What’s up, guys. My last article was pretty deep, covering the different cycles of self-development that men go through over the years, so I thought I’d keep it light with a quick post on style.
As I’ve said many times before, style is one of those things that is pretty easy to get down, and it gives you a lot of benefits. Some people might say it’s shallow, and I’d agree, but think of it like this: are you more attracted to a woman in sweatpants and a sweatshirt, or in a cocktail dress with her makeup and accessories all matching?
Obviously the latter, and the same goes for women—they’re more attracted to men who have some style. To be fair, women don’t care that much about looks, but they’ll definitely help you if your game isn’t very good yet.
Plus, having style will make other men respect you more. For some reason, human beings just associate “high status” with “stylish,” so you might as well take advantage of it.
How to Choose a Watch
First off, if you want a more in depth guide be sure to check out my previous article on men’s accessories. It talks a lot about the general principles surrounding accessories that you should follow, but that being said, this article will be specifically about watches.
Generally speaking, matching your watch with what you’re wearing is far more important than the actual watch itself. If you’re wearing a $20,000 Rolex with gym shorts and a tank top, it looks kind of dumb.
But, if you’re wearing a $20,000 Rolex with a pair of nice slacks and a button down shirt? It looks a hell of a lot better. I’ve seen guys wearing $50 watches that look better than expensive luxury watches, simply for this reason.
The cost of your watch doesn’t matter nearly as much as whether or not you can match it properly.
This is why I chose to talk about three main watches in this article. Sure, you can have a whole lot more than just three—some watch junkies have literally dozens of watches. But all you need is three: one to dress up, one to dress down, and one for the gym.
When I choose a watch, I have three main requirements:
- Will it break down in like a month?
- Is it stylish?
- Is it relatively inexpensive?
For 99% of men, these are the only things that you need to consider (especially #3). Don’t bother spending a lot of money on watches, cars, or really anything for that matter, until you’re earning at least $150,000/year.
Take my word for it—you can get perfectly fine watches for under $200.
How to Match
Before I give a few of my favorite watches, I want to discuss matching. For convenience, I tend to separate watches into three primary colors: brown, black, and silver.
Now, I realize that there’s a ton of other colors, especially for the trendier watches, like pink, blue, purple, etc. But really all you need is a brown watch, a black watch, and a silver watch.
Brown watches can be matched with the earth tones—for example, a dark red dress shirt, a dark green polo, or a pale blue t-shirt. Typically, you’ll use your brown watch for more casual outfits.
A black watch, which I use as my gym watch, can be matched with any of the base colors: black, white, and gray. Then you have your silver watch, which can actually be used with a wide range of outfits, but that looks particularly good when you’re dressing formally.
The general rule is this: watches should complement your outfit, not be the exact same color as your outfit.
For example, if you’re wearing an all black suit, you wouldn’t wear a black watch—you want it to contrast more. You’d wear either a silver watch or a gold watch, and if you want to get really specific, you can have a silver watch with blue accents, to match your blue tie.
Regardless, just remember that in general, watches (and all accessories for that matter) are meant to CONTRAST and COMPLEMENT your outfit, not be the same color as it! So, with this in mind, let’s go over my three favorite watches.
Best Formal Watch For Men
Remember what I said about not having to spend a lot of money on watches? Whenever I wear my Invicta watch around, I always get complements—guys and girls think that it’s a thousand-dollar luxury watch!
And to be fair, I can’t blame them, because it’s a pretty good looking watch. Hell, just the other day I was at CVS and the cashier blurted out of nowhere: “My god, that’s a beautiful watch! What kind is it?”
The real beauty of this watch is that it’s also waterproof, so you can take it to the pool, to the hot tub, or whatever. Generally I like to dress it up, but there’s a few exceptions. I wear this watch when I go out clubbing, all of the time, because the dials are glow in the dark. This allows me to see what time it is in the middle of a dark club.
My only concern with this watch was that the wristband was too large, but I just paid some jeweler $20 to remove some of the extra links and custom fit it to my wrist, so this isn’t too much to be concerned with.
In general, you want to match this watch with a black or white shirt, although there are some exceptions.
Whether this be a black suit jacket, a white button down, or a simple black V-neck, the shiny silver contrast that this watch provides is phenomenal…and it’s super inexpensive, too.
Best Rugged Watch For Men
When it comes to brown watches, I’m a huge fan of the rugged look. This allows them to be paired with a business casual type outfit, but also with a very casual outfit, if you prefer.
Rugged brown watches add some edge to your style—they’re masculine, and they add a great contrast to any earth tones based outfit.
Okay, I keep talking about earth tones—here’s a picture to clarify:
These aren’t all of the earth tones, but you get the point. Basically an earth tone is anything that’s a variation of these colors: green, brown, blue, and red. Usually they’re darker and more “earthy,” though—think like autumn when the leaves are falling.
Rugged brown watches match really well with earth tones outfits, but be careful not to match brown with brown; this isn’t necessarily always a bad thing, but remember: the goal of a watch is to create contrast. It’s to make your outfit pop, so it’s best if your shirt is a dark green, dark red, or blue or something like that.
This watch would go really well with a dark red leather jacket, a dark blue t-shirt, or a dark green long-sleeved t-shirt. Are you starting to see the point? Match a brown watch with rugged, earthy looking colors.
Best Gym Watch For Men
These things last forever. Like literally, FOREVER. I was talking to my buddy the other day who had one on, and he said he’d had it for 10 years—how many watches under $100 do you know of that last for 10 years?
This is my go to watch for the gym—I’ve submerged it into the hot tub countless times, banged it on weights, taken ice baths with it on, and gotten it covered in mud and dirt. It still runs like a champ.
If you want a watch to take to the gym, I highly urge you to make it this one. Before I bought a G-Shock watch I used to take my rugged brown leather watch to the gym, and I broke it within like a month. Just like that, $50 down the drain.
Now, I’ve been using a G-Shock for a little over 2 years now (I think), and I never worry about breaking it. I take it in t he sauna, I take it into the weight room, I take it on runs, and I take ice baths with it. The thing is indestructible.
Plus, it’s got a bunch of timing features which are super helpful. I use the “countdown watch,” feature to time my meditation sessions (if you don’t meditate, get on it).
I also use the stopwatch feature to time how long I’ve been at the gym, how long it’s been in between sets, how long it’s been since my last cup of coffee (to optimize caffeine peak plasma levels), and more. Overall, this watch is just a phenomenal thing to have.
It’s very easy to match with gym clothes, too—since it’s black, it goes with pretty much anything and everything. Wear it with sweat pants, wear it with dark black shorts (like the ones that I recommend), or wear it with basketball shorts. Whatever you wear it with, just be sure to go hard in the gym.
Summary
Overall, appearance isn’t that important…IF you have game. But, if you don’t, you definitely want to make it easy on yourself and maximize your style.
And even when you do have game, you’ll still do better if you have your style down. Women will be more attracted to you, men will respect you more, and your first impressions will just go better all around.
If you’re not currently matching watches with your outfits, I recommend that you do so. It doesn’t have to be all of the time, but if you’re going out and trying to learn game, or if you’re going on a date or a business meeting, this is a must.
If you guys have any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to leave a message below…and as always, I’ll see you next time.
Awesome and interesting article. Great things you’ve always shared with us. Thanks. Just continue composing this kind of post.