So, I'm partial to dressier watches. I love more casual styles, but I find it far easier and far more appropriate to dress down a dressy watch than it is to dress up a sport/casual watch. Some of my watchie friends will disagree, and that's fine; one must do what works for one's own sense of style on such matters.
Well, what's a dress watch? A dress watch is a watch that:
- Is thin
- Is not cluttered with tons of numbers and distractions on it's face
- When it has "stuff" on its face, the "stuff" is balanced in it's presentation or artful in its entirety
- Fits easily under one's shirt cuff
- Is not a dive watch, or any other type of "purpose" watch
- Has a strap made from some sort of skin
- Has a bracelet that has smaller "sections" rather that larger
Now of course there can be an exception to every one of those points above, except 1, 4 and 5.
I guess there could be a reason why a person might wear a purpose watch in a dress situation. James Bond had a legit need for his tricked out Omega Seamaster, but that didn't make the watch a dress watch. It just gave him a good reason for not wearing a dress watch with a tuxedo.
So what's this got to do with Vacheron Constantin (VC)? Well of the three top watch brands, IMO, VC by far does dress watches better than the others. Indeed, they do it better than pretty much everyone, as far as I'm concerned. Yes, everyone makes a nice round dress watch and plenty of them are just as nice looking and just as fine horologically as VC's Patrimony watches are. But where VC ups the ante is when one moves away from simple, round watches. IMO, nobody has the breath and depth of alternatives that VC does in super sexy dress watches. Along with the Patrimony, there's the Historiques, Malte, 1972 and Metiers d'Art lines.
Patek Philippe (PP) is surely a better recognized name, and there isn't one single thing wrong with any PP watch. But as a brand, they just don't have the dress watch space -- not meaning special one-off, singular pieces -- boxed, wrapped and tied with a bow like VC do.
Here are some examples.
Patrimony - Your bread and butter round watch. Nothing wrong with this, but it's hardly going to boil the blood. Indeed, I think Piaget, PP and ALS offer more sublime alternatives in the basic round watch arena withe the Altiplano, hobnail Calatravas and Saxonias, respectively. And among the ultra-thins, nobody beats Piaget if that's the movement direction one wants to pursue.
Malte - Here you start to get into what sets VC apart. I love how their Maltese cross logo is incorporated into watch strap and the tourbillion, and I don't generally like the look of tourbillion, but this one doesn't bother me at all. The tonneau shape is just different enough to add some flair to the overall look.
Historiques
Metiers d'Art -- as if those aren't just awesome enough, they have their art watches that are just amazing.
All the best.