Illustrated Guide to Watch Styles,
Shapes, and Features

Marc Rochkind (MJ)
16-May-1999
©1996-2008 by Marc Rochkind. All rights reserved.

Styles
Shapes
Features

Styles

While wristwatches come in almost every imaginable size, shape, color, and material, there are a few common styles that form the basis of most designs. This article attempts to define these common styles, list their distinguishing characteristics, and show one or more examples of each.

The common styles are:

Dress
Sports, including the sub-styles of:
- Dive
- Pilot
Designer
Jewelry

In most cases, the distinguishing characteristics I've listed aren't absolute requirements in order to say that a watch is of a particular style, but they do serve to define the prototype. For example, while one could claim that a steel watch is a dress watch, and certainly get away with wearing it for dress, that would be a variation on the classic dress watch, which is gold. Also, some non-visual characteristics may be omitted if all the manufacturer wants is to emulate the style without the underlying function. An example would be a diver-style watch with a water resistance of, say, 50 feet.

Although I've come up with a few common styles, it's not that all watches fall into one of these categories. Many watches defy classification. Rather, my point is that, of all the watches out there, some stylistic clumps have formed.

I'd like to add additional styles if they emerge from the discussions that are surely going to follow this post. Please email me if you have any suggestions. Remember, for a style to be worth mentioning, it has to have two properties:

A bunch of watches are clearly based on that style, and
The style is sharply distinguished from other styles.

Style	Distinguishing Characteristics	Examples
Dress	Gold (or other precious metal) Plain bezel (no markings) Simple dial and hands No tritium or other luminosity White dial (usually) Strap with inconspicuous stitching Thin	Jaeger-LeCoultre Grande Taille			Patek Philippe 5010
Sports	Heavy bezel with markings (usually) Bold or complex markings on face Thick hands (usually) Casual strap (e.g., padded, prominent stitching) or heavy bracelet Water resistant to at least 50 meters (Also see Dive and Pilot for additional examples)	Bell & Ross Space Two		Breitling Montbrillant		Rolex Explorer II
Dive (subcategory of Sports)	Water resistance at least 100 meters Uni-directional rotating bezel marked 0 to 60 (req.) Easily-readable black dial Bracelet or waterproof strap (e.g., nylon, rubber)	Rolex Submariner
Pilot (subcategory of Sports)	Plain bezel Easily-readable black dial, with Arabic numbers at most positions Triangle at 12 o'clock Luminous hands and dial markings Anti-magnetic	IWC Mark XII
Designer	Distinctive case shape Bracelet or strap integral part of design Named designer, also usually famous for other objects (e.g., furniture). Picture appears in product brochure.	Ikepod Seaslug (Marc Newson)	Ventura v-matic Automatic (Hannes Wettstein)				Xemex Offroad (Ruedi Külling)
Jewelry	Heavily jeweled, usually with diamonds	Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Joaillerie

Shapes

Here are examples of the most common watch case shapes:

Round	Rectangular	Oval	Oval
Tonneau	Tonneau	Combination	Unusual (letter)

Features

Here are some common watch features, beyond the normal seconds, minutes, hours and date.

24-Hour Dial	Sinn 157		Rolex Explorer II
Alarm	Revue Thommen Cricket
Annual Calendar	Patek Philippe 5035 (calendar set once a year, on March 1) [see "Perpetual Calendar," below]
Chronograph	Omega Speedmaster (Valjoux 7750 movement)	Zenith Class 4 (El Primero movement)		Sinn 157 (Lemania 5100 movement)
Chronometer	Zenith Chronomaster		Ventira v-matic
Day and Month (Triple Date)	Zenith Chronomaster (date, not shown, is also on dial)
Display Back	Lange 1		Minerva Anniversary
Dual Time Zone	Jaeger-LeCoultre Geographic (crown at 10 o'clock turns city ring and sets subdial to that time zone)	Oris Worldtimer (2nd time zone on subdial set forward or backward with pushers)		Rolex Explorer II (24-hr hand stays set while main hour hand is set independently)
Helium Release Valve	Omega Seamaster Professional
Moonphase	Zenith Chronomaster
Perpetual Calendar	Patek Philippe 5040 (calendar set once) [see "Annual Calendar," above]
Power Reserve	Zenith Chronomaster (hand moves as watch is wound, showing hours of power reserve)
Pulsometer (or Pulsimeter)	Bell & Ross GMT (first quarter or so of tachymetre scale is marked with pulse, assuming chronograph is operated for a count of 15 pulses)
Rattrapante (Split-second chronograph)	Breitling Rattrapante (both second hands start together; pusher stops one; next push causes stopped second hand to catch up)
Repeater	Ulysse Nardin San Marco Sonnerie en Passant (sounds hours and half-hours)
Retrograde	Chronoswiss Delphis (minute hand jumps back to zero when it hits 60)
Skeleton	Chronoswiss Opus
Tachymetre (or Tachometer)	Fortis Official Cosmonauts Chronograph (chronograph is operated for one distance unit [e.g., mile, kilometer]; number indicates units per hour)
Tourbillon	Vacheron Constantin Tourbillon (balance mechanism rotates to even out effects of gravity)