King with a tropical dial and a good amount of weathering, that isn’t going to look right on a clean, new strap. You want beaten-up brown leather on that bad boy. It needs to look like something you’d find on the wrists of an alcoholic 1950s charter pilot living out his days in the Caribbean. Because of the variety of watches, it’s hard to give a set rule here. You may need to experiment, but you’ll need to go with your gut regarding what “looks right.”
As with all fashion, rules are there to be broken
While the rules mentioned in this piece go off current and classic conventions, fashion itself doesn’t. Rules are there to be broken, and sometimes going against the grain just works.
Ultimately, it’s your watch, and it’s on your body. As long as you’re comfortable with it, then its exact configuration isn’t anyone else’s business. So go ahead and stick that vintage Snoopy strap on your Apple Watch. If you really believe you can pull it off, it’s your job to at least try.
