All Dressed Up, Everywhere To Go

Drawer the Daytona—a small, slim dress watch is the discerning wristwear of the moment.

- Victoria Gomelsky

FOR THE FIRST time in decades, dress watches—from simple, threehand Patek Philippes to flamboyant Cartiers—are running circles around sports watches with regard to both desirability and style.

“In terms of taste, things have changed,” says David Hurley, deputy CEO of the Watches of Switzerland group, a retailer with 30 multi-brand and 25 mono-brand partnership stores across the US. While until recently demand “was all about the steel sport timepiece”, he says, “now we’re seeing dress watches and brands such as Jaeger-LeCoultre”—long esteemed for its formal models—“performing well in our stores”.

The genesis of the shift dates back to the early days of the pandemic, when secondary prices on blue-chip sports watches such as the Rolex Daytona, Patek Philippe Nautilus and Audemars Piguet Royal Oak began clocking staggering monthly increases; by early 2022, some pieces were fetching five times retail value.

Then, in May of that year, the crypto collapse triggered both a decline in secondary-market values and an exodus of speculators who were only in the game to make a quick buck. Genuine enthusiasts who had been lured to sports models by the prospect of a rapidly appreciating asset were also free to return their attention to timepieces that better reflected their tastes.