How I choose my daily watch.

I was talking across coasts the other night with my watch friend agonizing over purchases still to come. I asked him how many watches he owns. “I have 4,” he said. I asked him “How do you decide which one to wear.”

“Well, I wear one for a couple of months at time until I get tired of it. Now if I'm going out,” he said, “I'll put on my dress watch."

Wow, did that get me thinking. I may be a little over the top. Usually, I wear a different watch every day and sometimes I’ll wear 2 or 3 different watches during the same day.

When I told him my situation, the phone went silent for a minute. “OK, you better tell me how you choose your daily watch or watches.”

Like any obsessive compulsive, I have my system. Currently I have 15 watches in my humble collection (some of you are in awe of that number, many of you have lost more than that). Now that number is always changing, due to my fickle taste, sometimes I have more, rarely though less than 12 at any one time. However, there are a couple of stalwarts. I'm a big believer in variety and experiencing different watches (Oy vey!). I wasn't always that way, then there was a time that didn’t require me to get my ear lobes shaved when I got haircuts either. So things do change.

The truth be told, I don't really have a system or a formula. I’ve fantasized about employing a butler who hands me watch and says in a most dignified voice. “Your rattrapante, Sir.”

Rather I have a process. It starts about the time my wife rumbles out of bed to hit the treadmill. While the puppy is trying to get on the bed and the geriatric cat swipes at the puppy extolling his position of “ king of the bed,”

This is my time. I start to stretch, extending my legs across the width of the California King. My process is the same whether it’s a workday or a weekend. My mind starts...What am I doing today? Any meetings, who am I meeting? What is the perfect watch for the day? Sports watch, dress watch, gold or stainless, bracelet or strap, complications or just simply elegant?

Really it’s more like who am I kidding......nobody every notices that I “The Tutti di Capo” of the watch world change watches as often as people on the freeway ignore the speed limit. So it doesn’t matter to anyone but me. Since I get to dress rather casually as I live in California, so short sleeves are the choice at least 269 of the 270 working days of the year, so I don't live in fear of cuff scratches, stretching cuffs to fit around 44mm cases that are16mm high, or flashing my bling bling on the subway.

So is it a Blancpain Chrono day? The feel of that Schwarzneggerian X-71 bracelet hugging my pencil wrist....nah, today needs something vintage, like IWC Ingenieur with the well-respected 8541B movement. Nah, too plain. How about something wacky like a Corum Bubble. All nice thoughts, but as I’m struggling to come to consciousness, I ask myself, what will make me feel like a WIS today! Recently my favorite has been the Waldan International El Primero, gobs of complications and colorful subdials! Not today, too showy....ok, what would GQ recommend - should I match it to my belt. Nah, I don’t wear belts. How about my shoes....yeah, what goes with my latest Converse All-Stars? That’s it...a big watch....Today is a Panerai day!

Finally I can get out of bed and feel good about the day. And then I start to think.....what other watches should I take with me so I can change when I get tired of the Panny....

--Larry Seiden